[Wolves] OpenStreetMap: Free mapping for anyone and any purpose

[Alex Willmer]

At last night's meetup I pitched to some of you the OpenStreetMap
project, in which I take part. 

OpenStreetMap is producing Freely available maps of the UK and the world
- think of it as Open Source applied to mapping. The map data is
published as XML, under a Creative Commons license - it may be used for
in-car navigation, fleet management, trekking, cycling and a whole host
of other applications. The project has been running for just over 1
year, we have an active community gathering GPS data & creating a
digital map. More information can be found here:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

London & Birmingham enjoy the best coverage, other cities are
progressing nicely and national routes are connecting them. Labelling
features have just been added, and road names are appearing. Some
examples of OpenStreetMap data can be found here:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/wiki/index.php/Places

Birmingham area (see footnote):
http://www.openstreetmap.org/edit/view-map.html?lat=52.5&lon=-1.8&scale=0.0006

Walsall and M6:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/edit/view-map.html?lat=52.5708112154929&lon=-1.96275&scale=0.000135

Wolverhampton with Molineux Stadium
http://www.openstreetmap.org/edit/view-map.html?lat=52.5913238062807&lon=-2.1045&scale=0.000135

Birmingham's coverage is currently biased to the North East - around
Streetly, Erdington & Sutton Coldfield. I'm hoping that with your help,
this will change. 

If any of you wish to user the data, join the project or simply gather
GPS data, you're most welcome. The wiki contains instructions for GPS
logging, uploading, editting data and downloading the results. There is
an active mailing list for queries and the like, or please ask me
anything here and I'll be happy to answer.

Thanks for your time.

Alex

NB The overview map is currently having some problems, it only renders
the satellite data. If you zoom in then road segments should properly
display. A screenshot showing the overview area is here:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/wiki/images/c/c7/Osm-screenshot-20051111aw.jpeg