Mapping the world is a monumental, painstaking effort. Thousands of mappers have spent tens of thousands of hours meticulously adding data on the ground or by reviewing public satellite images and annotating features like roads, highways, and bridges by hand. With AI, these tasks can be done in far less time with a greater level of detail and accuracy. Using computer vision, roads or other features such as buildings can be generated directly from satellite imagery and converted into usable data. Last year, our Boston-based engineering team released Map With AI, a set of services and tools that includes the RapiD editor, an enhanced version of the popular OpenStreetMap (OSM) editing tool, iD. RapiD uses AI to speed up the process by suggesting AI-generated roads to mappers and allowing them to quickly add map data to OSM, the largest free and open map data source in the world.
Today, we are sharing new global coverage for RapiD in nearly every country in the world, a new partnership with Microsoft Buildings, and collaboration on a new Map With AI plugin to support Java OSM Editor (JOSM).