Revolutionizing Field Mapping (with FMTM): Part 3

Posted by spwoodcock on 5 March 2024 in English. Last updated on 6 March 2024.

See pt1 of this series here.

See pt2 of this series here.

A Long Overdue Release

The goal with the Field Mapping Tasking Manager (FMTM) was to adopt an agile development style, making a new release around once per month.

3 months have passed since the last blog post and there was no FMTM release in between!

What gives??

Well, the team has been working extremely hard simplifying usage of FMTM and making it much more usable.

It’s been hard to find a good point to stabilise a release due to so many great and rapidly developed updates!

From this release onwards we plan to follow through with a new version increment every month. Look out for version 2024.4.0 next month.

Public Beta Now Live

The main goal we have been working towards is releasing a public beta this month.
The public beta for FMTM is now live on https://fmtm.hotosm.org
The idea to to have the public test out it’s functionalities & definitely break a thing or two!
With your valuable feedback we want to make FMTM the best it can possibly be 🙏

splash

See full details of the release on Github

The main contributors to thank for this release are: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/varun2948, https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/nrjadkry, https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Sujanadh, https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/NSUWAL, https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Prajwalism, https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/manjitapandey and a entirely new contributor https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/cordovez.

Using The Beta

Feel free to browse around and report any issues via Github or the HOTOSM Slack.

To create a new project, be sure to select the ‘FMTM Public Beta’ organisation while doing so, with the ‘Use Default ODK Credentials’ box checked.

default-org

This will grant you permission normally reserved for organisation admins.

FMTM In Brief

For the uninitiated, I thought I would add a quick aside for how FMTM works:

Project is created in an area with three things:
- Data extract: the features you want to map, say building polygons.
- ODK XLSForm: the survey for mappers on the ground to fill out for each feature.
- Task areas divided by feature count and linear features (e.g. rivers, roads).
Users assign a task area for themselves, and generate a QR code that is opened in ODK Collect.
User navigates to the feature and fills out the XLSForm survey, then submits.
The submissions are collected by ODK Central, which feeds the data back into FMTM, for cleaning, conflation with existing data, and pushing back to OSM.

As you can see FMTM is built on top of OpenDataKit actually collect the survey data about map features.

Conflation will be integrated in a future release through HOT’s conflator module by https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/robsavoye.

Release Highlights

There have been many, many, changes in FMTM since the last release, a lot of them being refinements to the backend too.

Some of the less visible changes: fixing iOS usage, streamlining processes to reduce resource consumption, reducing code complexity for more sustainable development, implementing best practice security for login and session management, fully encrypted ODK credentials, using modern geospatial formats such as flatgeobuf for more efficient data usage and many more.

Full Integration of HOT’s raw-data-api

We have https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/kshitijrajsharma to thank mostly for this.

raw-data-api allows for near real-time data extraction from OSM, using an innovative data storage structure for very efficient usage.

When you click on ‘Generate Data Extract’ during project creation, this is the tool that works underneath.

raw-data-api

Streamlined Project Creation

Project creation has been significantly streamlined, especially for users that may not know what an ODK XForm is.

project-creation

User Roles

User roles have been implemented, but for the purpose of the beta are mostly disabled to allow full access to test.

Creation of organisations can be requested through a simple web form.

Organisation admin: can create projects.
Project admin: can modify projects and grant users permissions.
Field admin: has special rights to add mappers to a project and unblock tasks.
Validator: can validate and submit the final data to OSM.
Mapper: the default role for most.

In public project, everyone has the role of mapper.

In private projects this must be explicitly granted.

Project UI

The project details page has a much improved user interface from before, with a listing of task activities and links to various information.

project-details

When the user is ready, they can click ‘Start Mapping’ to lock the task area and scan the QR code in ODK Collect:

qr-code

Submissions UI

A new shiny UI is being developed by the team at NAXA to view the final data submissions.

submissions-ui-1

submissions-ui-2

Project Editing

It is now possible to edit and delete existing projects.

project-edit

Monrovia Test

One of the first projects to use the FMTM Beta was the Liberia Slum Mapping Pilot Project.

Based in Monrovia, HOT and Slum Dwellers International (SDI), plus local partners FOLUPS and YMCA, undertook a mapping campaign for temporary urban settlements, that was very valuable in providing feedback into FMTM use cases.

Two Crucial Insights

Not all field mappers are necessarily OSM’ers, so we need to adapt.
Many projects in developing countries will not have the features mapped in OSM already, so we first need to get imagery (drone ideally), and integrate HOT’s Tasking Manager to map the features prior to on-the-ground tagging.