Improve the Map

Your OpenStreetMap account

Every answer goes to OpenStreetMap under your own OpenStreetMap account, not a shared DMD one: OpenStreetMap asks for one person per account, so that local mappers can see who made a change and write to them about it. Your edits are credited to you, and DMD appears as the app that made them.

1. No account yet? Create one for free on your phone or computer at openstreetmap.org/user/new.
2. In DMD2, open Map Settings → Improve the Map and tap Sign In. OpenStreetMap’s sign-in page opens in the browser; after you allow DMD2, you come back to the app signed in.
3. A unit without a browser: tap Sign In Inside the App to sign in on OpenStreetMap’s page inside DMD2 (with your OpenStreetMap username or email and password).

Your sign-in stays on this device only: it is not part of your profile sync or your backups. Sign Out on the same page forgets it. You can also withdraw DMD2’s access at any time from your OpenStreetMap account settings.

While riding: the Improve the Map panel

The riding panel is made for the handlebar remote first, and it is laid out like the Remote Controller Menu and the HUB’s group details: it opens in the side panel next to the map, with the six questions on a rail down its left and the answers beside them. In portrait the map keeps the top half, the panel takes the bottom half, and the questions sit on a bar along its foot. Open it from Quick Actions → Improve Map, the tile beside Report Map, or from the Remote Controller Menu → Improve the Map (in the Save family), or assign Improve the Map to the map’s Shortcut button (long-press it to choose). Opened from Quick Actions or the Remote Controller Menu, the Quick Actions button shows the blue close button while the panel is up; opened from the Shortcut, the Shortcut does.

Or switch on the Improve the Map Button in Map Settings → Map Overlays: a round button on the map that opens and closes the panel, lights up while it is open, and shows how many answers are waiting to be sent. Drag and resize it in Position Elements like the other map buttons.

On the Surface question: the big row is what OK saves. Before the first GPS fix the header says Waiting for GPS…; once there is one, it names the road under you, and the heading says what the map has for it.

• The six questions are the rail’s entries, each with its own colour, under short names (Rough is Condition, Track is Track Type). The rail lights the question you are on and the list shows its answers. The heading over them says what DMD’s map has for the road under you, for example Map: Gravel, and that answer carries a Map tag.
• On a screen too short for six labelled entries, the rail shows the icons only.
• The header reads like the report panel’s: OpenStreetMap, Improve the Map, then the road DMD’s map has under you — On: N-222, On a track — or Waiting for GPS… while there is no fix yet.
• The selected answer is the big row, filled with its question’s colour. Press OK and it is saved: the voice confirms (“Gravel saved”) and the panel shows it with a big Undo button for five seconds.
• Then the list comes back on the next question you have not answered yet, so you can tell the map about the whole road in a few presses; answered questions carry a tick on the rail. When every question has an answer, the panel closes.
• Left alone on the list, the panel closes after 12 seconds, or with the ×. Touch works too: drag the list to scroll it, tap an answer to save it, a question on the rail to jump to it.
• Nothing is sent while you ride. Answers wait on the device until you review and send them.

The questions

Every button stands for one OpenStreetMap tag, chosen to match what OpenStreetMap’s own documentation says about each value.

Your vehicle

OpenStreetMap describes how rough a road is by the vehicles that can still use it, for motorcycles and for four-wheelers alike. In Map Settings → Improve the Map → Your Vehicle, choose Motorcycles or 4x4 & Cars (cars, 4x4s, vans, RVs, ATVs and SSVs). Until you choose, DMD2 goes by your last “What did you ride?” answer when you saved a recording. It only changes the words on the Condition buttons: OpenStreetMap gets the same value either way.

Improve This Road

Parked, or planning at home: long-press a road on the map to open Location Info, which lists what DMD’s map knows about the road, then tap More Actions → Improve. The page shows the road and what the map says about it, then every question as a row of buttons. Tap an answer to save it; tap it again to take it back. Signs toggle one by one, and each report is its own note at the spot you pressed.

Your answers. DMD’s map shows what you sent only after its next update. Until then, the page lists your own answers for that road under what the map says, for example “Surface: Gravel · sent Oct 5” or “Condition: Dual-Sport · waiting to be sent”, so you can see it is done and need not answer again.

EM 210, with two answers picked (Touring and Two Lanes). Each one is saved as you tap it; Done just closes the page.

Missing tracks

Riding a track that is not on the map? Tell OpenStreetMap where it runs. Where the track leaves the map, open the riding panel and press OK on Report → Missing Track. DMD2 records the track as you ride it: the voice says “Recording a missing track”, and the panel’s Report entry becomes Stop Missing Track, marked Rec with the distance so far. At the track’s end, press OK on Stop Missing Track.

• The track waits in Map Settings → Improve the Map with your other answers, showing how long it is, until you send it.
• Under 50 m nothing is saved: that is GPS wander, not a track. Undo on the card that confirms the start throws the recording away.
• A recording you forget stops by itself after 30 km or 3 hours, and when the ride ends. It runs whether or not Improve the Map mode is on.
• While it records, the riding panel opens on Stop Missing Track.

Off the map. With Improve the Map mode on, DMD2 notices when you have ridden about 300 m where its map shows no road (only where a downloaded map covers the area). It asks once, by voice — “Off the map. Record a missing track?” — with a pop-up you can tap for 12 seconds; with the riding panel open, Report says Off the map and Missing Track comes first. Say yes and the recording starts from where the road ended, with the stretch you have already ridden. Let it pass and DMD2 stays quiet for 10 minutes.

From a recorded ride. Rode it with the GPX Recorder on, but without recording a missing track? Long-press the road where the track leaves it and tap Report → Missing Track on Improve This Road. DMD2 looks through your recorded rides that pass there. If one went down a track where its map shows no road, the page says so — “Your ride on Oct 6, 11:59 AM went down it: 0.3 mi where DMD’s map has no road” — and that stretch goes with the report, exactly like a missing track recorded as you rode it. When several rides went down it, the newest is used; tap another ride to use that one instead. Otherwise the note marks the spot only, and the page says why: no recorded ride passes there, your rides there stay on roads DMD’s map has, or no downloaded map covers the area.

When you send, DMD2 first checks OpenStreetMap along the whole stretch. If a road runs there by now, nothing is sent and the answer shows Already there. Otherwise a note opens where the track leaves the mapped roads, saying how far it runs and where it ends.

Gates and fords on the map

In OpenStreetMap a gate or a ford is a point on the road. When DMD2 can tell exactly where that point is, a Gate or Ford report can go on the map as one, instead of a note:

• A gate where a fence, wall or hedge on the map crosses the road, or on the road where you stopped (or where you pressed the road on the map).
• A ford where a stream, river or ditch on the map crosses the road. Where the map has a bridge or a culvert there, it stays a note.

Nothing goes on the map without your yes. When you send, the answer waits under Needs a look and says where it would go — “where the fence crosses the road”, “where you stopped”. Add to Map puts it there with the next Send; As a Note sends a note for local mappers instead, for a spot you are not sure of. If OpenStreetMap already has a gate or ford there, nothing is added. Anything less certain — a gate passed at speed, a ford with no stream on the map, a junction, a main road — goes as a note, as before.

Each one is its own changeset, with a comment such as “Gate where a fence crosses a track, surveyed on a motorcycle ride”. Undo takes it back off the map, as long as nobody has changed it since.

Review and send

Map Settings → Improve the Map shows what is waiting at the top, with the Send to OpenStreetMap button, and lists Your Answers below, newest first. Each answer shows its state:

• Waiting — saved, goes out with the next Send. Remove deletes it.
• Needs a look — the app wants your yes first, and says why (see below). Send It or Remove; a gate or ford that can go on the map offers Add to Map, As a Note or Remove, and an answer about part of a long road Whole Road, Only What I Rode or Remove.
• In OpenStreetMap / Note sent / On the map — sent; Undo for 12 hours. A missing track sent with its trace also shows GPS trace.
• Mapper replied / Closed by a mapper — another mapper commented on your note or on the edit, or closed the note after mapping it. The card quotes them and says where; Open shows it on openstreetmap.org, where you can answer. DMD2 looks for replies when you open this page, for two months after you send.
• Already there / Already reported — OpenStreetMap had it, so nothing was sent.
• Not sent — could not be applied, with the reason (for example, no road in OpenStreetMap at that spot).
• Taken back — undone.

Two answers waiting: Send to OpenStreetMap sends them all. Further down are Your Vehicle and the answer cards, each with its state and Remove.

Send groups your answers by area, one OpenStreetMap changeset per area, each with a plain comment such as “Surface and smoothness of 3 tracks, surveyed on a motorcycle ride”. After you finish a recording with answers waiting, a note on the map offers to open the review.

What is sent, and what waits for you

DMD’s maps carry no OpenStreetMap ids, so each answer is matched to the road in OpenStreetMap when you send. Then:

• Filling in something OpenStreetMap does not have yet is sent.
• Changing a value OpenStreetMap already has waits for your yes (“OpenStreetMap says Standard Bike here. Change it to Big ADV?”).
• The whole road: an answer applies to the whole road in OpenStreetMap. Roads up to 1 km take it straight away; on a longer one, your ride must have covered at least half of it (Improve the Map mode keeps that trail), or you confirm it. Or pick Only What I Rode: the road is split in OpenStreetMap where your ride began and ended, and only that part gets the answer. A part under 50 m, or a road that a turn restriction uses, is not split.
• Two roads close together, answers that contradict each other, or “Impassable” tapped at speed wait for a look.
• Signs always wait for your yes, and never lift a restriction OpenStreetMap already has.
• An answer needs a current GPS position, and a simulated ride never reaches OpenStreetMap.
• DMD2 never guesses: every change is an answer you gave, about a road you were on or pressed on the map.

Improve the Map mode

Improve the Map Mode (Map Settings → Improve the Map → While Riding) keeps a short trail of your rides on this device, so an answer can cover a whole long road. The trail is kept for 7 days and never leaves the device: it is not sent to OpenStreetMap or to the HUB. With the mode off, nothing is recorded, and you can still save and send answers. With the mode on, DMD2 also tells you when you ride off its map (see Missing tracks).

Undo

For 12 hours after sending, Undo on an answer puts back what OpenStreetMap had before, in a new changeset that says what it undoes. If someone has changed that road since, it is left alone. Undo on a report closes its note, with a comment that it was a mistake, and deletes a missing track’s GPS trace. Undo on a gate or ford on the map takes it back off, unless someone has changed it since. Undo on an answer for the part you rode takes it back off that part; the road stays split.

Good to know