Spaced Out ::

I’ve been working with some colleagues in Argentina for which open source data is sparse. To this end, I wanted to collate some SRTM data (from EarthExplorer) and OSM data. Downloading the latest 1 arcsecond SRTM data proved a little more fiddly than I was expecting - more on this in the next blog.

However it was OSM data for Tierra del Fuego that I wanted to grab and so find an easy way to download just what I wanted. Enter the rather excellent OSMDownloader plugin (OK, its a plugin, rather than native to QGIS, but hey many features started life that way!). Simply install and click Vector->OpenStreetMap->Download Data. By default it chooses the extent of the current map canvas and then can dynamically download the data. Fantastically simple and useful.