Use of swisstopo data and products with and in OpenStreetMap

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As announced in our previous post, from the beginning of this month (March 2021), geodata and products from Federal Office of Topography (swisstopo) have been available on far less restrictive terms than previously.

As I noted then we didn’t have details available at the time so couldn’t comment further on the use of this data in OSM. In the meantime the terms are available and are limited to an attribution requirement which however applies downstream too. In the case of an use in OSM this would require products using our data to display attribution to swisstopo, this might seem to be an easy to fulfil requirement, but our licence specifically allows use that only credits the overall source of the data (that is the OpenStreetMap project). Considering the 100’s if not 1’000’s of 3rd party sources and 1.6 million individual contributors, this makes a lot of sense. But as a consequence this rules out direct use in OpenStreetMap till we have agreed alternative arrangements with swisstopo.

But it isn’t all gloom and doom, we have already agreed that we can make swisstopos high quality orthophoto product “swissimage” available in OSM editing apps and naturally applications that combine OSM and swisstopo, for example a map with swisstopo derived hill shading, is possible as long as swisstopo is credited.

It will take a bit until configuration updates have reached the major editors, if your favourite one supports custom imagery backgrounds from WMS servers you can add swissimage manually with

https://wms.geo.admin.ch/?FORMAT=image/vnd.jpeg-png8&TRANSPARENT=TRUE&VERSION=1.3.0&SERVICE=WMS&REQUEST=GetMap&LAYERS=ch.swisstopo.images-swissimage&STYLES=&CRS={proj}&WIDTH={width}&HEIGHT={height}&BBOX={bbox}

the above will work for JOSM, for Vespucci replace {proj} with EPSG:4326. Please note that use of swisstopo infrastructure is subject to additional terms of use that should be respected.

To keep up with the developments, follow us on twitter @SwissOSM and subscribe to the Swiss OSM community mailing list.

Background aerial imagery ©swisstopo, map data ©OpenStreetMap.

Welcome swisstopo!

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Today we are welcoming the Swiss Federal Office of Topography (swisstopo) to the open data community. After many years of free access for consumers, today, finally, it is providing reusable open government data that can be used to build and enrich new applications and datasets.

This is a high point of a development of open data availability in Switzerland in which the cantons have been leading for many years starting with the Canton Solothurn over a decade ago and is now policy in nearly all of them.

What does this mean for OpenStreetMap?

Short term nothing is going to change. While at the time I’m writing this we don’t have access to the final terms of use, we do have a good idea of what the content will be and some of the terms will not be completely compatible with our distribution licence, the ODbL. This rules out direct inclusion in our data, but will allow use as reference data for quality assurance. We are negotiating with swisstopo for compatible access terms, just as we have previously done for the municipality administrative boundaries way back in 2011 and more recently for use of the GWR address data and expect these issues to be resolved soon.

The most interesting data for us right now is access to swisstopos “swissimage” aerial imagery. This will at last provide us with good coverage in Switzerland’s mountainous regions, something that has been sorely missing from the global orthophoto mosaics.

To keep up with the developments, follow us on twitter @SwissOSM and subscribe to the Swiss OSM community mailing list.

Map image ©swisstopo

JOSM Plugin receives DINAcon 2020 Award!

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Die Pokale der DINAcon 2020 Awards
(Source: DINAcon.ch 2020)

Last Friday, October 23, 2020, DINacon 2020 took place – unfortunately only virtually like all conferences during this time. DINAcon stands for “Digital Sustainability Conference” and is under the patronage of the CH Open association. At this event future-oriented projects and approaches from the Open Source and Open Data Communities, from public administration and the economy are presented, discussed and awarded.

The program also included a session on the “Public OSM Partnership” (POP Study) by Stefan Keller.

And again the DINAcon Awards were presented. The shortlist included the “Defikarte der Schweiz” (www.defikarte.ch) in the category “Community Award” and a JOSM Plugin in the category “Best Newcomer Award”.

DINAcon 2020 Best Newcomer
Trailer – DINAcon 2020 Best Newcomer Project – Shortlist. (Quelle: DINAcon.ch 2020)

And the winner is…

Finally the JOSM Plugin won in the category “Best Newcomer”! This category honors “Open Source projects that are not older than three years and offer exciting new approaches”.

The JOSM Plugin NeTEx Converter

The JOSM plugin “NeTEx Converter”, is a project for the JOSM editor, which collects and exports information about public transport – i.e. the infrastructure of stations – from OSM into this standardized XML structure. The NeTEx/XML file can then be further processed in various applications. Main developer is the student Labian Gashi who studies Computer Science in the masters program at HSR Rapperswil (now OST Campus Rapperswil). The work was supervised by Prof. Stefan Keller and specialists from the SBB.

It’s nice that another OpenStreetMap technology was awarded by this Open Source/Open Data conference. Already in 2019 the project OpenSchoolMaps won the trophy in the category “Best Open Education Project” (we reported here on SOSM.ch).

Weblinks

Swiss Castles and Fortresses Day, Sunday, October 4, 2020

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On Sunday, October 4, 2020, 25 Swiss castles invite you to the 5th National Castles Day. Their gates and drawbridges will then be open from 10 am to 5 pm for a varied program. So – come on in!

The association Wikimedia CH and the Swiss OpenStreetMap association (SOSM) will complement the event with a Swiss Fortresses Day 2020 (Burgentag 2020). Young and old medieval enthusiasts alike are invited to discover a castle ruin on their own. You decide the program yourself. Every castle has a history and many have something mystical about them. And there is often a fireplace nearby. Find out more with the following tips:

  • Map with selected castle ruins sites (see picture below),
  • A photo challenge to upload missing photos of castles.

Illustration: Interactive online map of selected castle ruins (realized with uMap and with OpenStreetMap data). [Large map]

The photo challenge is simple: Work through this list of castle objects without pictures and upload the photos to Wikimedia Commons! For each uploaded photo there is a tweet (from @trending_places) with the hashtag #CastleProject. The photo is then usually immediately visible on the Castles project map.

The interactive online map of selected castle ruins shows a hand-picked selection of castles in Switzerland that are freely accessible and easy to reach. Depending on the castle, it can be up to one kilometer (i.e. approx. 20 min.) or more away from the nearest public transport stop or parking lot. Please follow the signs and treat nature with respect (e.g. make sure that there is no danger of forest fires in the area, watch out for ticks, don’t leave litter).

The map contains only a small part of the castles and palaces as they are managed in the Castles Project Switzerland. The Castles project links open data directly from the four open data projects OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons (photos).

The Swiss Burgentag 2020 was initiated by the SOSM association and Wikimedia CH. The event is also kindly supported by the Swiss Castle Association. We thank the association ‘Die Schweizer Schlösser’ for agreeing to link the two action days Swiss Castles Day and Burgentag 2020.

Inquiries and contacts:
Verein SOSM, Stefan Keller
Wikimedia CH, Kerstin Sonnekalb

AGM online May 16th 2020 11:00

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Participation and voting (BigBlueButton, link was sent by mail to all members)

  1. Opening and Welcome
  2. Election of the minute taker and vote counters
  3. Adoption of minutes of the 2019 AGM
  4. Activity report 2019
  5. Financial results 2019
    • Presentation by the treasurer
    • Auditors report
  6. Discharge of the Board
  7. Membership fees 2021
  8. Budget 2020
  9. Amendment of the articles of association
    • Introduction of honorary members
  10. Appointment of honorary members
  11. Elections
    • Board
      Candidates for all positions are welcome. All existing board members are standing
      for re-election.
    • Auditors
  12. Any other business

«Bleibtoffen» («It stays open») now showing hotels

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One of the differences between Switzerland and other countries during the pandemic is that hotels have been permitted to stay open. Not all have done so, but there are around 400 that have kept their doors open.

“Bleibtoffen” now has support for displaying both open and closed hotels, and if your establishment is open, or you know of one that is open, please update this information on bleibtoffen.ch.

«It stays open» – The map of shops that are still open #COVID19

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The map service bleibtoffen.ch allows everyone to find open shops and share information about open locations with a few clicks. The new service is based on the community project OpenStreetMap. Anyone can also report changes at bleibtoffen.ch. This information is then directly integrated into OpenStreetMap – in addition to the many volunteers who already add to OpenStreetMap on a daily basis.

A communication instrument for authorities and location promoters

In France, there are already some cities like Lyon and municipalities like Montrouge that are using “It stays open” (in French “ça reste ouvert”) as a means of communication in dealing with the Covid19 crisis.

Therefore, dear authorities and location promoters: inform your citizens and companies about this useful tool in dealing with and containing Covid19!

You can read more about this in the blog post of bleibtoffen.org (in german). Here you can go directly to bleibtoffen.ch. If you have any questions please contact us at SOSM (see contact).