Tips on using JOSM for Aussies
Part of the Tips especially for Aussies, this page is all about using JOSM. It's a selection of tips culled from the mailing list, which may or may not relate directly to Australia mapping. Check out the JOSM/Guide for a more general introduction to the editor.
Start by making a bookmark or two for your own area
- First of all open a local GPS track in JOSM, select a small area and then go to download map data. Choose bookmark > Add > and then give it a usable name like Home_Town.
- Right click and save a location link from www.openstreetmap.org or www.informationfreeway.org, then paste into JOSM, to easily get an initial JOSM view. Don't forget to save a JOSM bookmark.
Put the location link into the Download > Download Area > Bounding Box tab, in the box under "URL from www.openstreetmap.org".
Make a Way From Your GPS Track
- The basic principle is that the tracklogs provide an underlying area over which to "trace" the road, using the JOSM draw nodes tool.
- See also Convert a Tracklog to Data Automatically
- Tracklogs should be uploaded to OSM, as they:
- 1) provide evidence of how the data was collected;
- 2) when others upload tracklogs for the same road they allow you to note variances due to GPS errors and correct the original mapping
Joining Nodes
- To join two existing nodes, use select mode (shortcut s) to select one node. Change to Draw nodes mode (shortcut n) and click on the other node. Sometime it will make a new way, sometimes it will extend an existing one.
- To join two (or more) ways, select them, then on the tools menu click on combine ways. Note that it is a lot more picky about what ways can be joined than it used to be. You can't join a way in a T or Y shape, for example. Before, that wasn't a problem.
- It won't even allow a P shape, although that can be described a single string of nodes, so it must have some rule about only the first and last node are allowed to be the same (because you can make an circle).
Make An Area
- To show a Car Park
Create a circular way that loops back on itself, but make sure all of the segments point in the same direction. Then, tag it amenity=parking.
Make An Island
- Draw an area, with land on the left (go anticlockwise)
- natural=land
- Mark it layer=1 if it doesn't render properly
De-select in JOSM
It was Ctrl-Shift-A but my latest JOSM has U instead. I have placed an icon for this on my toolbar because I need it so often.
Dual Carriageway
Name each side of the road. [Relations/Proposed/Dual carriageways] is the proposal for using Relations to deal with the road labelling.
A good dual carriageway example is shown at [1]
DuplicateWay Plugin
- Not available for current versions of JOSM
- Select one road, click duplicate way, then click off to the side of the way the distance you want the new way offset and it creates a perfectly aligned new way following the old one.
Mark No Right Turn
Not yet available. This is the proposal Relations/Proposed/Turn Restrictions
Draw the end of a cul-de-sac
This is now highway=turning_circle, on the final node. It renders on the osmarender map. Some people draw a little loop, but this won't be necessary now, but can be done if the shape or size of the turning area is significant.
Roads Intersecting a Dual Carriageway
- Put a node on both carriageways and extend the side street to merge with both nodes. Name the segment of road which crosses a dual carriageway. Tag it the same as the cross-road.
- If you have a side road that connects to only one side (ie, turn left only), then you can connect to just one side of the dual road and that shows properly.
- If you have the ability to turn into the side road from the other side of the main road, but not turn right out of the side road, then you make the little connecting piece a separate way with a one way marker on it. It won't show up well on a visual map (unless it is really zoomed) but should work well with routing software.
- If there are different named roads on each side suggestions are
- Leave it unnamed
- Pick one road and name it that
- Make the cross piece an xxx_link (to match the divided road) and leave it unnamed
Mangroves and Coastline
There isn't a render for tag natural=marsh yet. Current data in OSM has the coastline rendered at the sea edge of the mangroves and the mangroves marked as areas tagged natural=marsh. Update: tag mangroves as "natural:wetland", "wetland:mangrove"; put tags on a multipolygon relation, with coastline segments being part of that relation.
Delete Unnecessary Nodes
- Install the UtilsPlugin from the Plugins tab of preferences.
- Adjust with this preference added to Advanced Preferences
- simplify-way.max-error=2.5
- a higher value gives more simplification
JOSM out of memory error
Try setting the java heap size with
- java -Xms512m -Xmx512m josm.jar
- adjust the values until you get a working setup
