d.osm

A GRASS GIS addon that fetches OSINT-relevant OpenStreetMap features -- military installations, checkpoints, power infrastructure, communications towers, and transportation chokepoints -- live from the public Overpass API for the current GRASS computational region, and displays them with pre-baked GRASS vector symbols shipped with the addon.

Fully independent and fully open source:

• No local database. Every run is a live Overpass query against whatever region is currently set with g.region (reprojected to lat/lon automatically regardless of the project's CRS). Nothing is cached between runs.
• No dependency on any other project's code. Only the Python standard library and grass.script are used.
• No live SVG-to-symbol conversion. GRASS has no native SVG symbol support (see NOTES below), so the 17 symbol files under symbols/ were converted once, ahead of time, from SVG icons using the standalone, public-domain svg2grasssymbol converter, and are embedded directly in d.osm.py as static text -- there is no runtime conversion step at all.

Recognized feature types

type	OSM tag
military_airfield	military=airfield
military_base	military=base
bunker	military=bunker
naval_base	military=naval_base
training_area	military=training_area
checkpoint	barrier=checkpoint
border_control	amenity=border_control
power_plant	power=plant
substation	power=substation
communications_tower	man_made=communications_tower
civilian_airport	aeroway=aerodrome
port_harbour	harbour=yes
ferry_terminal	amenity=ferry_terminal
railway_station	railway=station
toll_booth	barrier=toll_booth
bridge	bridge=yes + (highway=* or railway=*)
tunnel	tunnel=yes + (highway=* or railway=*)

bridge and tunnel need both a modifier tag and a carrier tag (highway/railway, any value) on the same OSM element -- see d.osm.md's DESCRIPTION for why (they're modifier tags on a road/rail way in OSM, not a standalone tag=value pair like the other 15 types).

Usage

g.region region=my_area_of_interest
d.mon start=cairo
d.osm                                              # every recognized type
d.osm types=checkpoint,border_control              # only these
d.osm format=attributes                            # print attributes, don't render
d.osm endpoint=http://localhost:12345/api/interpreter   # a different Overpass instance

See d.osm.md (or d.osm --help once installed) for the full option reference.

Installing

g.extension extension=d.osm url=/path/to/this/directory

installs it into $GRASS_ADDON_BASE, picked up automatically by any GRASS session. See d.osm.md's NOTES section, and the standalone svg2grasssymbol tool's INSTALL.md, for background on why custom GRASS symbols specifically need to land under $GISBASE/etc/symbol/ (a different location than the addon script itself) to be usable from d.vect icon= -- d.osm handles this automatically the first time each symbol is needed.

Testing

pytest tests/

Tests run against a local fake Overpass server (tests/conftest.py), not the live API, so they're deterministic and offline-safe. They do require a GRASS installation (via grass.script/grass.tools) to actually run the addon end-to-end, same as any GRASS addon's test suite.

Data attribution

This tool's own code is public domain (see LICENSE). The data it fetches at runtime is not: OpenStreetMap data is ODbL 1.0 licensed. If you publish maps, reports, or datasets built from d.osm's output, you are responsible for OpenStreetMap attribution ("© OpenStreetMap contributors") wherever that data is shown, per ODbL's terms -- this project's public-domain license covers the code, not the OSM data it queries.

Symbol provenance

The 17 bundled GRASS symbols were converted from:

• Twelve Mapbox Maki icons (CC0): military_airfield (airfield), checkpoint (roadblock), border_control (gate), power_plant (industry, a generic stand-in -- Maki has no dedicated power-plant icon), communications_tower, civilian_airport (airport), port_harbour (harbor), ferry_terminal (ferry), railway_station (rail), toll_booth (toll), bridge, and tunnel.
• Five hand-authored icons with no close Maki match: military_base, bunker, naval_base, training_area, substation.

Both the resulting GRASS symbol files and this project's own code are released to the public domain (Unlicense) -- see LICENSE.

Related project

d.osint is a related, database-backed addon built for a specific private local OSINTDB rather than live Overpass queries. Unlike d.osm, it is not intended for public distribution.