[OSM-talk] Actually using OpenStreetMap - how to get vector data

[Igor Brejc]

Simone Cortesi wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 7:07 PM, Igor Brejc <igor.brejc at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> The problem is fetching the data - the only viable option I see is using
>> OSMXAPI, but its server is overwhelmed and will limit the download size
>> in the future (from what I read on this list). Using planet dumps seems
>> to me a bit too unfriendly from the end-user perspective - they would
>> have to download quite a large quantity of data.
>>     
>
> still you can download data from some planet's country extract (italy
> is 22mb at the moment).
> find them on Geofabrik, cloudmade, etc...
>
> -S
>
>   
Yes, that's an option - but still there are problems with this approach:
- you don't know in advance the area covered by these extracts (some of 
them)
- some countries are not covered (mine, for example) by some extracts
- your software depends on the good will of people maintaining these 
extracts - people move on or they loose interest
- some extracts are maintained on a regular basis, some are not

Basically what I'm trying to say is that this is not a systematic 
approach. It would be more useful if these extracts were not 
country-based but tile-based instead (maybe this already exists, forgive 
my ignorance?)

Igor

-- 
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