How To Get Geospatial Data In a Few Easy Steps
A Lightweight But Powerful QGIS Plugin
Hello,
OpenStreetMap (OSM) comes with a massive and versatile geospatial dataset (for free). It was very useful for me, who often use geodata in my working days. There are several ways to get the OSM data. Traditionally, I went to this website to make Area of Interest (AOI) until finally extracting the data. But there is another way which is to use a single QGIS plugin with a few easy steps.
Installation
Make sure you already have QGIS installed on your computer. The first step is go to Plugins at menubar, type OSMDownloader in the search box. Then click the Install Plugin button.
Make the Area of Interest (AOI)
Click the OSM Downloader icon on the toolbar, the cursor shape will turn into +. After finding the desirable location, left-click and hold then move your cursor to make the AOI.
Define the save location and start downloading
In the pop-up menu, define the file name and save (storage) location on your computer. Make sure the Load layer after download option is already checked to show the data after the download is completed.
Nothing is perfect…
Unfortunately, you can’t select certain categories from OSM with this plugin, so the downloaded data (always) includes all categories. Like it or not we have to delete the data that we don’t need manually. But the rest, I can say this plugin is a fast and practical way to get OSM data through QGIS.
