HeiGIT

#FOSSGIS is coming to Heidelberg! 🎉

HeiGIT and the GIScience Research Group at Heidelberg University will be the local hosts of the FOSSGIS Conference 2027, in collaboration with the @FOSSGISeV@mastodon.online and the #OpenStreetMap community. The conference takes place from 9 to 13 March 2027.

You can submit talks, workshops, and other contributions until 1 November 2026 at https://fossgis-konferenz.de/2027/callforpapers/

We look forward to welcoming the FOSSGIS community to #Heidelberg next March.

#OpenSource #OpenData

New tool for risk assessments 📊🗺️

The 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗥𝗶𝘀𝗸 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗿 shows flood, cyclone and drought risk in 137 countries, to help identify priority areas for #DisasterManagement.

It combines hazard exposure, vulnerability and coping capacity into a total risk score.
In a few seconds, users can get risk maps and statistics at admin level.
You can also customize the risk assessments by using your own datasets and adjusting the weights.

Dashboard: https://disaster-risk-composer.heigit.org/
Blog: https://heigit.org/disaster-risk-composer-multi-hazard-risk-assessments/

The Sketch Map Tool is a low-tech solution for community mapping through offline collection, digitization, and georeferencing of local data. It simplifies the gathering and analysis of spatial knowledge and perceptions.

Base maps: #OpenStreetMap & satellite data or drone imagery from #OpenAerialMap.

It supports disaster risk assessment, urban planning, & the collection of local knowledge that official datasets often miss.
👉 https://sketch-map-tool.heigit.org/

#ParticipatoryMapping #WorldHabitatDay #GIS

What trees grow in your neighborhood? 🌳

We mapped 16.3 million individual trees across #BadenWürttemberg by genus to support ecologists, planners, and health researchers.
The dataset, code & training annotations are #opensource and designed to be adapted to other regions.

The dataset, code, and training annotations are open source and designed to be adapted to other regions and taxonomic schemes.

👉 Explore the research: https://heigit.org/new-paper-a-genus-labeled-dataset-of-individual-trees-in-baden-wurttemberg-germany/
#OpenData #ClimateAdaptation #Deutschland

🚲 Map of the Month - 30 km/h & Cycling in Bologna

Using the Climate Action Navigator, we took a closer look at Bologna’s cycling network. Almost 30% of cycling paths are shared with cars on roads with a 30 km/h speed limit. This provides an interesting perspective on how traffic regulation and cycling infrastructure come together — and how data can help us better understand changes in urban mobility.

Climate Action Navigator: https://climate-action.heigit.org/dashboard/plugin/hibike

#OpenStreetMap #ZeDay #WorldCarFreeDay

Introducing HeiSlime: Street-Level Imagery Mining Engine

In many cities, a single street appears in a large number of near-identical street-level images. HeiSlime, our new Python toolbox, uses #OpenStreetMap context to select the images that are useful for an analysis before a computer vision model processes them. Configurable filters remove redundant, low-quality, or irrelevant photos and save computing time.

https://heigit.org/introducing-heislime-street-level-imagery-mining-engine/

#StreetLevelImagery #Panoramax #ComputerVision #OpenData

Today is the International Day for Universal Access to Information.

In #OpenStreetMap, every edit carries a contributor, so the data & its history are open. Volunteers working through @TheMissingMaps@mastodon.social & @mapswipe@floss.social, together with local mapping communities, write that history. Universal access to information is built by #opendata initiatives.

We keep our own data flows traceable as well, so anyone using our results can see where the data came from.

#IDUAI #HumantarianMapping

We estimated CO2 emissions from residential heating across Germany at 100 m resolution, using #opendata: census data, building age, & heating energy carriers.
🔸 Cities emit most in total but often less per person than rural areas, thanks to smaller homes & more district heating.
🔸Over half of residential buildings predate 1979, which still shows in their heating demand.
🔸Nearly 80% heat with gas, oil, coal or wood, so switching energy carriers could cut emissions fast.

👉 https://heigit.org/new-paper-residential-heating-emissions-tool-in-the-climate-action-navigator-high-resolution-estimation-based-on-open-data/

The European cities with the most heat stress days have the least shade along their cycle paths. 🚴

For the 2026 Europe Cities Report of the #LancetCountdown, HeiGIT researchers measured tree shade along cycling infrastructure in 885 European cities using OpenStreetMap and tree canopy data.

Across all 885 cities, mean tree canopy cover along cycling paths came to 17.2%, and the hottest cities fall well below that.

👉 https://heigit.org/how-heat-resilient-is-cycling-infrastructure-in-european-cities/
#ClimateAction #ActiveMobility #OpenStreetMap

RE: @KlausTschiraStiftung@stiftungen.social

Thank you to all participants for the insightful exchange and to @KlausTschiraStiftung@stiftungen.social for hosting the workshop and creating such a positive environment to discuss ideas.
In these two intense days, we gathered new valuable perspectives for researching #GHGemissions and further developing the #ClimateActionNavigator https://climate-action.heigit.org/

With shadow data, we are building tools for climate-resilient urban planning.

We have released free, high-resolution shade data for 136 cities across 44 European countries.
hiShade shows how shade is distributed across a walkable network at four times of day.
Our routing tool calculates walking routes that steer away from sun-exposed streets.

Neither needs sensor infrastructure or national elevation data.

https://heigit.org/shadow-data-for-climate-resilient-urban-planning/

#ClimateAdaptation #UrbanPlanning #HeatResilience #OSM

What makes a street a place people want to walk? 🚶

HeiGIT and the Walk21 Foundation have expanded hiWalk assessment tool with new indicators for tree shade, path lighting, tactile paving and nearby amenities.

hiWalk, part of the open-source Climate Action Navigator, goes beyond counting kilometers of pedestrian infrastructure and asks what makes walking attractive in a neighborhood.

Explore the new indicators: https://heigit.org/what-makes-a-place-walkable-expanding-the-way-we-measure-walkability/

#ClimateAction #Cities

On #WorldHumanitarianDay, we honor the humanitarian workers and communities who turn data into action. 🌍

At HeiGIT, we support humanitarian work by linking global geospatial information with local knowledge, capacity building, and turning raw data into actionable insights for anticipatory action. This includes MapSwipe, the Sketch Map Tool, OpenAccessLens, and our #GIS Training Platform.

Take a look at our video to learn more: https://youtube.com/shorts/wO4oE0gnvvk?feature=share

#HumanitarianAction

How reliable is #OpenStreetMap data for routing? 🚙

In our tests with @BKG@social.bund.de, OSM always finds a route, but the reliability of the data comes down to three factors: data availability, currentness, and route centrality.

In our latest blog post, we take a closer look at routing distance and travel time estimations and explain what drives the differences between OSM and commercial alternatives like Google Maps, with the help of the ohsome dashboard:

🔗 https://heigit.org/openstreetmap-data-as-a-basis-for-routing-how-well-does-it-really-work/
#OpenData #GIS

It´s been a fun and insightful week at the #FOSSGIS2026 in Göttingen. See you again next year... in Heidelberg!

Thank you @FOSSGISeV@mastodon.online, @osgeo@fosstodon.org and @unigoettingen@academiccloud.social for organizing such a huge and successful meetup of the DACH free and #opensource #GIS community.

Here are the session recordings, in case you missed any: https://media.ccc.de/b/conferences/geo/fossgis2026

We are now looking forward to being the local host of the FOSSGIS conference 2027 and welcoming the community at Heidelberg University.

#FOSSGIS

Street-level imagery offers a unique human scale for #GeoAI.
Until recently, access to street-level images was dominated by Google Street View.
Now, crowdsourced platforms like #Panoramax are widening the field, enabling anyone with a smartphone or dash cam to upload images and support faster, more inclusive mapping.

We have been combining #DeepLearning techniques and street-level images to enhance disaster response in underserved regions.
Our results: https://heigit.org/streetscape-intelligence-geoai-at-eye-level/

#openrouteservice (ORS) releases a v 10.0.0

We upgraded to Java 25 & Spring Boot 4, reduced the release artifacts to a fat jar & Docker images. The slim Docker image now runs on a hardened distroless Debian 13 base.

ORS is our free & open source routing engine built on #OpenStreetMap data. It delivers directions, isochrones and distance matrices, & it supports heat-resilient mobility & custom routing for humanitarian logistics.

https://heigit.org/openrouteservice-10-0-0-amalthea-release/