On Thu, 6 Jan 2011, T Wegner wrote:
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.
OSM XML files are the native format used by the OpenStreetMap API and also by many OpenStreetMap applications.
Shapefiles are a data exchange format created by ESRI which are one of the most widely used geodata formats.
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?
OSM XML files are in XML format, ever looked at XML files? They have a lot of pairs of tags in them, plus it appears the files they describe above are the complete database. Xastir uses a much more compact format which is only some extracts from the main OSM database, but have just the vectors/points/labels that we need. Then there's a third type of OSM maps: The online maps. In this case we download a complete raster image that we display in Xastir, or small raster tiles which we stitch together, depending on the Map Chooser selection. Tiles are better/faster 'cuz we cache them locally and if you move slightly you only have to grab a few more tiles to complete the picture. Xastir is quite happy with Shapefiles and this is the format I'd recommend for offline use.
mv *.zip /usr/local/share/xastir/maps
Yes, as root usually, or use "sudo"
unzip *.zip
Yep.
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?
Only one of them shows up in the Map Chooser for a shapefile set. Feel free to create subdirectories under the maps directory at will. That's how I organize my maps.
5) Is there any way to preview maps . . . I'm overwhelmed at the offerings available and don't know where to begin.
Not in Xastir.
6) what's the recommendation on the number of different questions a person should ask in a single e-mail?
One. hi hi Shorter e-mails with just one or two questions seem to get read/answered by more people. Longer ones often get skipped because people aren't wanting to dedicate minutes of their life to reading/understanding them right at that time. Often responses get delayed because of that. -- Curt, WE7U. <http://www.eskimo.com/~archer> APRS: Where it's at! <http://www.xastir.org> Lotto: A tax on people who are bad at math. - unknown Windows: Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates. - WE7U. The world DOES revolve around me: I picked the coordinate system!" _______________________________________________ Xastir mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
