2022 11 17 Report FOSS4G.be 2022

tags: events osm be

translation of the report written by Julien Juminet + addition of notes and pictures from Thierry Jiménez

On Thursday 17 November, after an absence of two years, FOSS4G.be took place in Brussels, this year with a "State of the Map Belgium", a meeting of OpenStreetMap contributors from Belgium. Here is a partial and subjective report of this beautiful day.

OpenStreetMap and the Sonian Forest
Interesting presentation (video) from the Forêt de Soignes Foundation (David Kuborn & Sanne De Troyer), which decided (very good decision) to use OSM as a database for their mapping of the Forêt de Soignes. This peri-urban forest has to face a strong recreational pressure, and the foundation needs to manage the mapping of the paths. This is an example for other forest areas, and shows the relevance and reactivity of OpenStreetMap for mapping forest paths, compared to other available databases.

360° Everywhere
The crazy project of Pierre Serpe, winner of the 2022 Walloon Geochallenge, who collects 360° images of cycle routes for his local cyclist's group (Gracq Hesbaye). These images are then used to help with discussions at citizens' meetings on cycling developments, or to simulate developments in a 3D representation. A project to be spread to other places!

Mapcomplete
The OSM thematic editor https://mapcomplete.osm.be, where a particular theme can be defined for OSM contributors. There is for example a theme for public toilets, fries shops, bookcases, etc. It was also a good opportunity to come back to the Pin je punt project, a very good case of the use of OSM by a public authority (the tourism agency in Flanders).

OpenStreetMap and Anyways.eu
Anyways.eu uses OSM to develop its road network transformation simulation product. Aimed at public authorities who want to undertake roadworks or modify their traffic plans, the solution developed by Anyways makes it possible to simulate transformations simply by editing the modifications in an OSM mirror database. Thus, the momentary cutting of a road, the making of one-way streets or any other modification can be drawn and its impact on mobility flows simulated and evaluated.

Finally, FOSS4G.be would not be perfect if it were not for the map competition, with some great entries. This year, the trio of maps awarded by the public is

  1. FerrarGIS, the wonderful project of Manuel Claeys Bouuaert that allows to reproduce the Ferraris maps of the 17th century with current OSM data. The Ghent map presented has many details, such as the automatic orientation of plough patterns and some symbols, the addition of trees around some parcel boundaries, a very nice achievement that well deserved its first prize.

  1. hiking.osm.be, the offer of hiking maps to order and print based on the OpenArdenneMap style, which Julien Juminet presented this year. The map presented was a map of the maps available on hiking.osm.be, and an invitation to order your own maps.

  1. Ticket to ride Belgium, an incredible adaptation of the board game "Ticket to ride" to the Belgian railway network. This map is not only a very good graphical realization, its designer, Roel Huybrechts, has pushed the project to the point of making it an actually usable game board for this game, by calculating a number of segments between the Belgian stations that is correct and balanced according to the rules of the game! A conceptualisation of the problem made with Pgrouting, which is explained in the link above.

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