Mappa Mercia
| Local User Group | |
Midlands (Mappa-Mercia)
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| meetings | |
| When: | 7pm onwards every 1st Thursday of the month |
| Where: | Winter Months - Usually The Bull, Price Street, Birmingham but check below. During Summer see main page for details. (map) |
| mailing list | |
| mailing list - archive | |
| website | |
| Mappa-Mercia | |
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This page pulls together information and events related or relevant to OSM in the Midlands. There is no restriction as to what "Midlands" includes so if you feel you fit here, welcome. This page was first established July 2006 as the Midlands User Group but has been renamed since then to Mappa Mercia.
The Mappa Mercia is an OpenStreetMap project covering the heart of the UK, The Midlands run by the OSM Midlands User Group. The idea is to focus the efforts under a localised banner to help increase local interest and participation. To this end we have a midlands themed website mappa-mercia.org displaying OpenStreetMap related offerings.
The MUGers in Birmingham set themselves the challenge to complete the the city and its wider regions inside the M5/M6/M42 before Christmas 2008. They completed it a few days earlier, and the results are now on OSM. To celebrate this a party render was done of the entire City over the 2 years. There is also a printed map of the completed city available to purchase (limited edition run of 50). You can follow the state of completion of the West Midlands.
We are now (Aug 2011) sufficiently well-advanced in coverage of the West Midlands that we have created a change register so that we can keep an eye on areas that are due to change and map them as and when they get completed
Contents |
Archive
Events
Social Meet Up
The Midlands OSM User Group meets on the first Thursday of the month in the evening, from 7pm. We are a friendly bunch and anyone with an interest in OSM - beginner to expert - is welcome, so do please come along if you can.
Venue: The White Lion Hampton-in-Arden, High Street, Hampton-in-Arden
(metadata: 2012-03-01T19:00:00+00:00)
Proposed Summer Timetable
May 3rd Monthly Meeting -summer mapping White Lion Hampton in Arden map when you like beforehand- meet in pub 8pm
June 7th Monthly Meeting -summer mapping Coventry (pub TBA) map when you like beforehand- meet in pub 8pm
June 23rd Saturday Mini Mapping Party National Arboretum Memorial Alrewas 10:00 AM
July 6th Monthly Meeting -summer mapping Lichfield map when you like beforehand- meet in pub 8pm
July 21st Saturday Mini Mapping Party Henley-in Arden 10:00 AM
Aug 3rd Monthly Meeting -summer mapping Coleshill map when you like beforehand- meet in pub 8pm
Sep 6th Monthly Meeting -summer mapping Bromsgrove map when you like beforehand- meet in pub 8pm
Other meetings
Every year we move from our winter quarters of a warm pub in the centre of Birmingham to have itinerant meetings round the region coupled with mini-mapping parties. Our first itinerant meeting is usually in May and suggestions for venues are welcome for locations to map throughout the rest of the year - we just need a comfortable pub that does good beer (real ale preferred) and good cheapish grub. Also we want to vary our routine with smaller areas of white space remaining we need to come up with themes e.g POIs in Dudley, addresses in Halesowen, bus stops in Bedworth, sculptures in Coventry, footpaths around Droitwich.
Please sign up to the talk-gb-westmidlands OSM Mailing List to stay informed.
See Mappa Mercia/Past Meetings for an (incomplete) history of meetings.
Social Media & Tech
- Birmingham Social Media Cafe: Group members are also invited to attend the Birmingham Social Media Cafe which meets from 10am-12noon on the last Friday morning of each month (earlier in December), in central Birmingham.
- Other local web/ social media events are listed on DigitalBrum.
Time to put Birmingham on the map
Text of an email sent October 2011 to cabinet members, senior councillors and departments of Birmingham City Council
Mailing List
There is a West Midlands specific (+ East Midlands for the time being) mailing list: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb-westmidlands
Mappa Mercia Website
Great work by Christoph and the mappa-mercia.org website is now up and running. The domain name mappa-mercia.org was registered by blackadder for use by the OSM midlands community.
Current Primary Mapping Focus
Mini projects
| Mini-Project | Notes and contributors | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blue Plaques | separate render for Birmingham Civic Society. Tag with OpenPlaques UID, for example openplaques_plaque=15555. |
| 2 | Buildings | Labelling of major buildings with names and heritage status (e.g is it a Listed Building?) and tracing every building from bing and labelling with an address. Andy has set the standard in Sutton Coldfield. Good tracking software available at http://tools.geofabrik.de/osmi/ - you have to choose the addresses option in the box which has a default setting of "geometry" |
| 3 | Footpaths | Loads left to do almost everywhere. Also completing relations for major named footpaths: Heart of England Way need completing; Monarch's Way almost non-existent; A Coventry Way; North Worcestershire Path needs completing |
| 4 | Turn Restrictions | Most are probably not entered as relations. We can't route through the West Midlands without them. There's a neat tool for verifying turn restrictions at http://osm.virtuelle-loipe.de/restrictions/ which will then render nice German traffic signs(now it renders UK signs!) on the map. |
| 5 | Winter Maintenance - Road Gritting & Grit Bins | Adding gritting routes and grit bin data from local authorities in the region. Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Solihull complete: current focus is Coventry, Dudley and Sandwell - See /gritting for current update and tasks. |
| 6 | Sculptures & monuments | We're the pilot region for the UK's Public Sculpture & Monuments records (PSMA) The database for the West Midlands can be found at http://pmsa.cch.kcl.ac.uk/BM/Region.htm. Birmingham City Centre pretty well entered now - it's a good incentive to get out and map other things as well as the fun of tracking down the sculptures! |
| 7 | Data Quality | Loads to do everywhere from road names cross-checking spelling with OSL Locator; road alignment with Bing imagery; ways not joined at junctions etc. |
| 8 | Dynamic Data | Loads to do everywhere by keeping our eyes open for demolitions, road construction schemes, new housing developments, new supermarkets, changed URLs (grrr!), etc. |
| 9 | Utilities | Power lines and pylons are pretty complete in Birmingham, Substations, sewage plants, gas venting stations, sewage pumping stations all need attention. Also the West Midlands has a dense network of underground pipelines for gas and oil, the latter emanating from the oil terminals at Kingsbury, BHX airport, Bromford (not sure about Bedworth). These can be traced by locating and mapping the pipeline markers |
| 9 | Land Use | Loads to be done everywhere - built up areas look nice when they're rendered with land use colours. WE can also get good coverage of water and woods now with bing imagery. |
| 10 | Allotments | Add internal service roads/ paths; buildings, etc. Add number of plots and presence of toilets from (in Birmingham) http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/allotments see pageAllotments Project |
| 11 | Bicycle Parking | BCC has provided its full list and details of all bicycle parking in the city. Contact Blackadder if you want access to the reference data to help map them all into OSM. There is a user page for this project here: Birmingham/Bicycle_Parking. |
Map bugs
You can use OpenStreetBugs to record and deal with other errors and missing items around the city.
We are also checking differences between OSM and OS data
Create a map
Using the gritting map as an example some instructions here to create your own map with OSM data overlayed. This uses flash based ShareMap.
Active Midlands Users
- Blackadder. See my user page for more details.
- Richard. Based alternately in Burton-on-Trent and Charlbury. Also mapping Worcester. Wednesday evening is good for me.
- Matthew Newton. Mapping in and around Loughborough, together with routes in and out of Leicester.
- Clive. Mapping in and around Leicester, with a particular interest in cycle routes, and villages along the N6.
- Ben.. Mapping South Northants/Noth Bucks Area. Also have done Middlesbrough, Pembrokshire, Central Norfolk and parts of the Cotswold Area. Chosen method is by car or bike. I think this is my current closest usergroup, but that may change.
- Ojw in Bedford
- Moreati in Castle Bromwich.
- Vgrade in Kettering.
- Stephen Isaac in North Birmingham. Most times are good for me.
- Craig Shelley in Swadlincote, Burton upon Trent.
- Tom Higgy in Shrewsbury, Shropshire.
- Russ Phillips. Primarily mapping around Stoke on Trent. Also collecting postcodes where possible
- Greg Robson - Working on South Birmingham, and some areas of Warwickshire.
- Matt Working on Tamworth.
- elvin currently mapping local area between Derby, Ashbourne, Belper and Wirksworth - interested in mobile mapping and developing software using OSM data
- Ron Wellsted Wolverhampton
- Chris Procter in Kings Heath.
- Richard B, in Cheshire, probably a bit far north to be truly "Midlands", but I wouldn't mind joining in any events in the northern Midlands.
- brianboru, in Acocks Green, but mapping ranges widely over South and East Birmingham, also slowly adding mountainn peaks and geographical features to the Scottish Highlands
- Jonathan Riddell, in Glorious Tipton. I like Whitewater Maps.
- Matthew Flint is between Nottingham and Grantham.
- Nick Barnes in Balsall Common.
- Brian Lucas is a newbie based in Selly Oak
- Xoff is active in the south of Birmingham, mostly around Bournville.
- Mark Iliffe Around Leicester and Leicestershire, previously of Nancy, France
- Richard Rothwell [deceased] primarily mapping around Lye in the Black Country.
- Tim Retout in Rugby.
- Thomas Riggs in Market Harborough.
- Matt Williams at University of Warwick near Coventry.
- Mike Duffy in Great Barr. Wandering around Wednesbury
- Simon Halsey in Keyworth, mapping South Notts & bits of Loughborough
- Peter Millar in Coventry
- Andrew Ainsworth in Market Harborough
- Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing) - Learning! Also able to help out with microformat-related matters; and involved on other web/ social media groups in Birmingham.
- Steve Brook In south Worcester area.
- Jonathan Harley in Coventry
- Iain Simpson in Stafford
- Mary Mooney wherever the fancy takes me
- Jon in Redditch, done work on Redditch Town but plans to improve public footpaths where I walk.
- RobJN in Coventry and Warwickshire.
Simply add your details above and/or send an email to Blackadder
