There’s a mapping party in Seattle July 26th to help build out Open Street Maps’s (OSM) coverage here.  If you’re in the Seattle area that day stop by to contribute to this fantastic resource. If you have a GPS device bring it along but its not necessary as there will be loaners available. Save the date on your calendar then check back here to get the meet up spot to kick things off. Hopefully the weather is just as fantastic as it has been this week.

Not Familiar with OSM? The Open Street Map  project is a very ambitious attempt to create a user contributed vector map of the entire world. I’ve been following the project for the last couple of years and they have made amazing progress! There are a number of ways to contribute to the project (online editing, solo uploads, etc…) but one of the most fun is a mapping party; a bunch of folks coordinate to drive a city with GPS’s and upload their collective data to the system.

The map data maintained by OSM is freely accessible to anyone. You can download the data and build your own renderer if you wish. Or you can use tiles pre-rendered by OSM. Here are some links to get to know OSM -

• Try it. Map of Microsoft in Redmond. Or London.
• Read about Open Street Map at Wikipedia
• OSM FAQ
• Info on previous mapping party in Bristol