#TIL there’s a URL-based API for Google street view. Spent this afternoon making a tool for automating hyperlapses with it developers.google.com/maps/documentation/streetview

How to query for all highways in #OSM Overpass API (demo: overpass-turbo.eu/s/3sB):

<osm-script output="json">
  <query type="way" into="highways">
    <bbox-query {{bbox}}/>
    <has-kv k="highway" />
  </query>
 
  <union>
    <item set="highways"/>
    <recurse from="highways" type="down"/>
  </union>
  
  <print mode="body" order="quadtile"/>
</osm-script>

This returns all highways without filtering, check out the OSM Highway docs for different possible types of highway, and add a v="" attribute to the has-kv element to filter.

If you’re working with undocumented lat/long coordinate data and, when plotted, everything’s coming out sort of in the right place but a little way off, check to see whether or not what looks like decimal lat long data is actually traditional DMS data.

For example, I recently had to parse and plot a bunch of coordinates which looked like this: 6359550-2154605. I initially thought it was decimal lat/long data missing decimal points for some reason, so I plotted it as 63.59550, -21.54605. All of the coordinates were in the right place relative to each other, but about 1/3rd of a degree off. Turns out the data actually needed to be plotted as 63˚ 59' 55.0", -21˚ 54' 60.5".

Here’s the python I wrote to clumsily convert the strange original form into decimal:

def dms_to_decimal(old):
    if old[0] == '-':
        old = old[1:]
        multiplier = -1
    else:
        multiplier = 1

    return (int(old[0:2])+int(old[2:4])/60.0+int(old[4:6])/3600.0) * multiplier

Near-realtime Marine Traffic marinetraffic.com #bookmark #mapping #geo /via @briansuda

Colour testing tools: Colour Brewer for generating map colour schemes (warning: flash) and Colour Oracle for seeing your screen as it would be seen by someone with colour blindness

If you traverse google street view in the opposite direction the camera was going, you're going back in time

The problem with all mapping software ever:

“Hm, that placename is a bit small to read” (zooms in) “TEXT, WHY U GET SMALLER AGAIN”