Osmfilter
osmfilter is a command line tool used to filter OpenStreetMap data files for specific tags. You can define different kinds of filters to get OSM objects (i.e. nodes, ways, relations), including their dependent objects, e.g. nodes of ways, ways of relations, relations of other relations.
Supported input and output formats are .osm format and .o5m format. To allow fast data processing, it is recommended to use .o5m format at least for input. The program osmconvert will help you converting other formats to .o5m. For example: ./osmconvert file.pbf -o=file.o5m
Download
These Downloads are available:
- binary for Linux 32 bit
- binary for Windows
- osmctools Debian package, to install run: apt install osmctools
- macOS Homebrew package, to install run: brew install osmfilter
- source code (newest version)
- (previous source code)
- Download and build in one run: wget -O - http://m.m.i24.cc/osmfilter.c |cc -x c - -O3 -o osmfilter
As usual: There is no warranty, to the extent permitted by law.
Program Description
To get a detailed description, please use the built-in help function of the program:
./osmfilter --help
This call will display a brief parameter overview:
./osmfilter -h
The following chapters demonstrate the most important use cases.
Object Filter
Filters of this category will always affect whole object (nodes, ways or relations). That means, these filter decide for every object if will be kept in the file or not.
Keep specific Objects and their Dependents
./osmfilter norway.osm --keep="highway=primary =secondary waterway=river" >streets.osm ./osmfilter switzerland.o5m --keep="highway=cycleway and lit=yes" >litcycles.osm ./osmfilter europe.o5m --keep= --keep-relations="route=bus" --out-o5m >bus_lines.o5m ./osmfilter bayern.o5m --keep="admin_level=6 and name=Nürnberger\ Land" -o=nbg_boundaries.osm
Each space character within a value must be preceded by a backslash.
Keep specific Object Type
To keep just a single object type specify a filter that only matches this, the other types need either be dropped or not matched by specifying an empty filter. To get only nodes with fixme=* use one of the following equivalent forms:
--keep-nodes="fixme=" --keep-ways= --keep-relations= --keep= --keep-nodes="fixme="
Drop specific Objects
./osmfilter europe.o5m --keep="highway=" --drop="access=no" -o=good_ways.osm
Drop all Nodes, Ways or Relations
You can delete all objects of a specific type by applying one of these options (combinations are allowed):
--drop-nodes --drop-ways --drop-relations
Advanced Object Filtering
Ignoring interobject Dependencies
Usually all objects which are used by an object which is included will be kept in the data as well. For example, the filter --keep="highway=" will include not only all roads but also their nodes. The same applies to relations and their members. If you do not want these dependencies to be considered by the program, please specify this option:
--ignore-dependencies
Boolean Operators
To define complex filters you can use the Boolean operators and and or. The first has a higher priority than the latter, thus terms with "and" will be calculated first. You can supersede this order with brackets. Note that brackets must be separated by spaces from every other bracket, operand or operator. Example for a Boolean term:
--keep="place=city or ( place=town and population>=10000 )"
Comparisons
You may use six different types comparisons:
= != < > <= >=
The program will compare values ASCII-alphabetically by default. This may be not the right order for your language. The most noticeable difference is that all upper-case letters come before thee first lower-case letter.
For numeric values, the comparison will be calculated numerically. That means, "2" comes before "10" although "10" would be the first in alphabetical order.
Wildcards
When using the comparison operator "=", wildcards are allowed at the beginning and at the end of tags or values. For example:
--keep="name=main* and highway=*ary and source=*aerial*" --keep="addr:*=*"
Special Tags
If it is necessary to compare meta data, the following expressions may be used as key values for the filter:
@id @uid @user
Tags Filter
Tags filter always refer just to certain tags, they never decide about the existence of whole objects. Use Tags filter to define tags you want to keep in the file or to be excluded.
Keep only specific Tags
./osmfilter a.o5m --keep-tags="all amenity=restaurant =fast_food" -o=food.osm ./osmfilter a.o5m --keep-tags="all highway= waterway= name=" -o=ways.o5m
Use this option with care. It can eventually filter out essential tags. For instance not keeping type= tag would break feather relation processing.
Drop specific Tags
./osmfilter a.o5m --drop-tags="oneway= name=" -o=plain_ways.o5m
Drop Author Information
For most applications the author tags are not needed. If you decide to exclude user name, user id, changeset and timestamp information, add the command line argument '--drop-author'. For example:
./osmfilter a.o5m --keep="route=" --drop-author -o=b.o5m
Drop Author Information and Version Number
If you want to drop not only the author information but also version numbers, use this option. For example:
./osmfilter a.o5m --keep="route=" --drop-version -o=b.o5m
Be aware of the fact that most programs will deny working with your data after you have deleted the version numbers.
Tags Modification
Sometimes it is useful to change certain tags to make further data processing easier.
Modify Values
You can specify values to be modified. For example:
./osmfilter a.o5m --modify-tags="highway=primary to =tertiary highway=secondary to =tertiary" -o=all_streets_are_small.o5m
This will make all primary and secondary roads to tertiary ones.
Modify Keys
Keys can also be modified:
./osmfilter a.o5m --modify-node-tags="amenity=fire_hydrant to emergency=fire_hydrant" -o=new_hydrant_syntax.o5m
Add new Tags
Same as with filtering, tag modification allows comparisons. Thus you can add redundant tags if this helps to simplify subsequent processing of your data:
./osmfilter a.o5m --modify-tags="maxspeed<=20 add speed_category=slow" -o=speed_categories.o5m
There is no check if there are already tags with the same key name. If necessary, use tags filter function to prevent possible collisions.
Getting Tag Statistics
To decide which items to keep and which items to drop, an overview over all tags used in a file would be helpful. There are four different output formats. The following sections will introduce these formats with the help of examples. All outputs have been clipped to 10 lines length.
List of all Keys
./osmfilter bremen.o5m --out-key
5 Boden
1 EE
84 FIXME
1 Fone
7 StrVz
113 TMC:cid_58:tabcd_1:Class
78 TMC:cid_58:tabcd_1:Direction
107 TMC:cid_58:tabcd_1:LCLversion
110 TMC:cid_58:tabcd_1:LocationCode
47 TMC:cid_58:tabcd_1:NextLocationCode
The first column shows the number of occurrences.
To specify a group of neighboring keys, you may use a wildcard at the end, for example:
--out-key=addr:*
List of all Keys, sorted by Occurrence
./osmfilter bremen.o5m --out-count
28199 highway
22794 building
21365 name
18754 created_by
17751 source
11842 addr:housenumber
11835 addr:street
5925 addr:postcode
5724 foot
5543 addr:city
List of a Key's Values
./osmfilter bremen.o5m --out-key=railway
156 abandoned
6 abandoned_tram
16 buffer_stop
2 bumper_stop
9 construction
31 crossing
31 disused
8 halt
269 level_crossing
38 platform
List of a Key's Values, sorted by Occurrence
./osmfilter bremen.o5m --out-count=railway |head
1570 rail
269 level_crossing
192 tram
182 tram_stop
156 abandoned
126 spur
81 razed
38 platform
31 crossing
31 disused
Parameter File
The command line argument can get very long if you specify complex filters. Please use a parameter file instead and refer to this file with --parameter-file=. For example:
./osmfilter europe.o5m --parameter-file=my_parameters >line_1.o5m
File "my_parameters":
-v --keep= --keep-relations= all route=bus line=1 --drop-tags= operator= direction= --out-o5m
Empty lines are used to separate the parameters. Linefeeds within parameters will be converted to spaces.
Benchmarks
Planet Pistes
16GB ram, 7200rpm disk
$ time ./osmfilter new-planet-latest.o5m --keep="piste:type= or aerialway=" > pistes.osm real 12m5.413s user 4m30.465s sys 0m28.742s
Planet Waterways & Naturals
$ time ./osmfilter planet-121207.o5m --keep= --keep-ways="natural= or waterway=" --keep-relations="natural= or waterway=" -o=planet-natural-temp.o5m real 8m6.760s user 5m27.622s sys 0m35.670s
16GB, SSD