Fetch imagery weekly

[arch0345]

Description

Currently, iD only fetches imagery from editor-layer-index before each minor release. Since the last release that updated imagery was over four months ago, many sources that have been added/updated since then are not available for those that use iD. It would be nice to have the imagery list updated independent of iD releases similar to id-tagging-schema, osm-community-index, and name-suggestion-index.

Since it looks like a prior attempts to version the index itself weren't successful, I propose creating a new repository that fetches imagery from ELI weekly. This repository would function in a similar way to how name-suggestion-index uses the nsi-collector repo to periodically collect common brands/operators from the OSM planet file.

Here's a proof of concept I made

See also:

• Fetch frequently updated resources instead of bundling them #4994
• Replace editor-layer-index with @ideditor/imagery-index #7425
• Regular releases with updated ELI #8466

Edit: Started writing this yesterday and didn't notice #9729 which seems to touch on the same issue

[bhousel]

I’ve already built this thing like twice and #7425 is the thing to switch to.

Please PM me on Slack for the full story on what happened.

[Nekzuris]

This desperately needs to move on, imagery is now even more frequently updated than it was 4 years ago.

[gy-mate]

Please PM me on Slack for the full story on what happened.

@bhousel Could you please give as a summary on this? Unfortunately I don't have an osmus.slack.com account.

[gy-mate]

@arch0345 The TODO is to...

1. ask the OSMF if they like this improvement and would like to proceed with the steps below
2. transfer the ownership of https://github.com/arch0345/eli-collector to https://github.com/osmlab
3. set up a cron job that runs https://github.com/arch0345/eli-collector/blob/1ac9772d637331afcb0dfa9677b77dfce9096565/scripts/update_imagery.js and https://github.com/arch0345/eli-collector/blob/1ac9772d637331afcb0dfa9677b77dfce9096565/scripts/bump_version.js periodically (e.g. every day)
4. make references of https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD/blob/f00fa14b90f7c9dc2789a701bfa06a6db40b8065/data/imagery.json point to the same file in the transferred repo instead?

[k-yle]

or alternatively: osmlab/editor-layer-index#2530

[gy-mate]

Nice, that looks like a better solution to me! :)

So the TODOs are to...

1. review and merge add CI script to automatically update a git tag osmlab/editor-layer-index#2530
2. make references of https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD/blob/f00fa14b90f7c9dc2789a701bfa06a6db40b8065/data/imagery.json point to the latest version (tag) of https://github.com/osmlab/editor-layer-index/blob/35638fef8bbfa57f76d3db1fdc46c2048d35f33d/imagery.json.

[danieldegroot2]

Mentioned in ID/Community Chats - 2nd_July_2025.

See also osmlab/editor-layer-index#2625 / osmlab/editor-layer-index#538