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?
@gandalf_der_12te it’s quite a common misconception that OpenStreetMap is a map, and arguably its name and the website showing a map don’t really help there.
But it really is just a database of coordinates and tags that describe features found and those coordinates. You can use this database to generate maps, and there are several projects that do this.
Another common misconception is that what Google and other big players call “Satellite” view or images is rarely 1/2
taken with satellites. You’d have clouds in the way, very low resolution, and other issues. The higher quality ones are aerial images and this is what people are usually looking for. There are a couple sources listed at https://osm.wiki/Vertical_Aerial_Photographs
Getting these to display in an application depends on the application, and there is no “OSM application” except for maybe the iD editor. Everything else is developed by third parties. 2/2
@gandalf_der_12te