Comparison of editors
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| Help | About | Browsing | Editing | Upload |
Contents |
JOSM
- Summary
- JOSM offers a large set of features and useful tools for a wide range of editing styles: It will either read in GPX tracks from your hard disk, or download them from OSM. Aerial imagery can easily be downloaded as a background for tracing. JOSM also supports photo mapping and audio mapping. Once you have completed your edits, you can upload them to OSM.
- Pros
-
- Fast fluid panning and zooming. Near-infinite zooming for super-precise mapping.
- Can work offline using downloaded data files, and can work with local photo and GPX files
- Advanced editing functionality e.g. make nodes of a roundabout into a circle.
- Bing and other aerial imagery immediately available as backgrounds for tracing.
- Highly configurable and extendible via plugins.
- Cons
-
- The finer points of the interface take a while to learn.
- It requires Java 6 to work (not a big problem for most people)
Potlatch 2
- Summary
- Flash online editor.
- Pros
-
- It's right there on the 'Edit' tab
- It allows quick easy immediate editing. Map changes can be sent back to the server as you make them.
- Bing, OpenCycleMap and other imagery immediately available as backgrounds for tracing.
- GPS traces available as a separate layer
- Cons
-
- It's not intended for power users (who are already excellently served by JOSM) or those who want the speed of a desktop client.
- Zooming and panning prompts a map fetch (not as fluid)
- photo mapping and other file accessing features are not possible
- Requires Flash (not a big problem for most people)
- It is not possible to work fully offline
Potlatch 1
- Summary
- Old version of the Potlatch editor offering quite a different editing experience, but it has similar pros and cons as the current Potlatch 2.
- It is still available on the edit tab (hover over the tab with your mouse).
Merkaartor
- Summary
- Merkaartor is a small editor for OpenStreetMap available under the GNU General Public License and developed using the Qt toolkit.
- More information, screenshots and download
- Pros
-
- Has some unique features like transparent display of map features like roads and true curved roads.
- Intuitive user interface
- Binaries for Windows, Mac OS X and some Linux platforms are available. Source for the rest.
- Easy to set up satellite imagery from Bing or any other WMS source.
- Tag styles can be customized
- Save rendered maps as SVG or bitmap graphic
- Cons
-
- Merkaartor is under early development, which make new and exciting features available only by grabbing the source.
- Albeit under development (and it's not bad at all) it is very memory hungry and can freeze the machine while page-swapping (lots of disk activity)
Quantum GIS
- Pros
-
- Very comprehensive GIS program
- Free
- Cons
-
- Not focused on OpenStreetMap editing
ArcGIS
- Summary
- Esri has released a plugin for editing OSM data.
- Can be downloaded from: http://esriosmeditor.codeplex.com
- Pros
-
- Industry standard GIS Program
- Very comprehensive GIS capabilities
- Cons
-
- Expensive
- Works only with ArcGIS 10
- Editing relations are not supported
See also
- Editing - list of different editors (many others not described here)
- Software - list of other software categories including mobile apps (some of which have editing functionality)
- Comparison of discontinued editors - old sections moved off this page
- Component overview - Technical overview of OpenStreetMap showing how editors fit in
