Guide to make vector topo maps with JOSM and Inkscape (infinitely scaleable paper wall maps)
https://monero.town/post/4508482
monero.townGuide to make vector topo maps with JOSM and Inkscape (infinitely scaleable paper wall maps) - monero.town# Make Vector Topographic Maps (Open Street Map, Maperitive, and Inkscape) ####
by Michael Altfield This guide will show you how to generate vector-based
topopgraphic maps
[https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive/], for
printing very large & high-quality paper wall maps using inkscape. All of the
tools used in this guide are free (as in beer). | How-to Guide to Making Vector
Topo Maps with Maperitive and Inkscape
[https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/osm-contours-svg-maperitive_featuredImage1.jpg]https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive/
| |:–:| | How-to Guide to Making Vector Topo Maps
[https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive/] with
Maperitive and Inkscape | # Intro I recently volunteered at a Biological
Research Station located on the eastern slopes of the Andes mountains. If the
skies were clear (which is almost never, as it's a cloud forest), you would have
a great view overlooking the Amazon Rainforest below. | Photo of a lush green,
mountainous forest. In the background is a glacial-covered summit.
[https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/osm-contours-svg-maperitive_volcan-antisana-2015-06-14.jpg]https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive/
| |:–:| | Yanayacu is in a cloud forest on the east slopes of the Andes
mountains, just 30 km from the summit of the glacial-capped Antisana
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisana] volcano (source
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Volc%C3%A1n_Antisana_2015-06-14_(9)_(39680659444).jpg])
| The field station was many years old with some permanent structures and a
network of established trails that meandered towards the border of Antisana
National Park – a protected area rich with biodiversity that attracts biologists
from around the world. At the top of the park is a glacial-capped volcano with a
summit at 5,753 meters. Surprisingly, though Estacion Biologicia Yanayacu was
over 30 years old, nobody ever prepared a proper map of their trails. And
certainly there was no high-resolution topographical map of the area to be found
at the Station. That was my task: to generate maps that we could bring to a
local print shop to print-out huge 1-3 meter topographical maps. And if you want
to print massive posters that don't look terrible, you're going to be working
with vector graphics. However, most of the tools that I found for browsing Open
Street Map data that included contour lines couldn't export an SVG. And the
tools I found that could export an SVG, couldn't export contour lines. It took
me several days to figure out how to render a topographical map and export it as
an SVG. This article will explain how, so you can produce a vector-based
topographical map in about half a day of work. ## Assumptions This guide was
written in 2024, and it uses the following software and versions: 1. Debian 12
(bookworm) 2. OsmAnd~ v4.7.10 3. JOSM v18646 4. Maperitive v2.4.3 5. Inkscape
v1.2.2 ## The Tools Unfortunately, there's no all-in-one app that will let you
just load a slippy map, zoom-in, draw a box, and hit "export as SVG". We'll be
using a few different tools to meet our needs. | OsmAnd
[https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/osm-contours-svg-maperitive_osmand-icon1-300x300.jpg]https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive/
| |:–:| | OsmAnd [https://osmand.net/] | ### OsmAnd OsmAnd [https://osmand.net/]
is a mobile app. We'll be using OsmAnd to walk around on the trails and generate
GPX files (which contain a set of GPS coordinates and some metadata). We'll use
these coordinates to generate vector lines of a trail overlaying the topographic
map. If you just want a topographic map without trails (or your trails are
already marked on OSM data), then you won't need this tool. In this guide we'll
be using OsmAnd, but you an also use other apps -- such as Organic Maps
[https://organicmaps.app/], Maps.me [https://maps.me/], or Gaia
[https://www.gaiagps.com/]. | JOSM
[https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/osm-contours-svg-maperitive_josm-icon1-150x150.jpg]https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive/
| |:–:| | JOSM [https://josm.openstreetmap.de/] | ### JOSM JOSM
[https://josm.openstreetmap.de/] is a java-based tool for editing Open Street
Map data. We'll be using JOSM to upload the paths of our trails (recorded GPX
files from OsmAnd) and also to download additional data (rivers, national park
boundary line, road to the trailhead, etc). We'll then be able to combine all of
this data into a larger GPX file, which will eventually become vector lines
overlaying the topographic map. You can skip this if you just want contour lines
without things like rivers, roads, trails, buildings, and park borders. ### View
Finder Panoramas Have you ever wondered how you can zoom-in almost anywhere in
the world and see contour lines? I always thought that this was the result of
some herculean effort of surveyors scaling mountains and descending canyons the
world-over. But, no -- it's a product of the US Space Shuttle program. In the
year 2000, an international program called SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography
Mission) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Radar_Topography_Mission] was
launched into space with the Endaevor Space Shuttle. It consisted of a special
radar system tethered to the shuttle with a 60 meter mast as it orbited the
earth. | Artist rendering shows a space shuttle with a purple beam emanating
from it to a blue, cloudy sphere below. Attached to the shuttle is a long mast
with a device at the end of it, where another purple beam emanates down to the
same point on Earth, at a different angle.
[https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/osm-contours-svg-maperitive_srtm1.jpg]https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive/
| |:–:| | This illustration shows the Space Shuttle Endeavour orbiting ~233
kilometers above Earth. The two anternae, one located in the Shuttle bay and the
other located on a 60-meter mast, were able to penetrate clouds, obtaining
3-dimentional topographic images of the world's surface (source: NASA
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shuttle_Radar_Topographic_Mission_(SRTM)_Illustration.jpg])
| When the shuttle returned to earth, the majority of our planet's contours were
mapped. This data was placed on the public domain. Today, it is the main data
source for elevation data in most maps. While the data from SRTM was a huge boon
to cartographers, it did have some gaps. Namely: elevation data was missing
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Radar_Topography_Mission#No-data_areas]
in very tall mountains and very low canyons. Subsequent work was done to fill-in
these gaps. One particular source that ingested the SRTM data, completed its
gaps, and made the results public is Jonathan de Ferranti's
viewfinderpanoramas.org
[https://viewfinderpanoramas.org/Coverage%20map%20viewfinderpanoramas_org3.htm].
We will be downloading .hgt
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/357415/how-to-read-nasa-hgt-binary-files]
files from View Finder Panoramas in order to generate vector contour lines for
our topographical map. | Maperitive
[https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/osm-contours-svg-maperitive_maperitive-icon1.jpg]https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive/
| |:–:| | Maperitive [http://maperitive.net/] | ### Maperitive Maperitive
[http://maperitive.net] is a closed-source
[http://maperitive.net/docs/FAQ.html#Where%20is%20the%20source%20code?]
.NET-based mapping software (which runs fine in Linux with mono
[https://www.mono-project.com/]). We'll be using Maperitive to tie together our
GPX tracks, generate contour lines, generate hillshades, and export it all as a
SVG. | Inkscape
[https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/osm-contours-svg-maperitive_inkscape-icon1-150x150.jpg]https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive/
| |:–:| | Inkscape [https://inkscape.org/] | ### Inkscape Inkscape
[https://inkscape.org/] is a cross-platform app for artists working with vector
graphics. We'll be using inkscape to make some final touches to our vector
image, such as hiding some paths, changing their stroke color/shape/thickness,
and adding/moving text labels. Finally, we'll use inkscape to export a gigantic,
high-definition .png raster image (to send to the print shop). # Guide To read
the full guide on how to create vector-based maps, click here
[https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive/]: *
tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive
[https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive/] #
Example Maps For example, here's the (A4-sized) topo map that I built for
Yanayacu. | Image shows a topographical map of a mountainous area. The title
reads Yanayacu. The elevation ranges from 2,100 to 2,900. The bottom-left has a
small font that reads Map by Michael Altfield / github.com/maltfield/yanayacu
[https://github.com/maltfield/yanayacu/blob/3bb3fdf17668cd4d0a75c9fb24c89a18b2c4d3b3/maps/yanayacu_topo/yanayacu_topo_400mmx225mm.png?raw=true]https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive/
| |:–:| | Final (raster) export, ready for sending to the print shop (source svg
[https://github.com/maltfield/yanayacu/blob/main/maps/yanayacu_topo/yanayacu_topo.svg])
| Note that I changed the stroke and thickness of the National Park boundary to
be large and green, I changed the path of the road (downloaded from OSM data in
JOSM) to be thick and black, and I changed my GPX tracks (recorded in OsmAnd and
merged with the OSM data in JOSM) to be thin, dashed, and red. The source .svg
file for the above image can be found here
[https://github.com/maltfield/yanayacu/tree/main/maps/yanayacu_topo] -
github.com/maltfield/yanayacu/tree/main/maps/yanayacu_topo
[https://github.com/maltfield/yanayacu/tree/main/maps/yanayacu_topo] I also used
this method to generate a simplified "trail map" of Yanayacu (without contour
lines). The workflow was similar, except I didn't generate contour nor
hillshades layers in Maperitive before exporting as a .svg | Image shows a trail
guide map. The title reads Yanayacu Trails 2024. The bottom-left has a small
font that reads Map by Michael Altfield / github.com/maltfield/yanayacu
[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/maltfield/yanayacu/3bb3fdf17668cd4d0a75c9fb24c89a18b2c4d3b3/maps/yanayacu_trail_guide/yanayacu_trail_guide_297mmx210mm.png])
[https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2024/10/01/osm-contours-svg-maperitive/] |
|:–:| | Yanayacu Trail Guide (source svg
[https://github.com/maltfield/yanayacu/blob/main/maps/yanayacu_trail_guide/yanayacu_trail_guide.svg])
| The source .svg file for the above image can be found here
[https://github.com/maltfield/yanayacu/tree/main/maps/yanayacu_trail_guide] -
github.com/maltfield/yanayacu/tree/main/maps/yanayacu_trail_guide
[https://github.com/maltfield/yanayacu/tree/main/maps/yanayacu_trail_guide]
