OpenStreetMap
Using drawing tablets to improve mapping productivity
Posted by EnumMapper on 20 June 2023 in English.Recently I purchased a Wacom One drawing tablet. It’s basically a digital pen that acts as a mouse. Using FastDraw in JOSM, this can boost mapping efficiency significantly, especially when drawing curves.
Demo
- Drawing highways: https://vimeo.com/838058803
- Drawing mountain woods: https://vimeo.com/838063094
Discussion
Comment from SherbetS on 21 June 2023 at 14:33
How well does panning the map work?
Comment from EnumMapper on 21 June 2023 at 20:00
It works well. In practice my left hand is on the left Ctrl key and right hand holding the pen. When I need to pan the map, I hold Ctrl and move the pen (that’s equal to moving the mouse with right key down).
Comment from ceyu on 2 July 2023 at 11:42
It seems like it takes longer to draw straight segments with few nodes. Maybe you could draw the straight segments just like the curves and then use the way simplification tool (Shift + Y) to get rid of superfluous nodes?
Comment from JIBEC on 3 July 2023 at 09:28
It makes sense to use this, but the first video shows a lot of points outside of the path. Which is not a good example for newcomers :p
You’ll still have to use the W shortcut to edit the path, the mouse to select a group of points to move them. It is an interesting technic anyway, it may be more efficient for some people.
Thanks for sharing it
Comment from EnumMapper on 5 July 2023 at 15:06
@ceyu It seems like it takes longer to draw straight segments with few nodes. Maybe you could draw the straight segments just like the curves and then use the way simplification tool (Shift + Y) to get rid of superfluous nodes?
Indeed to draw straight lines mouse and keyboard are still the best. Actually with FastDraw it can automatically simplify the superfluous nodes!
Comment from EnumMapper on 5 July 2023 at 15:08
@JIBEC Yes I’m still getting used to it :) It’s not a very precise tool so might need some post-editing on the lines :)