[Xastir] Xastir on Mac . . . download, unzip, store maps

[T Wegner]

Thanks . . . I've read so many FAQ's, Help files, and README's in the  
last 3 days, 90% of which are over my head, it's . . . well . . . .

1) Do you (others welcome too) have any insight as to what the main  
difference (from an end user standpoint) would be between the osm and  
shapefile map offerings.

on the site is found this:

OSM XML files are the native format used by the OpenStreetMap API and  
also by many OpenStreetMap applications. Use OSM XML if you want to  
load the files into an application like JOSM, or if you want to  
convert to other formats using a library such as osm-lib. In addition  
to full osm extracts there are partial feature extracts which contain  
administrative boundaries, coastlines or highways only.

Shapefiles are a data exchange format created by ESRI which are one of  
the most widely used geodata formats. When we talk about a “shapefile”  
we are usually talking about four different files  
– .shp, .shx, .dbf, .prj. First three files must all be present in  
order to use the data. Each shapefile can hold only one geometry type.  
The projection information contained in the .prj file is critical in  
order to understand the data contained in the .shp file correctly. Our  
files are split into several categories – highway, which contains  
features like roads and footpaths, natural, which contains area  
features like parks and forests, poi (point of interest), which  
contains point features like amenities and tourist attractions,  
administrative boundaries and finally coastlines and water bodies.  
Because shapefiles are widely used they can be combined with other  
geodata and used inside GIS (Geographic Information Systems), such as  
the open source QGIS application.


2) There are other types as well but from what I've read I believe  
maybe the Shapefiles version is the way to go.  Why such a large  
difference in file size?

note - my sole previous experience with APRS maps were the Tiger maps  
I downloaded for MacAPRS. They were detailed but rather awkward in  
appearance. POI's interest me not at all to the extent they contain  
motels, hotels, gas stations, restaurants, etc.

3) would i be correct in presuming that once i download to my home  
directory, the procedure would be:

mv *.zip /usr/local/share/xastir/maps
unzip *.zip

where * is the specific file name

4) there is mention of 4 different files for each shapefile map, do  
you think it wise for me to make a subdirectory for, say, "wisconsin"  
so the map directory does not get all cluttered up? Do all 4 of these  
files show up in the "map chooser" menu?

5) Is there any way to preview maps . . . I'm overwhelmed at the  
offerings available and don't know where to begin.

6) what's the recommendation on the number of different questions a  
person should ask in a single e-mail?

tnx
tom



On Jan 6, 2011, at 10:52, Peter Gamache wrote:

> You need bunzip2, as .bz2 is a different compression scheme.   
> According to a
> quick google search ("bunzip2 macos x"), it seems like it may be  
> included in
> the standard installation of MacOS.  At a terminal window, you'll  
> have to
> decompress the archive with "bunzip2 wisconsin.osm.bz2", which will  
> strip
> the .bz2 extension and leave you a larger (and perhaps useful) file.
>
> FMI:
> http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#DOCUMENTATION/Darwin/ 
> Reference/ManPages/man1/bunzip2.1.html
>
> Regards,
> -PG
>
> On Thu, Jan 06, 2011 at 10:45:19AM -0600, T Wegner wrote:
>> Not having a lot of luck here, probably because I don't' understand  
>> Unix
>>
>> I would like to download some maps
>>
>> an example is
>>
>> wisconsin.osm.bz2
>>
>> found here
>>
>> http://downloads.cloudmade.com/north_america/united_states/wisconsin#downloads_breadcrumbs
>>
>> i used my regular gui to download it to my home directory
>>
>> then used x11 to move it to the /usr/local/share/xastir/maps  
>> directory
>>
>> tried to unzip it, but got an error message, which i guess makes  
>> sense
>> as it's not a .zip file
>>
>>
>> 1) am i even remotely close to doing this correctly?
>>
>> 2) this seemed like the map i would most likely want - does anyone  
>> have
>> any idea if it would be a good map to use for navigating around
>> wisconsin or would the wisconsinshapefiels.zip be a better choice. I
>> will be perusing the site to try and find info about the different  
>> maps.
>> there is quite a difference in file size.
>>
>> tnx
>> 73
>> tom
>>
>>
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