OpenGeofiction
I didn’t want to let it pass without some kind of mention: as of today, the OGF City Sprint is officially over! It was a lot of fun watching the progress across all four continents. Big thanks to the more than three-dozen (!) mappers who signed up, and the dedicated folks who kept at it all the way to the end.
I’m planning to do something in the near future with the Daily Dose of Mapping Mojo posts, perhaps creating a kind of toolkit for breaking through mappers’ block. It would be really great to hear from the community about what your favorite resources were, and if you actually found some of the links that were shared helpful in thinking about your city in new ways.
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On a personal note, I first floated the idea of a city sprint because I wanted to hit fastfoward on mapping my capital city, and on that front it was a rousing success! I set a personal goal of mapping 100,000 objects in a month, and ultimately mapped a grand total of 103,636 nodes, ways, and polygons during the 28 days of February. I’m planning to write a post introducing Canan-Yar to the world over the weekend, so more to come. I definitely would not have had the momentum to do it without all of the sprinters! :D
Discussion
Comment from Megacity2005Creator on 2 March 2019 at 00:33
How do I figure out how many objects I added?
Comment from zhenkang on 2 March 2019 at 13:51
Well, I still need to work more on Kontroga. Due to many things in life, I only managed to map about 20% of what I had desired. But now, I decided to stop Kontroga after I mapped the central core, then I will work on the countryside.
Comment from louis_walker on 2 March 2019 at 16:29
@Megacity2005Creator I was keeping track each day, but if you want to go back and count you just need to go to your city in the map view and click the “History” tab up in the top navbar. That will bring up an archive of all recent updates to the area on-screen. Each update tracks how many nodes, ways, and relations were included. For instance, if it says “Ways (1-20 of 40)”, “ Relations (2),” and “Nodes (1-20 of 271)” you know that update included 313 objects.
Comment from Ramasham on 3 March 2019 at 06:27
Louis, thank you so much for initiating this and seeing it through! I’m having a hard time thinking of anything more positive that anyone has done to advance the development of the OGF world.
As far as your mapping, bravo! On gross items uploaded you pipped me, by a rough count I had 89k last month. But quality is what counts and I see that it is there. I’m really looking forward to your next post giving us a tour of your capital.
In the meantime, I’ll keep plugging away at my city. Did you know that a unique type of horse archery was invented there? The Emerere School sponsors tournaments where contestants ride high speed away from a pursuit target mounted on a narrow-gauge rail track while shooting said target over their shoulders. It grew out of a history of the area’s bow-armed militia having to constantly flee from opponents armed with actual guns.
Comment from UN1TY on 3 March 2019 at 09:41
@louis_walker - Thank you for organizing this challenge. I spent the entire month mapping Confluencia, which still has long ways to go, but it’s the most I’ve ever mapped in a single area since I’ve been in OGF.
Comment from louis_walker on 3 March 2019 at 18:28
Thanks to @Ramasham & @UN1TY both for your comments; you both made a ton of progress, I see!
Actually, it’s worth taking a moment to give props to the mappers who really dove into the City Sprint feet-first. So, a round-up of some of the new sights you can see around the OGF world after the past month’s cartographic flurry:
Firstly, special recognition should go to @Megacity2005Creator, who made some great progress on Bluevista (aka the Artist Formerly Known As The Premesis) as a new user. Sticking to regular and intensive mapping is a big enough challenge when you’re used to the labyrinth that is JOSM…it took me a year to get to the point where I really felt comfortable using the platform. Bluevista is looking great, and has a detailed new university campus that’s worth a look. Keep it up!
A bunch of mappers focused on the built fabric of cities they’d already laid out the streets for. @LemonKing’s Shakkost morphed from a vague sketch into a detailed city with apartments, rowhouses, and a compact downtown district. @Martinawa mapped hundreds of new buildings in Nichuri, including this excellent sports center and a gorgeous planned neighborhood of concentric rings. @oscar2002 made significant progress on his extraordinary, finely grained built fabric in the historic center of Puerto Elisabeth, which remains one of the most compelling cities in OGF, for my money. @UN1TY’s mapping in Confluencia not only included a huge new swath of buildings downtown, but some colorful landcover on the fringes, which has helped that city start to feel more like a realistic, fleshed-out metropolitan region.
Elsewhere, existing cities got makeovers and expansions, adding detail and intrigue to some of the OGF world’s most interesting places. @ParAvion’s Gerrise added new neighborhoods and refined its coastline, while @Reece202’s Sediimarkt gained an extremely detailed railyard and old-school ‘company town’, among other new neighborhoods to the west of the city center. Tromboner2003’s city of Sevaille gained extensive new neighorhoods on its east side, as well as a lovely mountain range to the west.
Props and congrats go to @BMSOUZA and @Sarapeva, both of whom took on new admin roles for the OGF community while mapping in the City Sprint. I can almost smell the sweetness of spring looking at Borath’s gorgeous landscape, and never get bored exploring detailed new additions to Säntjana, where the sister city of Osmila is now starting to take shape.
It was especially fun to watch some cities rise up where there were completely blank slates just a few weeks ago. @PortCal has created a strong infrastructural outline of the Ansley region in Paroy (love that rail terminal!) while @Turnsole80’s precision mapping has taken Phillipstown from hint to detailed hamlet. @Ramasham stuns, as always, with mapping that is as exciting in close zooms as it is at the regional level, especially thanks to this meticulously mapped riding school complete with clocktower and field archery course.
Last but certainly not least, a special call-out to two of my favorite cities mapped with solid consistency over the course of the sprint. For gridiron-style urbanism, it’s hard to think of a better example than @TheMayor’s work in Lake City. From its detailed parks to its industrial districts, Lake City embodies the Midwestern North American metropolis. If you like your cities a bit less pragmatic, you can’t find any better than @Toadwart’s Fawltryncham, with its canals, lagoons, Winburg transplant, and spectacular, sprawling building cover. Fawltryncham University was undoubtedly a highlight of the City Sprint. I want to visit!
Thanks again to everyone who participated. If you’re looking for more collaborative fun, don’t forget to check out the Spring Wiki Cleanup that @eklas is organizing for March!
Comment from zhenkang on 3 March 2019 at 23:28
I also quite like this sprint, though not sure how Kontroga is compared to other cities.
Comment from Megacity2005Creator on 4 March 2019 at 03:15
@louis_walker Thanks! Unless I miscounted, I apparently uploaded less than 15K objects this month, which kinda sucks, although put in the fact that a.) I had that whole problem trying to figure out a new name for my city, b.) I was instructed to get rid of all the abbreviations on my streets, and c.) I currently have to deal with the terrors of 8th grade, then it feels like a big accomplishment!
This City Sprint was undoubtedly the best challenge I have seen so far in my short time on OGF… I think I’ll finish my city and the surrounding areas in Mecyna before I find a California somewhere to map
Comment from louis_walker on 4 March 2019 at 18:35
Quality over quantity, my friend! The mapping you have done is solid, and I think pretty much everyone here would rather see 15,000 well-mapped objects than 150,000 bad ones. :)