File > Download from OSM

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Download data from server.

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Type of Data

Different type of data can be downloaded:

• osm data (nodes, ways, relations ...), downloaded from the OpenStreetMap server.

• gps raw data, downloaded from the OpenStreetMap server.

The type is chosen with the check boxes at the top of the window. (It is possible to download both types at once).

Area to download

The dialog has multiple tabs. The exact configuration of tabs may be dependent on plugins you have installed, but you will generally at least have:

• Slippy map provides a movable map like on the OSM front page with which you can interactively select the area to download. Only differences are that Shift+Click to zoom is not available, move the map the JOSM way by press and hold the right mouse button and select an area by press and hold the left mouse button.

• A Bookmarks tab where you can select from your predefined bookmarks, or create a new bookmark from the current bounding box or the area defined in another tab respectively.

• A Bounding Box tab where you can set the latitude/longitude bounds of the data to be downloaded, and also paste an URL from either www.openstreetmap.org or www.informationfreeway.org.
  • To paste from ​the map on the OpenStreetMap site, zoom in to the area you are interested in, then either move the mouse over the "view" tab, and copy the resulting URL, or copy the permalink given in the bottom right corner. Then go to JOSM, and paste this URL into the "URL from www.openstreetmap.org" box. (In Windows to paste into the box, left click within the box, and then do CTRL+v).
  • To paste from ​www.informationfreeway.org zoom to the area you are interested in, and then copy the permalink location from the bottom right of screen, and paste as described above.

• On the Places tab you can find the functionality of the former namefinder plugin. Here you can search for specific places, street names, etc, in the OSM database. The server used is currently hardcoded to use the OSM Name finder described in ​the OSM-Wiki.

• A Tile Numbers tab where you can enter number of tiles and a zoom level to download data of those tiles. This might look a little akward especially when reading ​how to compute the tile numbers. But sometimes it comes in handy. Have a look at the ​t@h browser where you can quite easily determine the tile numbers in the image address when hovering the individual tiles with the mouse.

When switching between tabs, the area shown in each tab will be the same. So if you select a bookmark for example and switch to the slippy map tab, the area of that bookmark is shown.

The tabs will also display a warning at the bottom if the selected area is too large for the server and will likely be answered with an error message. (You can try, though!)

When the download dialog is called up with data already loaded, all fields are set to the currently visible bounding box. Thus a common use scenario is to first load your GPS track from a GPX file, then zoom the view so that the portion you wish to work on is fully visible, and then call up the download dialog which will reflect the visible area.

Layer control

You can control whether the data is loaded into the current or in a new layer with the check box in the bottom left corner of the window:

• if Separate Layer is selected, the data is loaded in a new layer
• if Separate Layer is not selected, the data is loaded in the current data layer

If there isn't any data layer yet, a new data layer is always created.

See also

• Download object
• Download parent ways and relations

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