ok so i’m trying to understand the structure of the whole OSM project. i generally like it but it’s confusing and i’m confused.
i’m specifically looking for satellite image data (landscape as seen from above, no infrastructure data, just real photography). i like satellite images a lot because it provides a much better feel for the landscape than infrastructure data alone. such as: how many trees are there, how much nature is there around, …
does OSM itself do this? (ideally without having to be logged in)
i found OpenMapTiles which seems to also provide satellite data; but i’m not sure what their relation to OSM is. are they a separate project?
No, OpenStreetMap has no aerial imagery of their own.
Editors like iD and JOSM and end-user apps like OsmAnd rely on third-party imagery for overlays, and the most prominent among these is Bing.
OpenStreetMap under the hood is simply a database of key–value pairs assigned to nodes, lines, polygons, and “relations” between those three.
Edit: And yes, OpenMapTiles is a separate thing, and any of its aerial imagery would also not be its own. It’s prohibitively difficult for but a few select organizations to maintain aerial imagery like that. You can read more here.