JOSM Buildings Tutorial

[Ian Dees]

Hi guys,

I made a first-draft attempt at showing how I trace buildings on a YouTube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEQo4Jm-aPY

After going through it I can see that I went way too fast, so if you'd like more information or to have me go slower/talk my way through it, let me know.

Let's get some buildings traced!

Ian

[Wilbur Ince]

The video is a little frustrating since there was no sound? 

While visiting your video, I did find another tutorial on using JOSM for adding buildings.  It's basic, and I think you have some more tricks to add to make tracing buildings even easier! 

Here's the two part series on getting started with the JOSM plugins and tracing buildings:
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gVlB_KHLlg
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq44dvNKgJc

Wilbur

[Ian Dees]

I didn't use sound because my wife was watching TV at the time and wouldn't turn it down :).

I can do a narrated one tonight. In the currently-posted one I used YouTube's annotation feature to describe what was going on.

[Brad Neuhauser]

Off the JOSM topic (and maybe old news or irrelevant to y'all), a couple handy things I found recently in Potlatch 2 when I was tracing some buildings is the Make Right Angled tool (self-explanatory) and Parallel Ways tool (can use it to copy or resize polygons).  They're in the Toolbox in the lower right.  Plus the R key for repeating tags from the last feature selected.

Trace on!

Brad

[David Fawcett]

Thanks Brad.

For buildings in P2, I use the 'make right angled' tool quite a bit.
I am still trying to figure out the cases where it won't work. It
appears to be scale sensitive. If it won't work on a particular
feature, I will zoom in and try again. I will also tweak individual
node positions to make it a little more right-angled and then try
again.

I was unaware of using Parallel Ways to copy a poly and I am really
excited about the R key shortcut. That will save me multiple mouse
clicks!

David.

PS. Now to just get a handle on that darn 'circle' tool!

[Matt McGuire]

Thanks, Ian. I can more effectively use the building tool now. 

I thought it was limited to just rectangles, but I see how they can embellished. A keyboard shortcut to split ways would be nice. I keep wanting the add node shortcut (Shift-D) to split a way underneath my mouse without automatically starting a new way in the process as happens in your demonstration.

[Ian Dees]

I use the keyboard shortcut 'A' for add node, click the way to add the node and immediately hit 'X' (for create area) to skip the process of creating a way.