[Xastir] OSM offline

[Thomas Sprinzing]

I've had a look at the meerkator webpage. Frankly, i don't need  
another map editing piece of software on my computer.

What most of us want, and that was written somewhere here more than  
often, is a way to use xastir with downloaded, half-decent, but nicely  
scaling maps in a way comprehensible for people that do not hack unix  
kernels when they are bored, but switch on the radio and rag chew.

Ham Radio in itself is broad enough a hobby and field of knowledge.  
Let alone APRS with all the gating, paths, whattheheck. Xastir just  
lost me when i read somewhere that i need to install some gis software  
to find out about the content of the shapefiles, in order to learn and  
write a half-baked ugly-looking dbfawk.

Pulling maps online doesn't pull it for me either - nor should it do  
so for all the emcomms. In the case you need the stuff, the net is  
down or unavialable, so get the act together and have your maps on  
your computer. (Or else, stop playing fireman and join the real guys.)

Rendering maps to bitmaps with merkaartor and using them with xastir  
doesn't pull it for me either. You are always at the wrong zoom level,  
with display resolution unequal to rendered map resolution. Effect is  
either lost detail due to pixelation, or lost detail due to averaging  
between pixels. You could waste lots of disk space though by rendering  
the map in different zoom levels. But then, how is ist managed?

Why not use the built-in rendering engine, and have xastir interpret  
the shapefiles, and draw nice maps. It was possible before, it should  
be now.

I rest my case: it's probably an hour and a half for the guy who  
created dbfawk to create a half-decent, commented dbfawk for osm  
shapefiles. Put it in the wiki, or better, put it in the install  
package as well. Done.

my 2 ct.

73  Thomas VA3TSE


Am 08.07.2010 um 00:19 schrieb James Ewen:

> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 12:27 PM, Jason KG4WSV <kg4wsv at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
>
>> on the other hand, a shapefile is just data, no software, and it can
>> be downloaded to a system and have complete mapping support without  
>> an
>> internet lifeline, _and_ dbfawk is 100% internal to xastir, no extra
>> software to locate/build/install.
>
> The OSM data is just data, no software, and it can be downloaded to a
> system, and have complete mapping support without an internet
> lifeline. Dbfawk requires software to interpret the dbfawk file.
>
> You're comparing apples to apples. Both shapefile and OSM data has to
> be acquired, and stored on the local drive in order to be completely
> self contained. Both shapefiel and OSM data needs to be passed through
> rendering rules in order for the software (Xastir or Merkaartor) to
> know how to display the data on screen.
>
>> Whereas Merkaartor appears, at first glance, to have a non-trivial
>> chance at being a typical FOSS descent into dependency hell.  And
>> apparently all it does is edit, so you'd need something else to
>> actually _render_ the images and feed the raster data to xastir?
>
> It's a pretty small program, grab it and give it a try...
> http://www.merkaartor.be/
> Or just look at the image on that page. The map displayed in the
> middle of the page is rendered internally by Merkaartor from raw OSM
> data. I can save the raw data to my hard drive, and while sitting on
> the Moon start Merkaartor, and have it render that same image from raw
> data.
>
> Here are a couple more screenshots:
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Merkaartor/Screenshots
>
> They show different rendering styles, as well as layered images. The
> last one has a satellite photo WMS layer with OSM data overlaid.
> Obviously the WMS layer is going to require an internet connection.
>
>> Don't be too quick to disparage dbfawk because it isn't shiny. It  
>> Just Works.
>
> It's not shiny, nor is it smooth either. It is very non-user friendly.
> It takes a lot of work to dig to find out how it works, then you have
> to jump through a number of hoops to learn what information is in the
> DBF files, and then write some esoteric rules in gobbledy-gook to try
> and make it work.
>
> Once you have it all figured out, you get something that is somewhat  
> acceptable.
>
> The basic concepts between what shapefiles, dbfawk, and Xastir do to
> create a map are conceptually identical, it's just that Merkaartor
> does it much nicer. The user interface still takes a little bit to
> figure out, but it's in a human readable format that most people would
> be able to decipher without a reference manual. The output however
> ends up looking very much like a real map.
>
> If Xastir is going to stay with requiring a "pocket protector and tape
> on your glasses" type of operator, it's not going to get much more
> market penetration than it currently has. Sorry, but the rest of the
> world likes easy to install and use, as well as pretty and shiny.
>
> I'm not saying it's easy, and can be done overnight, but it's also not
> an impossible feat.
>
> I'm not a newbie... I have played with Linux a little bit, but there's
> far too much stuff that I deal with daily that requires me to run
> Windows. I hate it, and would love to leave, but that's not possible.
> I'd have to convert all my company and coworkers, as well as our
> upstream providers, and our downstream customers to be able to drop
> Windows.
>
> I currently have APRSISCE/32 running, and have had it up for about a
> week on this computer. I don't have to shut down and reboot. I can run
> it in the background, and poke and prod at it as I like. It's a simple
> click to start it up. If I need to do work, I simply move to another
> program.
>
> If Xastir were able to be compiled as a native Windows application,
> you'd get more people running the program.
>
> All I am saying is that if Xastir were a little more mainstream, easy
> to use, and shiny, there would be more market penetration. Obviously
> with no monetary income to spur on market penetration, there's little
> incentive, but at least have a look and see what you might be able to
> do with Xastir...
>
> Take it or leave it, just my two cents worth...
>
> James
> VE6SRV
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