Potlatch – the OpenStreetMap editor

The latest Potlatch is now live.

The main new feature is a super new “parallel path” feature, which will create a way at a given offset – in metres – from another one. So if you’ve driven along one carriageway of a motorway, but not the other, you can still map both – just draw the first one, then create a parallel path at the right offset.

To use it, select the way, then press ‘P’ for parallel. Potlatch will ask you what offset to use – you can choose from a handful of presets, or enter your own. Click ‘Ok’ and two offset ways will be created, one on either side. Delete the one you don’t want, and unlock (click the padlock) the one you do – after adding intersections, tags and so on, of course.

A few other changes:

• The ‘loading ways’ display (top right) now tells you whether it’s saving data, too.
• When you zoom in/out, ways are redrawn (at the new width) gradually, not all at once. This means that Flash Player won’t seem to hang every time you zoom.
• A new option, “Highlight unnamed roads”, will show any unnamed highways with a red border (casing) – particularly useful in cities where people have traced from Yahoo aerial imagery. It’s just like the NoName layer on the static map.

All of Northumbria and Cumbria are now on Potlatch’s NPE layer (at zoom level 14, of course) – plus Doncaster which was accidentally missed off the last release.

The two remaining gaps are a “central belt” across Northern England (the Pennines, Yorkshire etc.), and the South-East. (Scotland will be done later.)