How to deal with duplicate ways joining two nodes?

Hi everyone,

I’m new to OSM, but have begun mapping my home town (my local area was totally blank) with potlatch. Having (hopefully) got the hang of that, and having read that most people use JOSM, i thought I’d give it a try. In the process of trying to get the hang of that (not nearly so easy!) and adding some extra points to roads that were a bit jagged, I managed to accidentally create duplicate ways between some nodes. Some of these are visible on top of the roads they are on when viewed in potlatch, but others seem to be underneath, so the only hint that they are there is that the lines on the edges seem slightly thicker. There didn’t seem to be any indication of two superimposed ways between some nodes in JOSM, or i wouldn’t have uploaded them, of course!

Of course, these duplicate ways need to be removed, as they could cause havoc, but is there any way I can delete them? I can’t figure out how. Will I have to delete the nodes and start over? :frowning:

I have the way numbers of some of the duplicate ways written down somewhere, but i can only get the numbers of the ones that appear “on top” in potlatch.

So far i’m not really liking the look of JOSM. It gives nice clear display of location of nodes and GPS points, and it’s great for correcting roundabouts that have the wrong direction and dual-carriageways with non-parallel nodes, but I find the interface hugely counter-intuitive :frowning:

Regards,

Dave

JOSM is indeed a bit tricky to learn, but once you get the hang of it: It is a very powerful tool and you can do things that won’t be possible with Potlatch.

You can remove the duplicate ways as follows:

  • Hover your mouse pointer over the duplicate way.
  • Hold/click the center mouse button and keep it clicked. This will show you a popup (property) menu showing all ways underneath the mouse pointer.
  • Hold the CTRL button and release the center mouse button but keep holding the CTRL.
  • Now point the mouse pointer to the item in the popup menu and click it.
  • Release CTRL. You will now see that one of the duplicate ways is selected.
  • If it’s the correct one choose ‘delete’, otherwise repeat to select another.

I reckon you know the F1 = Help option in JOSM?

Many thanks Lambertus, I’ll check this at home when I get a minute.

Sounds like there’s a lot of functionality in JOSM, it just isn’t in the places one might expect to find it!

I’ll have to have another look at the help files.

Btw, the handelbar mount for your GPS looks neat :slight_smile: I’m trying to figure out how I can mount my pocket PC (use CF GPS) onto my bike handlebars. Think it might have to involve a case, an old light mount and some Araldite!! All the available PDA handlebar mounts i’ve seen look awful! :frowning:

It’s the standard Garmin bike mount. I’m not sure it is wise to mount a PDA to a handlebar because it seems to me that PDA’s are not designed to tolerate the violent shaking which occurs when riding a bike in offroad (but also urban) environments. Also it often rains in my part of the world…also not good for a standard PDA I guess.

Oh, and checkout RAM mount they have some nice (albeit expensive) handlebar mounts.

I made myself a handlebar mount over the weekend using a clear plastic pda case, a small piece of plywood, some araldite and a cannibalised bike light mount! Went out last night with it on the bike and it seemed to work great. It even looks reasonable too :slight_smile: I’ll keep the suspension forks fairly soft when using it I think and avoid riding off kerbs etc! I’m not sure I’ll use it off road although it would be useful :frowning: Also, I’ll probably not use it in the rain, or perhaps wrap it in cling-film first if I do! :wink:

I got really nice clear tracks too, a slight improvement over keeping it in the back of my bag.

Nice DIY job, feel like sharing some pics?

But remember; cold, damp, shocks is not exactly what office PDA’s are built for to withstand… Is a Garmin HCx not better choice when you decide to venture into offroading (Depending on budgets ofcourse)?

Yes, even SIRFstar III GPS devices perform better when they can ‘see’ more sky. Best would be to mount it on top of your helmet or on a pole :stuck_out_tongue:

Will do, when I get a chance to take some pics. I’m not at home during daylight hours during the week at the moment! :frowning:

Yeah, of course, a Garmin would probably be far more suitable, but the budget for mapping at the moment is zero. One of the joys of being married is that I need to negotiate expensive purchases now, and come up with a convincing justification for them! :roll_eyes:

Perhaps the idea that it would encourage me to get more exercise may work in a few months time :stuck_out_tongue:

Ouch! That sounds like the marriage from hell :stuck_out_tongue: My gf says: “Well it’s your money…” on these types of questions. I know, not the best answer either but better then yours I guess. Oh lol.

I wonder if you could get her support on this one by saying that you’ll be getting more exercise (resulting in broad sholders, a firm butt and a sixpack) from going outside more when you were allowed to buy that GPS. It might just be a matter of making a good selling point to your wife…

Well I’m not too keen on mountainbiking in winter as well, but I hear many say it’s way more fun then riding in summer…