Project: OpenStreetMap history videos

Introduction

One of my hobbies is OpenStreetMap, a crowdsourced map website (sort of like wikipedia).

Several years ago, someone wrote a neat bit of software which could show you the history of any part of OpenStreetMap as people edited it over the years: https://github.com/MaZderMind/osm-history-renderer

The software stack has changed a bit since then. Recently I dusted that off and updated it a bit so it can handle the latest version of OpenStreetMap: https://github.com/jdmonin/osm-history-renderer/tree/use-carto

To make it easier for others to use, I've also barely Dockerized it: https://github.com/jdmonin/osm-history-renderer-toolbox

Example videos

• Downtown Buffalo, NY
• Lockport, NY
• University of Buffalo: North Campus

How they're made

If you're curious, here's the process for making these:

• Decide which area you want to render history for, using the OpenStreetMap website
• Download history file for that area's surrounding region from the "internal" area of https://osm-internal.download.geofabrik.de/
• Extract the history of the smaller area you want to render, or its surrounding metropolitan area
• Import that smaller history file into a PostGIS database
• Render a timespan to PNGs and make a video with a program like ffmpeg

To try it yourself, see the docs and links at https://github.com/jdmonin/osm-history-renderer-toolbox

Enjoy!

-Jeremy Monin