Articles about map export formats, tools and OpenStreetMap data use cases.
How to get a real-world heightmap for Cities: Skylines, Unreal Engine 5 and Unity: what a 16-bit heightmap is, map sizes, exporting elevation by coordinates and converting it to PNG or RAW.
How to build a GPX route and load it into a navigator, a watch or a phone: track vs route vs waypoints, the GPX folder on a Garmin device, importing into Suunto and Coros, OsmAnd and Locus.
How to get a map of Mariupol in AutoCAD: exporting an OpenStreetMap area to DWG or DXF, drawing layers, choosing a metric coordinate system, units and scale, using the map as an underlay.
How to convert GeoJSON into DXF and DWG: why degree coordinates produce a drawing a fraction of a unit across, reprojection to metres in one ogr2ogr command, longitude-latitude order, polygons with holes.
How to turn a map picture into vector: what tracing in Illustrator, Inkscape and Vector Magic actually gives you, why it falls apart on maps, and how to get a layered vector city map right away — as SVG, PDF or DXF.
How to bring OpenStreetMap buildings and terrain into SketchUp via COLLADA, OBJ or glTF: import, units and scale, geolocating the model, building heights and taming a heavy scene.
You have a coordinate list from a land registry extract: how to build the plot outline in CAD without swapping X and Y, and how to convert a local grid into WGS-84 for GPS and maps.
Чертёж открылся не в том масштабе или карта вышла приплюснутой: как за минуту проверить INSUNITS и MEASUREMENT в DXF и чем эти два случая различаются.
OSM maps for Navitel: why OpenStreetMap data cannot be dropped into the app directly, where map files go (the NavitelContent/Maps folder) and how to import points and routes via GPX.
Where to download a map of Minsk and in which format: PDF and SVG for print, DWG and DXF for CAD, GeoJSON and GeoPackage for GIS, KML and GPX for a navigator.
How to download a GeoTIFF map by coordinates: what a georeferenced raster is, how to set the area bounds, choose a coordinate system and resolution, and how to open the file in QGIS.
How to convert SHP to DXF and DWG: why a shapefile is a set of files, what breaks without the .prj, import via MAPIMPORT, QGIS and ogr2ogr, layer splitting and what happens to attributes.