Prototype Fund OSM-3D-Edit roadmap

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

OSM-3D-Edit, one of the projects participating in the 2025 Prototype Fund round, uses OSM2World to make it easier to contribute 3D data to OpenStreetMap.

The Prototype Fund supports innovative free and open source software with funds from the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space.

3D preview for JVM and web browsers

The goal of the OSM-3D-Edit project is to make adding 3D data to OpenStreetMap easier and faster by improving the editing tools available to mappers. One key feature of such tools is to provide immediate feedback through a real-time 3D preview of the data which is being edited – without first having to upload the data to the OpenStreetMap database, and without having to wait hours or days for a data consumer’s rendering to update. This functionality is implemented using OSM2World, which makes the ability to render 3D scenes from OpenStreetMap data readily available through a library interface.

Although it is already possible to have the OSM2World desktop application open while editing and use its ability to render locally-stored .osm files to get a preview of recently-mapped data, that workflow is both harder to set up and less convenient to use than a tool integrated directly into the user’s editor. Wherever possible, the preview and the other tools developed during OSM-3D-Edit should therefore be integrated directly into common editor programs for working with OpenStreetMap data.

One such editor is JOSM, the Java OpenStreetMap Editor. JOSM is a popular choice among experienced OSM contributors, who are disproportionately likely to be interested in the relatively advanced task of adding 3D data. It runs on the JVM (Java Virtual Machine), which makes it easy to integrate OSM2World. And it offers a plugin architecture which makes it easy to integrate new tools. Therefore, it is a great candidate for a first implementation of the project’s 3D editing tools. Ideally, this work will be implemented in collaboration with existing projects which work on 3D functionality for JOSM.

However, the OpenStreetMap ecosystem includes a large number of editors and editing workflows, so tools for JOSM can only be a first step. In particular, the OSM-3D-Edit project also aims to offer an alternative to users who prefer web-based tools.

Tools and validation rules for 3D editing and indoor mapping

Besides a 3D preview, there are several types of tools which can help make 3D editing a smooth experience. These include tools for working with geometric details, such as angles and directions, as well as presets to offer a more user-friendly interface to enter tags. Automated validation tools to check values for plausibility and detect common mapping errors are also useful in addition to the visual inspection offered by the preview. All of these are on the roadmap for OSM-3D-Edit.

Because 3D mapping and indoor mapping have some challenges in common, and because applications with seamless indoor and outdoor visualizations require both types of data, indoor mapping is an additional use case to keep in mind during the creation of these tools.

Supporting a larger subset of OSM tagging in the 3D preview

OSM2World already understands hundreds of OSM keys and tags. However, the OSM data model is constantly evolving, so there are still plenty of attributes and edge cases which OSM2World does not yet support.

That matters a lot for the intended use case as a 3D preview for editors: A preview should accurately depict the data that is being entered. Therefore, part of the project is to support additional attributes which would otherwise not be visible in the preview. This involves parsing new tags, but also related work such as more robust building geometry calculations. Of course, this work will be contributed back into the open source codebase of OSM2World and will therefore benefit all users of OSM2World.

Software Sprint - Einzelvorhaben: OSM-3D-Edit - 3D-Bearbeitungswerkzeuge für OpenStreetMap

Förderkennzeichen 16IS25S04

Prototype Fund Round 16 feature roadmap

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

OSM2World is one of the projects which is currently being funded in round 16 of the Prototype Fund.

The Prototype Fund is a funding program of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research that is managed and evaluated by the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany.

Work during the 6-month of development period is going to focus primarily on making it easier for developers to integrate OSM2World’s ability to generate 3D models into applications and websites according to their individual requirements.

3D tile generation

Map tiles are a common approach to serving geospatial data on the Web, for both 2D and 3D maps. OSM2World is already able to output scenes as glTF and glb files, and will be improved to make it more convenient and performant to generate an entire set of tiles in this popular 3D content exchange format. Support for the open 3D Tiles standard pioneered by Cesium.js will allow website developers to display OSM2World’s output using existing frontend libraries. 3D tile generation will also be used to publish an interactive demo of OSM2World based on WebGL.

Custom glTF models

OSM2World ships with a collection of liberally licensed assets which includes textures and 3D models. However, users of OSM2World may wish to replace these with their own assets. Thanks to the upcoming ability to import models from glTF files, this is as simple as adding the path to such an asset to a human-readable configuration file. Other features of the glTF import include randomly chosing from multiple available models, and re-coloring assets at runtime according to color information from the OpenStreetMap database or random color variations.

Improved command line interface

Developers and advanced users can use OSM2World’s command line interface to integrate its capabilities into scripts and automate recurring tasks. However, OSM2World has acquired several relatively distinct modes of operation over time, and this is not yet reflected in the command line interface. This calls for a reorganization of the existing options, taking inspiration from the “subcommand” metaphor used by popular tools like Git.

Modular architecture and Maven library

In addition to its core functionality, OSM2World contains code that is only required when running it as a web server or standalone application. This extra functionality is not needed when using OSM2World as a library. Therefore, the goal is to split the OSM2World codebase into several modules, allowing developers to use only the required module(s) as dependencies for their project. Dependencies of the core module will be reviewed for compatibility with other platforms, such as Android systems and servers. The goal is to replace or make optional dependencies that would prevent OSM2World from being used in other environments other than desktop computers.

To further encourage the use of OSM2World as a library in third-party projects, builds of the software will be made available as Maven dependencies through a suitable repository, and its interface will be improved to make it convenient to use in multiple programming languages, including Java and Kotlin.

More powerful map styles

A final goal is to improve OSM2World’s ability to support different map styles – similar to 2D map renderers, which typically allow the user to customize the visual appearance of the output with map styles specified in languages such as MapCSS. A map style would assign 3D models and textures to OpenStreetMap elements based on their attributes, and modify the appearance of the generated models according to the user’s requirements.

Software Sprint - Einzelvorhaben: OSM2World-3D-Modelle der Welt aus OpenStreetMap-Daten

Förderkennzeichen 01IS24S36

PTF on OSM2World