Hi all,

Finally I decided to try OSM on my own as I could not find any local guru.

Here is a short report for the benefit of new users in order to save their time (and not to teach them anything as such).

● Go to openstreetmap.org

● Open an account and then login.

● The site has an interactive walk through tutorial which is excellent so spend 4-5 minutes if you want.

● The site has three in-browser editors. First one is iD which is simple and sufficient. Select it without fail and proceed. (otherwise Arial view will not be available).

● Views can be found in Layer option. There are two main views that you use - First is Arial view from satellite and the second is OpenStreetMap - standard view, which is used for navigation. You can switch back and forth through these two views or layers.

● There are three important edits that you are supposed to do as your basic contributuion.

● First is Point or Point of Interest (POI). This can be restaurant, cafe, chemist etc. There can be several such points in a building.

● Second is Area (building, ground, lake etc),

● Third is Line (Road, FOB, Pipelines etc)

Ensure that you are logged in and iD Editor is selected.

START CONTRIBUTING NOW :

● Search any familiar place where you would like to contribute. Locate any building based on its shape and surrounding which is not yet tagged.

● Identify its name by nearby elements. Then click on it and in the resulting popup give its name say "xyz Mansion". Tick-Save-Upload. Thats it !

● If a building does not exist on map, then switch to satellite image. Hit Area tool and make a closed region around it and then tag it (as we did in previous step). You may add other details if you want, for example, level, height etc

● Do the same for other areas like gardens, grounds and lakes etc. Points are also to be added at appropriate places so that the map will be even more useful to all.

Hope this quick tour is helpful.

About 80% buildings are shown on map but not tagged. Remaing 20% are yet to be shown (using area tool) and then to be tagged. So contributions are really needed on large scale. Nagarjuna, in our last meeting, suggested that OSM should be introduced to students. We surely have to do that.

My thoughts from ilug-bom viewpoint :

This can be taken as a regular activity in our monthly meetings. No separate sessions are necessary. Anybody can start contributing in 10 minutes provided someone shows the options and a sample contribution. We can take a small live session in introduction itself . In fact we will upload new member's house/building/bunglow and few other tags as a part of demonstration.

There is a desktop application JOSM which is bit more advanced. Also few android apps are there. Two of them are worth using. OsmAnd+ and Vespucci. OsmAnd+ is mainly for OSM users (for navigation etc). Vessupucci is alternative to iD/JOSM. It is for contributors. Found Vesupucci quite satisfactory. Started contributing even from mobile using Vespucci.

Thanks and Regards Milind