OpenStreetMap AI

RapID is an open-source AI-assisted map editor for OpenStreetMap (OSM) that streamlines the process of adding roads and buildings to the world’s map. Developed by Meta (formerly Facebook) in collaboration with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, RapID saves mappers the effort of manually drawing map geometry by using AI to predict features from high-resolution satellite imagery. The tool uses deep neural networks to identify "road-like" pixels and Microsoft's Global ML Building Footprints to suggest structures. Unlike a fully automated process, RapID keeps a human "in the loop": the AI suggests a feature (highlighted in magenta), and the user must review and manually accept it before it is added to the official OSM database. This ensures high data quality while significantly accelerating the mapping of rural or crisis-prone regions. The latest version, RapID v2, features a modernized rendering engine that is 10 times faster than the original. It is widely used by humanitarian groups to create authoritative, public, and AI-derived data for disaster planning and community development.