This session will detail how you can use data from the open, crowd-sourced mapping project OpenStreetMap to populate your own database and write your own simple API. Attendees are assumed to have some web development experience.

This is a joint event with the BCS Hampshire Branch, BCS Open Source SG and Solent University.

Free and open to both BCS and Non-BCS Members, but please booking essential as limited numbers via nick.whitelegg@solent.ac.uk.

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is an international, crowd-sourced project to map the entire world. Volunteers contribute to the map by walking, cycling or driving along paths and roads with GPS devices, or tracing outlines of buildings and landscape features from aerial imagery. The really powerful thing, however, about OSM is the data itself – which is free and open and available for use by third-party applications. This practical session will provide a brief introduction to OSM and demonstrate how you can set up your own database with OSM data and write a simple web API to query the database.

Attendees are expected to have some server-side web development experience and should have basic command-line skills.

Dr Nick Whitelegg is a senior lecturer in Computing (Web Development) at Southampton Solent University and teaches on a range of undergraduate software development courses including Android and web development. He has contributed software and data to the OpenStreetMap mapping project and has developed an open source mapping site and associated tools for walkers.