Running tools/download.py with conda version of cartopy

[jbusecke]

I would like to download all the 'standard' shapefiles to local disk (to avoid a loss of working time due to something like #933).

I installed cartopy using conda, and it seems that tools/download.py is not included (version:cartopy 0.15.1 py36_4 conda-forge).

Is there a suggested workaround? Or do I have to install from source?

[ajdawson]

The feature_download.py script (it used to be called download.py) isn't really part of the library, which is why conda doesn't install it. Installing cartopy from source will also not install this tool.

The good news is it is a stand-alone script with a dependency on cartopy, so you can just download from github independently and run in in your conda environment where cartopy is installed.

[pelson]

I'm completely in favour of us bringing the script into the cartopy library. python -m cartopy.io.download_features or some-other such name would be good with me.

[QuLogic]

The script is now installed when you install Cartopy, as of #1602.

Additionally, if you are using conda, the cartopy_offlinedata package can be used to download things as a package.