Online Trick

Convert OpenStreetMap Objects to KML with R

A quick geo-tip:
With the osmar and maptools package you can easily pull an OpenStreetMap object and convert it to KML, like below (thanks to adibender helping out on SO). I found the relation ID by googling for it (www.google.at/search?q=openstreetmap+relation+innsbruck).

# get OSM data
library(osmar)
library(maptools)
 
innsbruck <- get_osm(relation(113642), full = T)
sp_innsbruck <- as_sp(innsbruck, what = "lines")
 
# convert to KML
for( i in seq_along(sp_innsbruck) ) {
      kmlLine(sp_innsbruck@lines[[i]], kmlfile = "innsbruck.kml",
               lwd = 3, col = "blue", name = "Innsbruck") 
      }
 
shell.exec("innsbruck.kml")