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pnoll1
osmand_map_creation
Python2021–2026
pnoll1 / osmand_map_creation

osmand_map_creation

OSM data + open address data compiled for use in OSMAnd

9Distinct people
11Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
89GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

OSM data + open address data compiled for use in OSMAnd

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year11 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2021-01-03 03:01:03 UTC to 2026-08-17 13:53:34 UTC.

012342021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 1 submissions, 3 comments20212022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20232024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC413
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

11 sources
Sticking to OSM has helped me get lost in new and interesting ways every time I make the mistake of relying on its address search without double checking on a lat/long translation app, or if I forget to load this: https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation It's embarrassing, and it definitely adds to my reputation as that weirdo open-source guy who really can't cope ("Sorry, my map app screwed up," said almost nobody else ever), but it keeps my hypothalamus big.
In GPS and the Lost Art of Getting Lost
Yes, I agree that data balkanization represents a significant hindrance for further development of openstreetmap. Fifteen or so years ago I was experimenting with importing DEM files from the US into Blender for landscaping, and finding the data was frustrating. Sometimes the data was available at a state website, other times at a federal website, sometimes also available on the website of some mapping program/project. Surveys within a given geopolitical constraint would be found on the website of whichever department provided the funding. I understanding that, even if ignoring legal realities, merging this data into a single "ground" (heh) truth would be a herculean task, scientifically. But there was no common database or delivery method. Some departments would link to FTP sites, other would provide arcgis downloads via an interactive w
Read the rest
eb tool. I'd have to depend on user-maintained blog posts to even find the data. And the best data was always locked away behind secure portals that I couldn't get access to. Nowadays openstreetmap is running into the same problem at the municipality level. In the US, if I understand correctly, publicly-funded geographic surveys are under copyright to whichever governing entity and not eligible for import into openstreetmap. Take for example the excellent app Every Door (https://github.com/Zverik/every_door) with a focus on easily adding building information. In the US, openstreetmap has no address information. Either that or very little address information - but none in my area. So it'd be easy for me to add building nodes with house numbers but I won't be doing that. Not only is it a massive commitment, but the data is already available at openaddresses.io. The catch? It's "probably" license-compatible with openstreetmap. Before merging, all that data would have to be reviewed by a team of lawyers. That's not something a software developer can help with. In existing threads here, a top complaint about OsmAnd is that lack of address information. Try planning a route without addresses, and without constantly switching to Google Maps to convert addresses to coordinates. Not very user friendly! Opensupermaps (https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation) is a user-maintained merge of openstreetmaps and openaddresses.io, but it doesn't integrate with OsmAnd's data update system. And that's how data balkanization is breaking openstreetmap, right now.
In OpenStreetMap is in trouble – a critical take on Bing Map Builder
Try OSM. It is more reliable than google in performance now, believe it or not. Address lookup is a shortcoming, and there's this https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation to help you get around that, and sometimes the routing algorithm used by Osmand in particular can be goofy from time to time, I can't speak to other clients. Finally, there's traffic, which is not a problem that can be resolved without collecting and processing data from all users, which I find unethical and so will live without.
In I'm done with Google
I just want to address 2 gripes I have with the article. 1) AOSP, not ASOP, you even spelled out the acronym and made this mistake twice, 2) OSM is phenomenal. OSM maps are not bad. IMO the accuracy, even in the US, is better than Google, particularly in rural areas. There's this project https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation also that bundles in address data from OpenAddresses, plugging what is the biggest gap that gave Google a de facto monopoly. IMO it is a very, very important project. The only things I can see being a problem for some people at this point is traffic data, which is not a problem for me, and POI which to me is a non feature, it's basically advertising. And you can do much more with it than with google, I have overlay maps for example that show me all public lands in the US and which department controls them, as
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well as a light pollution overlay map. I would recommend OSM for navigation over Google any day of the week even beyond the fact that it is FOSS.
In The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

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