[OSM-newbies] right angles and similar fine detail in Potlatch

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 1:53 AM, Andrew Errington
<a.errington at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Sun, November 22, 2009 10:33, Ed Hillsman wrote:
>> Can anyone suggest a way to get the building to stay squared up? I
>> know that at low zoom levels, it doesn't make much difference, but we are
>> developing an application for disabled students who will use it at high
>> zoom levels, and fidelity to building shapes will help with our
>> credibility. Thanks in advance for any suggestions you can offer.
>
> 1. Create the building outlines from the aerial photos in Potlatch[1] and
> save your work.
> 2. Use JOSM to download the area you have been working on.
> 3. For each building select it and press 'Q' to square up the vertices of
> the building.  JOSM does a reasonable job at this.
> 4. Upload your work.  Wait a while for it to be rendered, then check the
> results.
>
> If there's a better way someone will surely announce it here.

Just use JOSM from A-Z in the first place ?:)

It has better tools than Potlatch for tracing buildings, including a
special plugin for that purpose. It's also really useful to be able to
zoom into your imagery past z18 which Potlatch can't do.