Our projects
Free Belgium Baselayers
Project lead: Jonathan Beliën
Through this project we offer a OpenStreetMap baselayer for Belgium. This baselayer is be available for anyone using OpenLayers, Leaflet, … for free. Most tile servers have a usage policy meaning you have to use commercial tiles servers (like Mapbox, Stamen, …) or host your tiles server yourself. We want to provide you with a third option, at least for Belgium, that is both open, free and easy to use. This project hosts a custom OpenStreetMap tile rendering for Belgium so you can use OpenStr...
Heritage in Flanders and Crowd-Sourced Projects
Project lead: escada
Heritage in Flanders and Crowdsourced Projects Introduction In this article I want to show you how one can add information about immovable heritage to crowdsourced projects such as OpenStreetMap and some of the projects of Wikimedia. In Belgium, the list of immovable heritage is controlled by three agencies, one for Flanders, one for Brussels and one for Wallonia. In Flanders, the agency is called Agentschap Onroerend Erfgoed. They make a catalogue of the items and decide on the protection...
Hiking maps with OSM!
Project lead: Julien Minet
Free local maps, optimized for hiking! In collaboration with OpenStreetMap Belgium, the website hiking.osm.be offers topographic hiking maps ready to print. These maps highlight the marked trails routes in Belgium, on a detailed topographic background. This topographic background is based on the OpenArdenneMap cartographic style, a style specifically developed for printed maps, with a low number of colors, clear contrasts, and a strong emphasis on labels (based on the Alfphabet font), in the...
How To ... ?
You’ll find here a list of “How to” tutorials related to OpenStreetMap. How to see the map How to create a simple map (with a marker) based on OpenStreetMap How to use free OpenStreetMap Belgium baselayer How to see the map You can check the map here : https://www.openstreetmap.org/ ! How to create a simple map (with a marker) based on OpenStreetMap There are 2 most common open-source JavaScript libraries used to display a map : Leaflet and OpenLayers. Build a simple map ...
Mapathons
At OpenStreetMap Belgium, we support the Missing Maps project by doing regular Mapathons. Each year, disasters around the world kill nearly 100,000 and affect or displace 200 million people. Many of the places where these disasters occur are literally ‘missing’ from any map and first responders lack the information to make valuable decisions regarding relief efforts.Missing Maps is an open, collaborative project in which you can help to map areas where humanitarian organisations are trying t...
MapComplete
Project lead: Pieter Vander Vennet
More and more use OpenStreetMap (OSM) as their basemap. But we’re not just a map - we’re an open spatial database. How many apps do you know that collect drinking fountains, public toilets, camping spots, bars with wifi, parking info etc? Unfortunately, all of these apps have their own little data island. All of these things could be built very easily on top of OpenStreetMap! Collecting this data outside of OpenStreetMap has serious disadvantages. Everyone who builds such an app, has to b...
Mapper of the Month
Project lead: Pierre Parmentier & Marc Gemis
Mapper of the month has been one of our longest running projects. We noticed there is a lot of attention for those who have OSM as their job or are software developers using OSM but not as much for the mappers at the core of the OSM community. From the start the main the Goal of the project is to put the splotlight on those mappers. Every month we interview a new mapper by choosing someone who comes either recommended or someone we contacted by just looking at the map and sending messages vi...
Road completion project
Project lead: Joost Schouppe, Ben Abelshausen & Jonathan Beliën
We’re called OpenSTREETMap for a reason: we have an excellent road network. With turn restrictions and lane navigation, hiking paths and cycle lanes. But there are still some basic mistakes here and there. We aim to correct these mistakes by using open government datasets to verify and detect missing data. Meanwhile, we’ll improve government data too, and offer you a guaranteed minimum quality. Crowdsourcing, Open Data and Machine Learning As we are crowdsourcers, every mistake that our cro...
Open Street Level Imagery
Project lead: Joost Schouppe
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 ...
Traffic Sign Project
Project lead: Joost Schouppe, Ivan Diaz
In Flanders, all traffic signs are open data. This information is hugely useful. Well, it could be. Most of the traffic signs date from several years back and have not been updated since. The Flemish Verkeersborden.vlaanderen project intends to change that. Municipality by municipality, we see updates starting to happen. Several of them have done a complete update, or at least do occasional additions. In a perfect world, when the municipality decides to change a traffic situation (a new spee...