HOT Summit & State of the Map 2019
Critigen’s Open Data & Development (OD&D) were well represented in the small university town of Heidelberg, Germany for back-to-back HOT Summit and State of the Map 2019 global conferences. Five consecutive days of talks and presentations provided a peek into the entire gamut of the OSM community, which is growing with each passing year in both size as well as in the diversity of OSM data manipulation and application. As my colleague Todd pointed out with last year’s State of the Map conference in Milan, attendance at these world conferences continues to highlight the give-and-take relationship between the passionate small-scale contributors that spearheaded this grassroots organization and the large corporate influencers which are accelerating OSM’s growth on the global scale. As the stage was set for the brightest minds in open source mapping to collaborate, here are our impressions from these two conferences.
The robot mappers are not going anywhere…
The most obvious takeaway from the conferences is the increasing interjection of artificial intelligence and machine learning into OSM. Commercial community members are using their resources to develop applied automation using AI and ML techniques that maximize efficiency of OSM data creation, error/vandalism detection and validation.
- Microsoft has been working with HOT to train an algorithm that is used to generate new building predictions. By combining Microsoft’s ml-enabler service with the HOT Tasking Manager, the two are working hand-in-hand to populate new OSM building data for underrepresented communities in Tanzania and Uganda.
- DataPink is also targeting OSM buildings through their deep learning tooling. RoboSat.pink is a tool that allows for building validation and analysis by comparing two building imagery datasets while also training a data model to predict OSM building locations on larger swaths of land using a smaller land subset.
- The most production-ready AI-inspired OSM tool comes from Facebook, whose RapID editor can greatly assist editors by converting satellite imagery into predicted features - in particular road segments. RapID is also integrated with iD Editor and the Tasking Manager, so the possibility of logging into the Tasking Manager to complete tasks where roads and buildings are essentially already drawn for you without a click of your mouse is a tantalizing thought bringing much promise to the development of the OSM map…
Integrity is everything.
A subject that the Critigen OD&D team has a keen interest in is improving the methodology and tooling for OSM data integrity. The State of the Map conference introduced a number of interesting tools and processes providing quality assurance and control to OSM data.
- Critigen’s very own Quincy Morgan promoted the huge upgrades to be seen in iD Editor v3, including expanded functionality to filter what types of features a user wants to edit and keeping selections intact through multiple zoom levels.
- We had a chance to speak with the likes of Martijn van Exel of TomTom and HOT’s Wille Marcel, maintainers of MapRoulette and OSMCha respectively, via small town hall type talks to provide feedback on how to further improve their tools.
- Mapillary is using their extensive infrastructure in photo mapping to train an algorithm that produces street level 3D modeling to validate OSM data. What was even more exciting to see was Mapillary’s tooling being used by a community near and dear to our hearts. The Seattle-based OD&D team was delighted to hear about Mapillary’s partnership with students from the Geography department at the University of Washington on an experiment to validate OSM data using dense Mapillary imagery data. Go dawgs!
Data is only useful if you apply it.
The potential of OSM data in real world applications is limitless. I firmly believe we have only scratched the surface of what can be done with OSM. Here are some intriguing applications of OSM data presented at the conferences.
- GraphHopper is a Directions API that markets at efficient route planning and navigability. It boasts a quick, memory efficient Java routing engine that can used for a wide array of spatial analyses: simple routing with elevation considerations, navigability impact of automobiles based on construction closures, analyzing the most optimal roads for cyclists, and the classic “where to put a new …?” spatial analysis: fire station edition.
- Hikar is a small scale augmented reality Android application geared towards helping hikers and walkers alike traverse through trails and similar natural pathways. The application will obtain your location through location and sensor APIs before overlaying OSM data onto what you see before you. The application provides augmented signposts with tips, tricks, and warnings about the trails you are on; the community can now request for signposts to be implemented on POIs seen on their hike/walk.
- WebVR is a platform to project OSM data in virtual reality. The implementation of the data in VR is limited at the moment, but there appears to be some hope that this model is scalable. Imagine the implications of having an OSM basemap or having data generated from OSM be the map standard in one of the hottest tech industries…
We’re all in this together!
Open source mapping through OSM continues to be led by Western countries and corporations. The vast majority of presentations given at the State of the Map conference were by representatives of American or European companies. Heidelberg is the 8th European city to host the State of the Map world conference, of which there have been only 12 (and one of which was held in the United States). What makes this year’s scheduling of conferences interesting is that this is only the second time in the HOT Summit’s young history (this year was only the 5th ever HOT Summit) that the HOT Summit and State of the Map world conference were held back-to-back in the same city (the only other time being Brussels in 2016). The logistics of attending the two conferences at separate times and locations is extremely unfavorable for most, which is unfortunate because HOT Summit bestowed much needed insight into how OSM is being used in communities outside of Europe and the United States.
There are amazing humanitarian efforts ongoing in local African, Latin American, Pacific Island, and South Asian communities using OSM for a variety of humanitarian efforts: mapathons to map out local communities in preparation for or in the wake of a natural disaster, analyses of current OSM data for social and environmental equality, and in general, promoting underrepresented voices and communities through OSM. Getting this two-for-one opportunity to attend both conferences gives greater context on how we can all use OSM for good despite the differences in our individual circumstances. OSM is set out to create and distribute geographic data for the whole world. Therefore, it is imperative that we bridge the map to showcase how OSM is truly a global entity. With that being said, we were excited to hear during the closing ceremonies of this year’s conference that next year’s State of the Map world conference will be held for the first time in Africa! We cannot wait to see what has progressed in the OSM realm when Critigen takes on Cape Town, South Africa next year!
