Deth

Fitness and everything else

Open Street Map Is Great Around Here

I just made a small update to a business on Open Street Map and it reminded me of how how great of a resource this truly is. It really has come a long ways since I first saw it and it was pretty useless in any areas I frequented. I would have edited it then but I didn’t have the tools available or the time then.

Now I do use it on my GPS and it really hasn’t let me down. It feels like cheating to have trail maps when geocaching but they are well mapped around here and I’ve added my share of edits to them. The great thing is that the data is there for anyone to use.

Before we go away I check for any updates on Open Map Chest. which is the Garmin converted version I use. I’ve tried some others but this is the one that works best in my dark back round settings on my GPS. It’s so nice having up to date maps available though, I remember with the older GPSrs I used city navigator and it so far behind that it had us flying above the roads yelling at us to turn and stuff on a few year old bypass. With Open Street map they tend to have the new construction immediately.

Points of interest and businesses can be hit or miss on Open street map depending on whether editors frequent the area or not. Here they are good and they’re good in Cape may. When I check Bensalem and Croyden where I grew up they’re not so good which is odd to me. If we ever go back I’ll take pictures and do what I can to improve that situation when I get home.

I really love that I can give back to something I find so useful. I’ve also made small monetary donations to the FreeBSD Project but I really wish I had the skills to give some of my time to improving things. Maybe someday.