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Do I need an API key for my project?

6

I'm a Computer Science student at the University of Nottingham, in my third year, developing an Android app as my dissertation project.
I want to use OSM, instead of the standard googlemapview.
Do I need an API key to do this?

The app is my dissertation, and will never be distributed commercially.

Edit; I want to add data to the map, not only view it.

asked 12 Dec '11, 11:16

Ephemeros's gravatar image

Ephemeros
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edited 25 Nov '13, 14:50

aseerel4c26's gravatar image

aseerel4c26 ♦
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2 Answers:

9

There are a few APIs to consider:

The editing api lets you retrieve and edit raw data (including history). It require no "API key" but it requires a registered OSM user for any editing, and it probably looks at your http user agent.

The other apis are the generated-tiles viewing apis similar to googlemapview. A few exist, two popular ones being openlayers and leaflet. There are also special-purpose apis like nominatim. All of these usually require no more than a properly-setup http user agent (and reasonable usage of resources, but that should be no problem for a dissertation project).

answered 12 Dec '11, 12:20

Vincent%20de%20Phily's gravatar image

Vincent de P... ♦
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edited 12 Dec '11, 13:43

Jonathan%20Bennett's gravatar image

Jonathan Ben...
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1

See the answers to this question.

answered 12 Dec '11, 13:17

Richard's gravatar image

Richard ♦
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accept rate: 18%

Source code available on GitHub .