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    OpenStreet Map

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    silversurfsyd
    This document provides a tutorial for searching and downloading OpenStreetMap data and using it in QGIS. It describes using plugins to search for London, download the map data for that area, import it into QGIS as layers, and extract only the pub location points to a new shapefile layer. The process involves searching for London on OSM, downloading the map data, converting it to a spatialite database, exporting the point features to a layer, querying that layer to select only pubs, and saving the pub locations to a new shapefile.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    OpenStreet Map

    Uploaded by

    silversurfsyd
    77 views17 pages
    This document provides a tutorial for searching and downloading OpenStreetMap data and using it in QGIS. It describes using plugins to search for London, download the map data for that area, import it into QGIS as layers, and extract only the pub location points to a new shapefile layer. The process involves searching for London on OSM, downloading the map data, converting it to a spatialite database, exporting the point features to a layer, querying that layer to select only pubs, and saving the pub locations to a new shapefile.

    Original Description:

    Open Street Map Data

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    This document provides a tutorial for searching and downloading OpenStreetMap data and using it in QGIS. It describes using plugins to search for London, download the map data for that area, import it into QGIS as layers, and extract only the pub location points to a new shapefile layer. The process involves searching for London on OSM, downloading the map data, converting it to a spatialite database, exporting the point features to a layer, querying that layer to select only pubs, and saving the pub locations to a new shapefile.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    77 views17 pages

    OpenStreet Map

    Uploaded by

    silversurfsyd
    This document provides a tutorial for searching and downloading OpenStreetMap data and using it in QGIS. It describes using plugins to search for London, download the map data for that area, import it into QGIS as layers, and extract only the pub location points to a new shapefile layer. The process involves searching for London on OSM, downloading the map data, converting it to a spatialite database, exporting the point features to a layer, querying that layer to select only pubs, and saving the pub locations to a new shapefile.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    You are on page 1of 17

    Searching and Downloading OpenStreetMap Data

    QGIS Tutorials and Tips

    Author
    Ujaval Gandhi
    http://www.spatialthoughts.com

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
    Searching and Downloading OpenStreetMap Data
    Getting high quality data is essential for any GIS task. One great resource for free
    and openly licensed data is OpenStreetMap(OSM) . The OSM database consits of
    streets, local data as well as building polygons. Getting access to OSM data in a GIS
    format is integrated in QGIS. This tutorial explains the process for searching,
    downloading and using OSM data in QGIS.

    Overview of the task


    Search for London in OSM database, browse and select a part of the city, and extract
    all pub locations as a shapefile.

    Procedure

    1. We will use 2 plugins to accomplish the task. Make sure you have installed
    OSM Place Search and OpenLayers plugins. See Using Plugins for
    instructions on downloading plugins.

    2. The OSM Place Search plugin will install itself as a Panel in QGIS. You will see
    a new panel titled OSM place search... in QGIS.
    3. The OpenLayers plugin is installed under the Plugin menu. This plugin allows
    you to access basemaps from various providers in QGIS. Let's load the
    OpenStreetMap basemap in QGIS by going to Plugins ‣ OpenLayers plugin ‣
    Add OpenStreetMap layer.
    4. You will see a world map loaded in QGIS.

    Note
    If you do not see any data - make sure you are online - as the basemap tiles are
    fetched from the internet. You can also use the Pan tool to move the map canvas
    slightly, which will trigger a refresh of the basemap.
    5. Now, let's search for London. Type the query in the Name contains... box in the
    OSM Place Search panel. You can hover over the results and the appropriate
    place will be highlighted on the map. Select the first result - which the city of
    London in UK - and click the Zoom button.
    6. You will see the base layer move and center around the city of London. You can
    use the Zoom tool to zoom and select the exact area of your interest. For this
    tutorial, you can zoom in the center of the city as shown.
    7. Now we can download the data displayed on the map canvas. Go to Vector ‣
    OpenStreetMap ‣ Downlod data.
    8. In the Download OpenStreetMap data dialog, choose From map canvas as the
    Extent. Choose the path and name the output file as london.osm.
    9. The downloaded file with the .osm extension is an text file in the OSM XML
    format. We first need to convert it into a suitable format that is easy to
    consume in QGIS. Go to Vector ‣ OpenStreetMap ‣ Import topology from XML.

    Note
    Now that we do not need the OSM Place Search functionality, you can click the
    close button to remove it from the main window. If you need to use it again, you
    can enable it from View ‣ Panels ‣ OSM place search... (Windows) or Settings ‣
    Panels ‣ OSM place search... (Linux).

    10. Choose the downloaded london.osm as the Input XML file. Name the Output
    SpatiaLite DB file as london.osm.db. Make sure the Create connection
    (SpatiaLite) after import button is checked.
    11. Now the last step. We need to create SpatialLite geometry layers that can be
    viewed and analyzed in QGIS. This is done using Vector ‣ OpenStreetMap ‣
    Export topology to SpatialLite.

    12. The london.osm.db file contains all feature types in the OSM database -
    Points, Lines and Polygons. GIS layers typically contain only one type of
    feature, so you need to choose one. Since we are interested in point locations
    of pubs, here you need to choose Point (nodes) as the Export type. You would
    choose Polylines (open ways) if you wanted to get the road network. Name the
    Output layer name as london_points. GIS data has 2 parts to it - location and
    attributes. We are also interested in the name of the pub - not just its location,
    so we need to export that information as well. Click on Load from DB under
    Exported tags section. This will fetch all attributes from the london.osm.db
    file. Check name and amenity tags. See OSM Tags to learn more about what
    each attribute means. Make sure the Load into canvas when finished is
    checked, and click OK.

    13. You will see a new point layer named london_points loaded in QGIS. Note
    that this contains ALL points in the OSM database for the viewport. Since we
    are interested only in pubs, we need to write a query to select only those. Right
    click on london_points layer and select Open Attribute Table.
    14. You will note that some features have the attribute value of pubs listed under
    the amenity column. Click on Select features using an expression button.
    15. Enter the expression "amenity" = 'pub' and click Select.
    16. Back in the QGIS Canvas, you will see some points highlighted in yellow. These
    are the result of our query. Right-click the london_points layer and choose
    Save Selection As....

    17. In the Save vector layer as... dialog, enter the name of the output file as
    london_pubs.shp. Leave all other options as they are and make sure the Add
    saved file to map option is checked. Click OK.
    18. You will see a new layer named london_pubs in the QGIS canvas. Uncheck the
    london_points layer as we don't need that anymore.
    19. The extraction of the pubs shapefile layer is now complete. You can use the
    Identify tool to click on any of the point as see its attributes.

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