Diary

With OpenStreetMap data becoming ever more relevant, more and more external parties want topics of interest to them to be mapped in great detail. Do you want to help on topics that we care most about? Have a look at the top mapping tasks list on the wiki! Let us just highlight two organizations we are working with. First, Fietsberaad Vlaanderen is integrating their Velopark project with OpenStreetMap. A tool was developed to easily link OSM bicycle parkings to the official data in Velopark. ...

OpenStreetMap Belgium is organizing a mapathon in Bruges as part of our participation in the AMAI “Lili-app project”. The Lili-app will help visually impaired people find and follow the best route using their smartphone. The app will take into account infrastructure such as sidewalks and pedestrian crossings and special facilities such as tactile paving and traffic lights with sound signals. Initially, a prototype of the app will be developed that is limited to the city of Bruges. During the...

Hey, remember we have a newsletter? You can still subscribe here. Maybe it’s taken so long to send a new edition because we’ve been doing so many other things. For example, during 2023, OSM.be was reborn as its own independent NGO! Our umbrella organization Open Knowledge Belgium went through hard times, and is now refocusing on its core projects. We’re glad to have been part of that community, and even happier that we now have everything under the control of the OpenStreetMap community. Th...

The OpenStreetMap Belgium base maps have been updated! OpenStreetMap Belgium has been offering free OpenStreetMap background maps for almost 7 years now. But what are these backgrounds? Well, we turn the huge and complex OpenStreetMap data into simple images or “tiles”, that can be used in any website or app. Why are we doing this? Well, we saw that many websites use the default tiles from the openstreetmap.org website. However, this server is not meant to be used in production in live proje...

OpenStreetMap Belgium & Mapillary are teaming up to improve the availability of street-level imagery available in the European Union! To help do so, we will be distributing a number of GoPro Max 360° cameras and associated gear to volunteers all over Europe. The 360° imagery we will generate will help improve Mapillary coverage as well as provide street level imagery for the OpenStreetMap community to use to further improve their map data. Read more about why OpenStreetMap Belgium likes ...

Financial report

Back when OpenStreetMap Belgium was discussing starting a camera grant project, Stéphane De Greef already bought his own 360° camera, a GoPro Max, which is the same camera we use, and started collecting street level imagery of the Forest des Soignes. For the first time, there would be a “streetview” of the forest!

Our member Pieter Vander Vennet is the main developer of MapComplete. Most of the core of the project was made during several paid projects. Now, Pieter has received significant funding from NlNet, which allows him to work half-time on MapComplete for the coming year. Many improvements to the user interface are to be expected. You can follow the progress on the Github pages. There is already some interesting research on his diary.

Most of us map just the things that interest us. But OpenStreetMap Belgium likes to focus on specific areas that we think can help the map forward in a significant way. We’ve created a short list of topics where we can use some help: mapping roads, buildings & addresses, the effects of traffic signs and improving long distance hiking trails are on there. All these projects should contain help to get you started, but don’t hesitate to ask for help on any of our channels.

Every year, we write a report about the activities of the Local Chapter. We already finished the one for 2021 last October, but we still wanted to share it with you. Here’s a write-up of all the things we’ve been doing in the year before last. We’ll make the 2022 version soon.

Grote Routepaden VZW maintains 24 long-distance hiking trails in Flanders. They are always trying to improve the trails. That’s why Grote Routepaden is now looking at path surface. Unpaved paths are simply more fun to walk on. Their analysis relies on OSM data and Overpass queries. However, it quickly became clear that too few roads have a surface tag. At the moment, about 50% to 70% of a GR trail has a surface tag. To improve this, Grote Routepaden is going to add OSM data via a MapComplete ...

Financial report

Join us for a free full day of talks and discussions about OpenStreetMap in Brussels, on Thursday November 17th 2022.

In September 2022 our Corporate Member Anyways.eu invited us to share their booth at the Trefdag Digitaal Vlaanderen (NL). We had a blast! All day long, people from the geo world, from the private sector and the government came by to ask questions, thank us for our work or simply chat with the people behind the map.

For years, OpenStreetMap Belgium has worked with close to no budget at all. We also didn’t have much costs, so it wasn’t a real issue. Being part of OpenKnowledge Belgium meant we still had access to a professional organisation whenever needed.

There is a lot going on in Wallonia! Of course the community around Arlon has a lot of activities, but now we are building contacts with the geo devision at the Service Publique Wallonie (SPW) as well.

Every year, the open data / open source / open knowledge community of Belgium meet during the Open Belgium conference. There’s a lot of people we haven’t seen since 2019. This year on April 29th, Open Belgium will be a real life event again. We hope to see you in Ghent!

Financial report

Why street level imagery matters and why it should be open All around the world, people are making a digital twin of the world. They might want to know where the shops are, need data to train a driverless car algorithm, or want to know where the traffic signs are. This work is done by private companies, by government and by volunteers in crowdsourcing projects. Sometimes, this can be done by using satellite imagery. Sometimes going outside is needed. But very often, street level imagery is wh...

Lots of conversation happens in our chat room. The volume is so high, it’s hard to keep up. And it’s easy to forget about issues that were raised. So Tim started making this weekly summary. Have a look at our channels page for more info about joining the chat or other ways to reach us.

Lots of conversation happens in our chat room. The volume is so high, it’s hard to keep up. And it’s easy to forget about issues that were raised. So Tim started making this weekly summary. Have a look at our channels page for more info about joining the chat or other ways to reach us.

Lots of conversation happens in our chat room. The volume is so high, it’s hard to keep up. And it’s easy to forget about issues that were raised. So Tim started making this weekly summary. Have a look at our channels page for more info about joining the chat or other ways to reach us.

At OpenStreetMap Belgium, we want to be the first to map new things. That’s not just because we like doing that, but also to offer the best service to our data users. And it has an implication for local government too.

The story begins in February 2017 at FOSDEM (https://fosdem.org/) in Brussels; a cheerful Albanian delegation arrives on the Brussels ground. Among these Albanians, Anisa Kuci and Redon Skikuli, members of OSM Albania; since they are on Belgian soil, they decide to contact OSM Belgium and yaaay, some of us also attend the FOSDEM. First contact around a Belgian beer, our new Albanian friends announce that they are organizing an open-source conference at their home in Tirana in May: OSCAL (Open...

The best way to collect data for OpenStreetMap is by surveying an area. With surveying, we mean walking or driving around and taking notes of the features or objects you encounter. For newcomers it might be difficult to start with their first survey. There are as many methods as there are mappers, but it might help to get started when you have read at least one workflow. That is why I wrote this article. I will also explain how you can prepare your survey with data from external sources.

Last Sunday 12 December, we had our first real OSM Belgium hackday! The plan was mainly to work on the GRB import. A dozen volunteers made it to Brussels and participated. In Flanders, 1944 of our contributors have already mapped 1.4 million buildings. Most of that by hand, from aerial imagery. But recently the Flemish government released the ‘GRB (NL)’ as open data. This data contains over 4 million buildings, and they are drawn to centimeter level precision. So we want to improve the g...

What happens when you allow everyone to map the world, as they see fit, no questions asked?