Indian Linux Users Group, Chennai [ ILUGC ] is spreading awareness on Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) in Chennai since January 1998.

We usually meet on the second Saturday of every month, and for the month of July we shall meet on Saturday, July 13, 2019 at 1500 IST.

Venue: Classroom No 1, Aerospace Engineering, Near Gajendra Circle, IIT Madras. Link for the Map: http://bit.ly/iitm-aero Event Details: Event 1:

Topic: Debian 10 “Buster” Release Party

Description: Debian 10 Buster was released few days back. Let us celebrate with Cake and a discussion about it. Duration: 20 minutes Event 2:

Topic: Mini-Mapathon for OpenStreetMap.org

Description: OpenStreetMap.org is a colloborative created maps system, which is provided open map data for all. Let us learn and contribute to OSM in this mini mapathon.

Duration: 2 hours

Speaker: Barani

About Speaker: This is Barani tharan, an enthusiastic open source Contributor. I have started OSM contribution during OSM Mapathon organized by FSFTN. I have mapped all roads, places etc in my Hometown. Its been more than 2 years I started contribution, Still it continuing. When I move to new place or City I note maximum places and roads and map in OSM. During OSM Mapathon I got 3rd place which gives more encouragement to Mapping.

Let’s map for people… Happy Mapping :-)

Here are video introduction in Tamil for OSM. Watch these videos.

http://www.kaniyam.com/video-on-openstreetmaps-org-in-tamil/

http://www.kaniyam.com/video-on-openstreetmap-org-in-tamil-part-2/ Requirements:

This is full handson session. All participants should bring their laptops.

Create an account in https://www.openstreetmap.org/
Bring with a Laptop, Charger
Bring your own internet connection like mobile hotspot or wifi hotspot (We dont have internet at IITM)

After Talks:

QA & general discussions

Entry free. All are welcome.

OpenStreetMap.org is a wonderful community driven maps portal. We can create maps in our own language too.

Demo

https://api.mapbox.com/v4/srikanthlogic.714e671e/page.html?access_token=pk.eyJ1Ijoic3Jpa2FudGhsb2dpYyIsImEiOiJuQ1RYS3pjIn0.7YUMcAQAc4A7T703-yAu2g#4/13.03/80.07

I am much inspired by the Tamil maps provided by OSM. Only thing we have to do is to translate all the strings to tamil.

I had a discussion on this with my friend Srikanth Logic long time back. Here is the chat notes from that discussion.

How to translate the strings on OSM to Tamil?

We have to select a region in OSM
Query for the nodes/paths that dont have tamil translation
Get them in a google sheet
Translate the strings to Tamil using Google Translate
Translate the strings using wikidata (not implemented)
Verify the translations manually and fix any errors
Upload the translations to OSM.

Here is more detailed tutorial on how to do these? https://goinggnu.wordpress.com/2019/05/31/how-to-translate-openstreetmaps-to-other-languages/

Maps.me is a good mobile app (Free Software) for navigation and adding Places (POI – Point of Interest) to OpenStreetMap.org

It uses offline data, to provide smooth user experience. OsmContributor, OSMAnd are other few android app, to contribute to OSM by adding POI. But we can feel the lag on navigating the map as they fetch real time data on every move over the map.

Maps.me is super fast. But because it uses only offline data. The maps.me provides updates for the data once in a month or twice.

We can see the POIs added by us. But, when we run a mapathon kind of events, many volunteers will be roaming around a city. Sometimes, they come to a street, where the POIs are added by someone else already.

When you are using maps.me for adding POI, we can not get the POIs added by other volunteers immediately. We have to wait for the updates provided by the maps.me team.

This leads to repeated adding of same POI many times. Even verifying for the same POI using other app is boring.

Checked for the maps.me team for providing options to update the data whenever required. But it is not on their roadmap.

Discussed this with “OpenStreetMap Asia” telegram group. Erwin Olario replied with few ideas.

Maps.me uses mwm format for the data
https://export.hotosm.org/en/v3/exports can export data in mwm format
https://export.hotosm.org/en/v3/learn/export_formats#mwm gives steps on how to download latest data and use with maps.me

All we need now, is a mobile app to download the desired data from hotosm and place in the proper path of maps.me

We can develop this as a separate mobile app and distribute to all.

If this is done, anyone using maps.me can click another app, and update the osm data whenever required.

Reply here / Contact me if you are interested in doing this as a Free/OpenSource Project.

My mail id – [email protected]

I went to my home town Kanchipuram, India for Christmas holidays. We had a good active Linux Users Group called KanchiLUG there few years ago. We still have few members there doing nice works there.

Decided to have a mini mapping party at kanchipuram on Dec 25, 2017. sent a mail to our mailing list and asked people to join the party. https://www.freelists.org/post/kanchilug/OpenStreetsMaps-Mapping-Party-Dec-25-101

We had one volunteer replied. T. Dhanasekar. We met on dec 25 10 am. Created an account for him in openstreetmaps.

We both dont use smartphone. I borrowed my wife Nithya’s phone. He did not get any. I dont have a motor bike there. I already took his bike. Hence, we decided to roam around the city together and add interesting places to OSM.

I explained maps.me app and how to add POI. We found many schools, temples, shops, clinics etc and added them. For few POI’s, we did not find suitable types in maps.me

Will ask the maps.me team to add more types.

In 2 hours, we added 75 places. There are still tons of places to add at Kanchipuram. We will add them in upcoming days.

For full meeting details, read here - https://www.freelists.org/post/ilugc/ILUGC-monthly-meet-Saturday-14-Oct-2017

Indian Linux Users Group, Chennai [ ILUGC ] October Meet - 14 Oct 2017

Venue: Classroom No 1, Aerospace Engineering, Near Gajendra Circle, IIT Madras. Link for the Map: http://bit.ly/iitm-aero

Time : OCt 14, 2017 3.00 - 6.00 PM

Talk - 2

Mini workshop using a TelegramBOT to translate strings for OpenStreetMaps.org

We are dreaming about Maps in Tamil, for long time.

Imagine your mobile phone or GPS device, shows the maps in Tamil, displays the roads, interesting places in Tamil, It shows routes and says the street names and directions in Tamil while driving.

The dream can come into real as we have most of the required technologies. OpenStreetMaps to provide maps, many apps like streetcomplete, osmcontribute to add streetname and interesting places, Tamil TTS to say everything in tamil.

The major thing we need is we need all the strings in Tamil. OSM supports language tags and we can give any string in any language, along with its translation on other languages.

To enable the translation process of existing strings in OSM, we are working on a telegram bot. Now, it is easy to contribute to OSM via translation, with mobile or with web browser.

The bot will be released for public tomorrow with its source code.

It will ask for your osm username, and then for translate or verify. The strings will be translated by google translator as first step. That is not perfect fully. so, we need people to verify it,

You can see a string with its translation. Then say it right or wrong. once three people confirmed a string it as right, it will be confirmed. The incorrect strings will be displayed for translation.

Once the strings are completed, they will be uploaded to OSM using a bot account.

Will release the bot tomorrow.

Come with

… See full entry

I am thinking of bringing OpenStreetMaps.org in Tamil. Imagining a world, where a GPS device or smartphone, showing paths in Tamil and giving instructions in Tamil to the driver.

To achieve this, we need all the street names to be filled in OpenStreetMaps.org

I checked for the streets in my area, Tambaram, Chennai. Found that there are many street names are missing. Editing the street names on the browser seems difficult for the lazy me.

Was looking for any alternate ways to add streets in OSM. Found the Open Source android app “StreetComplete“.

It simply shows the streets that dont have a name and ask to enter a name for it. Thats all.

From the description of the app.

Help to improve the OpenStreetMap with StreetComplete! This app finds incomplete and extendable data in your vicinity and displays it on a map as markers. Each of those is solvable by answering a simple question to complete the info on site. The info you enter is then directly added to the OpenStreetMap in your name, without the need to use another editor.

As it says, it is really simple to add details like street names, road types, shops opening hours etc.

Install this app in your android phone and help OpenStreetMaps to have all the street names. It will lead to various super projects like “Maps in our language” and more.

Help to to build truely open maps.

Few links to explore:

osm.wiki/StreetComplete

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.westnordost.streetcomplete

Source : https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete/