In my December and January blog posts about Maperitive, I discussed how to download OpenStreetMap data. The first method used the “export” feature on the osm.org homepage to download all data within a geographic area, whilst in my second post we used the Overpass XAPI Compatibility Layer to download just those ways (polylines) tagged as gritting routes.

In this post we will explore how to find out more about OpenStreetMap tags and how we can visualise the data online.

OpenSteeetMap Wiki

The OpenStreetMap Wiki is the main documentation portal for OSM. The Map Features page provides an initial list of tags, with links to detailed pages about man tag keys and values (recall that all tags are in the format key=value). For example the tag “highway=footway” has a wiki page all about the key “highway” (see Key:highway), in addition to a page specifically about the “footway” value (see Tag:highway=footway).

Note that the wiki should be considered as a guide only. Not all tags are documented and some tags are marked as “proposals” only. Use the search bar in the top right to help discover related pages.

TagInfo

On both Key and Tag wiki pages, you will often find a box on the right hand side which includes a subsection titled “TagInfo”. This provides stats about how many nodes (points), ways (polylines) and relations (multipolygons) are tagged with that key/tag.

TagInfo is a separate website that reports on how tags are actually being used in OSM. By examining the raw data it provides stats about all tags used, not just those with documentation. It also provides information about common tag combinations. So for example we can see here that the the “highway=footway” tag is often combined with tags about the surface and bicycle use. We can also see a static global map of where the highway key is used (see here).

Overpass Turbo

Overpass Turbo is a web based interface for the Overpass API download servers. With turbo you can run any kind of Overpass query and display the results an interactive map. As such it provides greater visualisation of the data than TagInfo’s basic static map. Be warned however that this should be used for small quantities of data only (that is, infrequently used tags, or if using common tags the interactive map should be well zoomed in). It is also not as simple to use as TagInfo, however each TagInfo page includes a link to turbo (a button with a steering wheel on it) that will pre-populate turbo with the correct query. You just need to zoom in and click “Run”.

Once you have investigated the OpenStreetMap data you can move on to download it using the Overpass XAPI Compatibility Layer or use the Overpass API queries as shown in the example above.

In my previous post entitled “Maperitive: My first map render”, I introduced the concept of creating your own map style using the offline tool, “Maperitive”. At the time we looked at a very simple example of downloading a geographical region of OpenStreetMap data, loading it into Maperitive and drawing (rendering) your own map using the built in rendering rules.

In this follow up post we will explore the idea of creating your own basic rendering rules in order to highlight specific map features. As coincidence will have it, at Mappa Mercia’s last monthly meet-up we spoke about rebooting the main mappa-mercia.org website no that our original maintainer is no longer living in the UK. I will therefore look at the gritting map as an example.

Step 1. Downloading the data

Before we can get started on writing the rendering rules we must first download the required OpenStreetMap data and understand the tags – after all it is the tags that drive the rendering rules!

To do this we are going to use the Overpass XAPI. This enables us to download a subset of data based on a specified tag and geographical region (defined by a rectangular “bounding box”). In this example we will download all ways with the tag “maintenance=gritting” that fall within a sample are of Birmingham. Copy and paste the following web address into your browsers URL box and save the resulting file as “gritting.osm”:

http://www.overpass-api.de/api/xapi?way[bbox=-1.93,52.4,-1.79,52.5][maintenance=gritting][@meta]

As you can see, the web address used to download the required data is easy to understand and adapt to other uses. The geographical region is specified by “[bbox=-1.93,…] ” and the download is restricted to only ways with the tag “[maintenance=gritting]”. Finally [@meta] is used to download the additional metadata required to open the file in JOSM.

For more examples, see the wiki entry for Overpass XAPI. Other ways to download OpenStreetMap data can be found here.

Step 2. Examining the data

If we open the resulting “gritting.osm” file in JOSM (or if you already know the data well enough), we find that all gritting routes are tagged with a priority from 1 to 3. For example, “gritting=priority_1”. We will therefore set up our rendering rules in order to create map showing these as colour coded routes.

Step 3. Writing the rendering rules

Maperitive rendering rules specify what gets drawn on the map and how it gets drawn. You start writing rules by specifying “features”. A feature could be a forest, a motorway, a bench. This answers the “what?” part. After that, you specify the actual “rules” for these features. This answers the “how?” part.

Rules are specified in a simple text file and can be edited with a text editor. Within the “Rules” folder of your Maperitive installation, create a text file called “gritting.mrules” (note that in Windows you may have to change a setting so that file extensions are visible) and copy the following text into the file:

features
    lines
        gritted route : maintenance=gritting

rules
    target: gritted route
        define
            line-opacity : 0.75
            min-zoom : 5
            line-width : 5
        for : gritting=priority_2
            define
                line-color : blue
        elsefor : gritting=priority_3
            define
                line-color : royalblue
        else
            define
                line-color : red
        draw : line

In the top section, we are defining that we wish to create a line feature called “gritted route” and that only ways tagged as “maintenance=gritting” belong to this group. In the lower section we define rendering rules for the feature. All gritted routes are drawn with the same line opacity, minimum zoom and line width, however we separate out line colour according to the priority tag. In my test, it would appear that any HTML colour name is allowed (?). For more on rendering rules, see the Maperitive guide.

Step 4. Create your map

We’ve downloaded the OpenStreetMap data and written some basic rendering rules. All that remains is to generate our map. Open Maperitive and load the “gritting.osm” file using File->Open Map Sources…. The final step is to tell Maperitive which rendering rules to use. To do this enter the following two lines (one at a time) in Maperitive’s Command Prompt:

use-ruleset location=Rules/gritting.mrules
apply-ruleset

Finally we can export the map as a PNG image by using Tools->Export To Bitmap. The location in which the image file was saved is shown at the bottom left, as the final line in the Commander

When I introduce someone new to OpenStreetMap I often get asked how is it different from alternatives, such as Google Maps. One of the key differences is that our map data is supplied and incorporated by 1000s of volunteers, each one passionate about their local community or area of expertise. This means that our data is often rich in local knowledge, and is also frequently updated (as seen in speed by which the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team respond to changes caused natural disasters).

All this map data is fantastic, but if you cannot present it in the way you require, then you might as well not have it in the first place. This leads me to a second difference between OSM and other alternatives; namely all the underlying data is available to download and use for free. If you are not happy with the way the map looks, then you can you can use the data to create your own map. In this blog post, I introduce one such tool – Maperitive.

Question: What is Maperitive?

“Maperitive is a desktop application that renders maps in real time using OSM and other sources of data.” In essence we provide Maperitive with raw map data and a set of instructions describing how we would like the data to be displayed, and it draws (or renders) us a map.

Question: How to download and install?

There is no installation process as such. Simply download the latest version of the Maperitive zip file from http://maperitive.net/download/,  unzip it into a directory of your choosing, and run it by double-click on maperitive.exe. (For non-Windows OS’s installation instructions can be found here).

Question: I’ve downloaded and opened Maperitive, what am I looking at?

The user interface for Maperitive comprises of 4 parts. The majority of the window is taken up by the Map Area. By default this will be showing the standard OSM Map, or “Web Map” as can be seen in the Map Sources list in the bottom right hand corner. As we add more data this will appear in this list. The map can be moved by clicking and dragging, and zoomed by pressing the + and – keyboard keys (or using a mouse scroll-wheel).

At the top is the Menu Bar with drop down menus (File, View, etc..). Finally, in the bottom left is the Commander. Here we can enter instructions in the command prompt, however to keep things simple, we will only be using the Menu Bar to issue instructions in this blog post.

Question: How do I render my own map?

Before we can render a map, we must first get some map data. There are many ways to get OpenStreetMap data (we will explore these in a later blog post), including through Maperitive itself. For now we will use the OpenStreetMap.org website. Load the website and move to an area you are interested in. To download the data simply click “Export” and select “OpenStreetMap XML Data” as the download format.

Once you have downloaded some OSM data lets get Maperitive to render it. Start by clicking the star next to “Web Map” in the Map Sources list. This switches off the default map and the Map Areashould become a blank canvas ready for us to render a map. To do this open the downloaded map data using File->Open Map Sources…. Congratulations you have rendered your first map! By default the map will look very similar to the standard OSM map. We can however change this by selecting a different set of “rendering rules”. Try the different rules by selecting them using Map->Switch To Rules.

In a following blog post we will explore how to create your own rendering rules, and therefore customise your map to your liking. But for now lets finish by exporting the map to a PNG image. Choose Tools->Export To Bitmap. The location in which the image file was saved is shown at the bottom left, as the final line in the Commander.