Editing Your Own OpenStreet Maps

Joey Bernard — Fri, 05 May 2017 15:16:10 +0000

JOSM (Java OpenStreetMaps) editor is a tool you can use to create your own maps. This tool allows you to build your own maps based on data from OpenStreetMaps, other online sources or your own data. You can make edits, add annotations and upload your results back on to the OpenStreetMaps server.

There are two ways you can run JOSM. The first is to install it on your system. If you have it within your package management system, you may want to install that way so any required dependencies are installed automatically. For example, the following command will install it on Debian-based systems:


sudo apt-get install josm josm-plugins

Notice that the above command also installs the package of plugins for JOSM. A large number of plugins are available from the community on the main project's website. And, if you want the latest version of JOSM, you can download a jar file from the project's website.

The second way to run JOSM is actually using a Java Web Start package. You simply launch the JNLP file, again from the main project's website.

Once you have started JOSM, in whichever way you have chosen to launch it, you will get a window with an information panel about updates and startup information. There also are links to online help information and the community forums.

Figure 1. When you first start JOSM, you get an information panel.

Now you can start creating your first map. The easiest way to get started is to download OpenStreetMap data as a starting point. Clicking on the File→Download from OSM menu item will pop up a new window where you can select an area to use as your map base.

Figure 2. You can select and download an area of the Earth as your map base.

At the top of this window, you can choose what data to download. The choices are OSM data, raw GPS data and additional notes. Within the map window, you can pan around to the area of interest and zoom in to an appropriate level. You then click and drag with your mouse to select a box of the area that you want to use in your map. Be careful with how big a bounding box you select, because the data server limits how much data you can pull at once. Luckily, you will get a warning at the bottom of the window if the bounding box is too large.

Go to Full Article

The Past, Present and Future of GIS: PostGIS 2.0 Is Here!

Stefano Iacovella — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 17:17:37 +0000

by Stefano Iacovella

Extend PostgreSQL's capabilities with PostGIS 2.0 and discover all the magic of spatial databases.

Even if you're unfamiliar with GIS, I am pretty sure you know what Web mapping is. GIS stands for geographical information systems, and it originated in the early 1970s as a set of tools and techniques for scientists (cartographers, land planners and biologists). Since then, the field has been experiencing an amazing evolution, as in many other computer-related fields. One of the most revolutionary things is that now maps, and especially Web mapping, are a common experience for millions of people in everyday life. Not only in the past few years have we seen people using more and more mapping apps, there has been an explosion in personal Web mapping. Today, a lot of blogs and personal Web sites have maps.

What Is PostGIS?

So, what's special with spatial data? Not really very much—a lot of data has location references (think of your address book as a trivial example), but the spatial component is not really organized. When you want to organize your spatial data, you need to do it with the proper tools.

Spatial data, as all other data types, needs to be stored somewhere. An RDBMS is a great tool for storing, processing and analyzing huge amounts of data, but you will need an RDBMS with a spatial extension if you are going to go this route. Do you know a great open-source RDBMS? I bet you do. Many of us commonly use MySQL in Web applications, but when it comes to spatial data, it's not the first choice. Your friend when it comes to spatial data is PostGIS, an amazing companion of PostgreSQL.

I'm sure you've heard of PostgreSQL. It's probably the most famous open-source RDBMS, and LJ has covered it often in the past. If you're not familiar with it though, check out Reuven M. Lerner's "PostgreSQL 9.0" in the April 2011 issue of LJ (http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10986).

PostGIS is not a new project. It started in 2001 and reached maturity at release 1.0 in 2006. On April 3, 2012, 2.0 was released. Version 2.0 is a major shift, and it indeed broke backward compatibility. PostGIS developers were forced to cause this break because of a new serialization (see Resources). On June 22, 2012, version 2.0.1 was released, a bug-fixing release, and this is the latest release at the time of this writing.

Installing PostGIS

Whether or not you have PostgreSQL installed on your Linux box, getting PostGIS up and running is really simple. You can download the source code and compile it yourself, which isn't hard, but it's not really necessary for a first look at PostGIS. If you love compiling, take a look at the reference material—the official documentation is very detailed and complete. There also are lots of blog posts from the community about custom installations.

Go to Full Article