Architecture and urban planning professionals have unmet demands for high quality geographical data, but a surprisingly small number have heard of OpenStreetMap. This talk will start by describing some of their barriers to using open geographical data, including a closed CAD ecosystem, arcane file formats and tools, and larger cultural and knowledge gaps between GIS and CAD.

I’ll then describe the implementation and evolution of CAD Mapper, a web service to generate editable, correctly scaled CAD format site plans of any area in the world, based on OpenStreetMap data. Since 2014, It’s served over 100,000 CAD files and has been used by more than 50,000 users worldwide.

I’ll cover the unique cartographic and workflow needs that I’ve identified through surveys and interactions with hundreds of CAD Mapper users. Finally, I’ll speculate on how this new perspective on OpenStreetMap could mobilize an enormous community of students and professionals to get involved in contributing and evaluating OSM data.