Re: [Fsuk-manchester] OpenStreetMap - Manchester Mapping Weekend, 25/26 October

[Simon Ward]

On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 09:00:29PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> Simon Ward <address@hidden> wrote:
> > If you can’t make it to the event, you can help in the Virtual Mapping
> > Party by tracing any remaining Yahoo! aerial imagery.
> 
> Most times I've looked into OSM, I seem to get stuck by either some
> piece of non-free software or by some accessibility problem.  Could
> someone point me at how to get started tracing for OSM with free
> software?  Then if I go well with that, I'll try to borrow a GPS.

Getting things to work with free software at the moment is a bit fiddly
at times, unfortunately.  In summary, there is a usable, although in
some ways not ideal soluton (#2).  Some of the gory details follow.


There are two main ways to trace Yahoo! aerial imagery:

 1. Use Potlatch with the Yahoo! background layer.

 2. Use JOSM with a WMS plugin.


1. Potlatch is the online Flash-based editor.  It is free software, but
does not currently work with a free Flash implementation.  Work on Gnash
to get Potlatch working with it is in progress, which you can follow by
by checking Gnash bug #21756[1].  Not currently working properly with
free software unfortunately makes it a non‐solution. :(

2. JOSM is a Java‐based application.  It is free software, and works
under OpenJDK JREs.  There is a “josm” package in Ubuntu Hardy’s
universe, and Debian Testing and Unstable, depending on openjdk-6-jre.

Once you have josm running you will need to install some extra plugins
(can be done through JOSM’s preferences dialog), either:

  * ywms and wmsplugin; or

  * ewmsplugin (and maybe ywms)

ywms works by creating a local WMS (Web Map Service) server and uses
Firefox/Iceweasel to fetch Y! imagery in a rather hacky and error prone
way.

ewmsplugin’s Yahoo! downloader apparently does it a little bit more neatly,
though I have never used it (I tried to get it working before I
responded but it appears to require gnome-web-photo which I can’t find
in Debian (unstable)).

Simon
-- 
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that works.—John Gall

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