osmplotr enables OpenStreetMap (OSM) data to be downloaded (using the overpass API) and used to produce highly customisable maps. This vignette demonstrates both data downloading and the creation of simple maps. The subsequent vignette (‘making-maps-with-data’) demonstrates how osmplotr enables user-defined data to be visualised using OSM data. The maps in this vignette represent a small portion of central London, U.K.

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Downloading Data

    2.1 Negation

    2.2 Additional key-value pairs

    2.3 A note on rivers

    2.4 Downloading with osm_structures and make_osm_map

          2.4.1 The london data of osmplotr

    2.5 Downloading connected highways

          2.5.1 connect_highways in detail

3. Producing maps

    3.1 Plotting different OSM Structures

    3.2. Automating map production

    3.3 Axes

1. Introduction

A map can be generated using the following simple steps:

library (osmplotr)
library (maptools) # Needed for this vignette
  1. Specify the bounding box for the desired region
bbox <- get_bbox (c(-0.13,51.50,-0.11,51.52))
  1. Download the desired data—in this case, all building perimeters.
dat_B <- extract_osm_objects (key='building', bbox=bbox)
  1. Initiate an osm_basemap with desired background (bg) colour
map <- plot_osm_basemap (bbox=bbox, bg='gray20')
  1. Add desired plotting objects in the desired colour.
map <- add_osm_objects (map, dat_B, col='gray40')
  1. Print the map
print (map)

map1

Additional capabilities of osmplotr are described in the following sections, beginning with downloading and extraction of data.

2. Downloading Data

The main function for downloading OSM data from the overpass API is extract_osm_objects. Data of a particular type can be extracted by passing the appropriate OSM key, as in the above example:

bbox <- get_bbox (c(-0.13,51.51,-0.11,51.52))
dat_B <- extract_osm_objects (key='building', bbox=bbox)
dat_H <- extract_osm_objects (key='highway', bbox=bbox)

These objects are of appropriate Spatial classes:

class (dat_B); class (dat_H); class (dat_T)
## [1] "SpatialPolygonsDataFrame"
## attr(,"package")
## [1] "sp"
## [1] "SpatialLinesDataFrame"
## attr(,"package")
## [1] "sp"
## [1] "SpatialPointsDataFrame"
## attr(,"package")
## [1] "sp"

The SpatialPolygonsDataFrame, SpatialLinesDataFrame, and SpatialPointsDataFrame of London buildings, highways, and trees respectively contain

length (dat_B); length (dat_H); length (dat_T)
## [1] 2178
## [1] 2139
## [1] 1310

… 2,178 building polygons, 2,139 highway lines, and 1,310 trees. extract_osm_objects also accepts key-value pairs which are passed to the overpass API :

dat_T <- extract_osm_objects (key='natural', value='tree', bbox=bbox)

2.1 Negation

Negation can be specified by pre-pending ! to the value argument so that, for example, all natural objects that are not trees can be extracted with

dat_NT <- extract_osm_objects (key='natural', value='!tree', bbox=bbox)

london$dat_H contains all non-primary highways, and was extracted with,

dat_H <- extract_osm_objects (key='highway', value='!primary', bbox=bbox)

2.2 Additional key-value pairs

Any number of key-value pairs may be passed to extract_osm_objects. For example, a named building can be extracted with

extra_pairs <- c ('name', 'Royal.Festival.Hall')
dat <- extract_osm_objects (key='building', extra_pairs=extra_pairs, 
                                       bbox=bbox)

This data is stored in london$dat_RFH. Note that periods or dots are used for whitespace, and in fact symbolise (in grep terms) any character whatsoever. The polygon of a building at a particular street address can be extracted with

extra_pairs <- list (c ('addr:street', 'Stamford.St'),
                     c ('addr:housenumber', '150'))
dat <- extract_osm_objects (key='building', extra_pairs=extra_pairs, 
                                      bbox=bbox)

This data is stored as london$dat_ST. Note that addresses generally require combining both addr:street with addr:housenumber.

2.3 A note on rivers

OSM objects are extracted within R through using the osmar package which does not currently handle the extraction of rivers in a failsafe way. Rivers are generally defined by (key,value)=('waterway','riverbank'), with relations returned as an OSM multipolygon. These multipolygon objects are, however, not extracted by osmar when they extend beyond a requested bbox, and there is no way to know in advance whether or not that may be the case. This requests to download river polygons may not yield the desired results. This problem will be addressed in future releases of osmplotr.

2.4 Downloading with osm_structures and make_osm_map

The functions osm_structures and make_osm_map aid both downloading multiple OSM data types and plotting (with the latter described below). osm_structures returns a data.frame of OSM structure types, associated key-value pairs, unique suffices which may be appended to data structures for storage purposes, and suggested colours. Passing this list to make_osm_map will return a list of the requested OSM data items, named through combining the dat_prefix specified in make_osm_map and the suffices specified in osm_structures.

osm_structures ()
##     structure      key value suffix      cols
## 1    building building           BU #646464FF
## 2     amenity  amenity            A #787878FF
## 3    waterway waterway            W #646478FF
## 4       grass  landuse grass      G #64A064FF
## 5     natural  natural            N #647864FF
## 6        park  leisure  park      P #647864FF
## 7     highway  highway            H #000000FF
## 8    boundary boundary           BO #C8C8C8FF
## 9        tree  natural  tree      T #64A064FF
## 10 background                          gray20

Many structures are identified by keys only, in which cases the values are empty strings.

osm_structures()$value [1:4]
## [1] ""      ""      ""      "grass"

The last row of osm_structures exists only to define the background colour of the map, as explained below (3.2 Automating map production).

The suffices include as many letters as are necessary to represent all unique structure names. make_osm_map returns a list of two components:

  1. osm_data containing the data objects passed in the osm_structures argument. Any existing osm_data may also be submitted to make_osm_map, in which case any objects not present in the submitted data will be appended to the returned version. If osm_data is not submitted, all objects in osm_structures will be downloaded and returned.
  2. map containing the ggplot2 map objects with layers overlaid according to the sequence and colour schemes specified in osm_structures

The data specified in osm_structures can then be downloaded simply by calling:

dat <- make_osm_map (structures=osm_structures (), bbox=bbox)
names (dat); sapply (dat, class); names (dat$osm_data)
## [1] "osm_data" "map"
## $osm_data
## [1] "list"
## 
## $map
## [1] "gg"     "ggplot"
## [1] "dat_BU" "dat_A"  "dat_W"  "dat_G"  "dat_N"  "dat_P"  "dat_H"  "dat_BO"
## [9] "dat_T"

Where dat$osm_data contains the requested data. A list of desired structures can also be passed to this function, for example,

osm_structures (structures=c('building', 'highway'))
##    structure      key value suffix      cols
## 1   building building            B #646464FF
## 2    highway  highway            H #000000FF
## 3 background                          gray20

Passing this to make_osm_map will download only these two structures. Finally, note that the example of,

osm_structures (structures='grass')
##    structure     key value suffix      cols
## 1      grass landuse grass      G #64A064FF
## 2 background                         gray20

demonstrates the conversion of keys to OSM-appropriate key-value pairs.

2.4.1 The london data of osmplotr

To illustrate the use of osm_structures to download data, this section reproduces the code that was used to generate the london data object which forms part of the osmplotr package.

structures <- c ('highway', 'highway', 'building', 'building', 'building',
                 'amenity', 'park', 'natural', 'tree')   
structs <- osm_structures (structures=structures, col_scheme='dark')   
structs$value [1] <- '!primary'   
structs$value [2] <- 'primary'
structs$suffix [2] <- 'HP'
structs$value [3] <- '!residential'
structs$value [4] <- 'residential'
structs$value [5] <- 'commercial'
structs$suffix [3] <- 'BNR'
structs$suffix [4] <- 'BR'
structs$suffix [5] <- 'BC'

Note that suffices are generated automatically from structure names only, not values, requiring the suffices for negated forms to be specified manually. The london data was then simply downloaded by calling extract_osm_objects on each row of the structs data frame. The additional lines in the following code rename each downloaded object according to the suffices given in structs$suffix.

london <- make_osm_map (structures=structs, bbox=bbox)
london <- london$osm_data

As shown above, the requested data are contained in the $osm_data list item. The map item is examined below (see 3.1 Automating map production).

2.5 Downloading connected highways

The visualisation functions considered below enable particular regions of maps to be highlighted. While it may often be desirable to highlight regions according to a user’s own data, osmplotr also enables regions to be defined by providing a list of the names of encircling highways. The function which achieves this is connect_highways, which returns a sequential list of SpatialPoints from those segments of the named highways which connected continuously and sequentially to form a single enclosed space. An example is,

highways <- c ('Monmouth.St', 'Short.?s.Gardens', 'Endell.St', 'Long.Acre',
               'Upper.Saint.Martin')
highways1 <- connect_highways (highways=highways, bbox=bbox)

Note the use of the ‘regex’ character ‘?’ which declares that the previous character is optional. This matches both “Shorts Gardens” and “Short’s Gardens”, both of which appear in OSM data.

class (highways1); length (highways1); head (coordinates (highways1))
## [1] "SpatialPoints"
## attr(,"package")
## [1] "sp"
## [1] 55
##     coords.x1 coords.x2
## 14 -0.1250003  51.51480
## 15 -0.1254141  51.51457
## 16 -0.1257428  51.51440
## 17 -0.1259169  51.51430
## 18 -0.1260387  51.51424
## 19 -0.1269318  51.51381

Other examples, which are also included in the provided london data, include:

highways <- c ('Endell.St', 'High.Holborn', 'Drury.Lane', 'Long.Acre')
highways2 <- connect_highways (highways=highways, bbox=bbox)
highways <- c ('Drury.Lane', 'High.Holborn', 'Kingsway', 'Great.Queen.St')
highways3 <- connect_highways (highways=highways, bbox=bbox)

The extraction of bounding polygons from named highways is not failsafe, and may generate various warning messages. To understand the kinds of conditions under which it may not work, it is useful to examine connect_highways in more detail.

2.5.1 connect_highways in detail

connect_highways finds a sequence of line segments that circularly connect the named highways. Cases where no circular connection is possible generate an error message. The function which actually connects the given highways into a circular sequence is get_highway_cycle, which,

Takes a list of OpenStreetMap highways returned by extract_highways and sequentially connects closest nodes of adjacent highways until the set of highways connects to form a cycle.

connect_highways proceeds through the three stages of,

  1. Adding intersection nodes to junctions of ways where these don’t already exist

  2. Filling a connectivity matrix between the listed highways and extracting the longest cycle connecting them all

  3. Inserting extra connections between highways until the length of the longest cycle is equal to length (highways).

However, even once the highways are connected, the individual components of each highway may not necessarily connect in a continuous manner to complete the cycle. The final task, completed within the connect_highways routine, is thus ensuring that the components of each individual highway actually connect, through sequentially connecting the closest pair of components until a shortest path is possible between the two components which connect with other highways.

This procedure can not be guaranteed failsafe owing both to the inherently unpredictable nature of OpenStreetMap, as well as to the unknown relationships between named highways. To enable problematic cases to be examined and hopefully resolved, connect_highways has a plot option:

# TODO: Set eval=FALSE before cran re-sub!!
bbox_big <- get_bbox (c(-0.15,51.5,-0.10,51.52))
highways <- c ('Kingsway', 'Holborn', 'Farringdon.St', 'Strand',
               'Fleet.St', 'Aldwych')
highway_list <- connect_highways (highways=highways, bbox=bbox_big, plot=TRUE)
## Downloading OSM data ...
## 
  |                                                                       
  |                                                                 |   0%
  |                                                                       
  |===========                                                      |  17%
  |                                                                       
  |======================                                           |  33%
  |                                                                       
  |================================                                 |  50%
  |                                                                       
  |===========================================                      |  67%
  |                                                                       
  |======================================================           |  83%
  |                                                                       
  |=================================================================| 100%
## Warning in get_highway_cycle(ways): Cycle unable to be extended through all
## ways

The plot depicts each highway in a different colour, along with numbers at start and end points of each segment. This plot reveals in this case that highway#6 (‘Aldwych’) is actually nested within two components of highway#4 (‘Strand’). connect_highways searches for the shortest path connecting all named highways, and since ‘Strand’ connects to both highways#1 and #5, the shortest path excludes #6. This exclusion of one of the named components generates the warning message.

3. Producing maps

Maps will generally contain multiple kinds of OSM data, for example,

dat_B <- extract_osm_objects (key='building', bbox=bbox)
dat_H <- extract_osm_objects (key='highway', bbox=bbox)
dat_T <- extract_osm_objects (key='natural', value='tree', bbox=bbox)

As illustrated above, plotting maps requires first making a basemap with a specified background colour. Portions of maps can also be plotted by creating a basemap with a smaller bounding box.

bbox_small <- get_bbox (c(-0.13,51.51,-0.11,51.52))
map <- plot_osm_basemap (bbox=bbox_small, bg='gray20')
map <- add_osm_objects (map, dat_H, col='gray70')
map <- add_osm_objects (map, dat_B, col='gray40')

The proportions of graphics devices should be scaled in proportion to the bounding box (although this is of course not necessary).

dev.new (width=8, height=8 * diff (bbox2 [2,]) / diff (bbox2 [1,]))
# or png, pdf, or whatever device is used for printing
print (map)

map2

Other graphical parameters can also be passed to add_osm_objects, such as border colours or line widths and types. For example,

map <- plot_osm_basemap (bbox=bbox_small, bg='gray20')
map <- add_osm_objects (map, dat_B, col='gray40', border='orange', size=0.2)
print (map)

map3

The size argument is passed to the corresponding ggplot2 routine for plotting polygons, lines, or points, and respectively determines widths of lines (for polygon outlines and for lines), and sizes of points. The col argument determines the fill colour of polygons, or the colour of lines or points.

map <- add_osm_objects (map, dat_H, col='gray70', size=0.7)
map <- add_osm_objects (map, dat_T, col='green', size=2, shape=1)
print (map)

map4

Note also that the shape parameter determines the point shape, for details of which see ?ggplot2::shape. Also note that plot order affects the final outcome, because components are sequentially overlaid and thus the same map components plotted in a different order will generally produce a different result.

The osmplotr package is intended to produce high quality graphical output written to particular graphic devices such as png or jpeg (see ?png for a list of possible devices). ggplot readily enables map objects to be printed to the active device so that graphics files can be generated by, for example,

png (height=mapht, width=mapwd, file='map.png')
print (map)
graphics.off ()

3.1 Plotting different OSM Structures

The ability demonstrated above to use negation in extract-osm-objects allows different kinds of the same object to be visually contrasted, for example primary and non-primary highways:

dat_HP <- extract_osm_objects (key='highway', value='primary', bbox=bbox)
dat_H <- extract_osm_objects (key='highway', value='!primary', bbox=bbox)
map <- plot_osm_basemap (bbox=bbox_small, bg='gray20')
map <- add_osm_objects (map, dat_H, col='gray50')
map <- add_osm_objects (map, dat_HP, col='gray80', size=2)
print (map)

map5

The additional key-value pairs demonstrated above (for Royal Festival Hall, dat_RFH and 150 Stamford Street, dat_ST) also above allow for highly customised maps.

These objects can then be individually plotted with different colour schemes.

bbox_small2 <- get_bbox (c (-0.118, 51.504, -0.110, 51.507))
map <- plot_osm_basemap (bbox=bbox_small2, bg='gray95')
map <- add_osm_objects (map, dat_H, col='gray80')
map <- add_osm_objects (map, dat_HP, col='gray60', size=2)
map <- add_osm_objects (map, dat_RFH, col='orange', border='red', size=2)
map <- add_osm_objects (map, dat_ST, col='skyblue', border='blue', size=2)
dev.new (width=8, height=8 * diff (bbox_small2 [2,]) / diff (bbox_small2 [1,]))
print (map)

map7

3.2. Automating map production

As indicated above (2.4 Downloading with osm_structures and make_osm_map), the production of maps overlaying various type of OSM objects is facilitated with make_osm_map. The structure of a map is defined by osm_structures as described above.

Producing a map with customised data is as simple as,

structs <- c ('highway', 'building', 'park', 'grass', 'tree')   
structures <- osm_structures (structures=structs, col_scheme='light')   
dat <- make_osm_map (structures=structures, bbox=bbox)
map <- dat$map
dev.new (width=8, height=8 * diff (bbox [2,]) / diff (bbox [1,]))
print (map)

map8

Because no bounding box was passed to make_osm_map, a bounding box is extracted as the largest box spanning all objects in osm_data. These objects include highways which extend beyond the defining bounding box, and the large park in the south east. Passing the previous bounding box to the same call, and using the data downloaded from that call to avoid repeating the download, gives:

dat <- make_osm_map (osm_data=dat$osm_data, structures=structures,
                     bbox=bbox_small)
print (dat$map)

map9

Objects in maps are overlaid on the plot according to the order of rows in osm_structures, with the single exception that background is plotted first. This order can be readily changed or restricted simply by submitting structures in a desired order.

structs <- c ('amenity', 'building', 'grass', 'highway', 'park')
osm_structures (structs, col_scheme='light')
##    structure      key value suffix      cols
## 1    amenity  amenity            A #DCDCDCFF
## 2   building building            B #C8C8C8FF
## 3      grass  landuse grass      G #C8FFC8FF
## 4    highway  highway            H #969696FF
## 5       park  leisure  park      P #C8DCC8FF
## 6 background                          gray95

As described above (2.4 Downloading with osm_structures and make_osm_map), if existing osm_data are not passed to make_osm_map, then all data will be downloading by that function and returned in the $osm_data list component.

3.3 Axes

Axes may be added to maps using the add_axes function. In contrast to many R packages for producing maps, maps in osmplotr fill the entire plotting space, and axes are added internal to this space. The separate function for adding axes allows them to be overlaid on top of all previous layers.

Axes added to a dark version of the previous map look like this:

structures <- osm_structures (structures=structs, col_scheme='dark')   
dat <- make_osm_map (structures=structures, osm_data=dat$osm_dat, bbox=bbox)
map <- add_axes (dat$map, colour='black')

Note that, as described above, make_osm_map returns a list of two items: (i) potentially modified data (in $osm_data) and (ii) the map object (in $map). All other add_ functions take a map object as one argument and return the single value of the modified map object.

print (map)

map10

This map reveals that the axes and labels are printed above semi-transparent background rectangles, with transparency controlled by the alpha parameter. Axes are always plotted on the left and lower side, but positions can be adjusted with the pos parameter which specifies the, > Positions of axes and labels relative to entire plot device

map <- add_axes (map, colour='blue', pos=c(0.1,0.2))
print (map)

map11

The second call to add_axes overlaid additional axes on a map that already had axes from the previous call. The current version of osmplotr does not allow text labels of axes to be rotated. (This is because the semi-transparent underlays are generated with ggplot2::geom_label which currently prevents rotation.)