[OSM-dev] New OSM map-rendering code

[nick at hogweed.org]

Hello everyone,

As I have mentioned in the mailing list I have started working on an 
alternative map renderer for OSM, which shows different segment types in 
different colours and aims to show street names etc.  It's based on the 
Freemap rendering code and written in PHP.

I have now added an initial version into Subversion, under the "freemap" 
directory (it is there because I want to use the code in Freemap too). A 
working version can be found at

http://nick.dev.openstreetmap.org/index.php

At the moment it shows different classes of segment in different colours, 
distinguishing between A roads, B roads, minor roads and paths. The following 
tags are recognised: name, class, foot, horse, bike, car, though the aim is 
to recognise others too.

As this is an initial version there are still a number of issues:

1. there are some display problems with the tiles e.g. the map can get 
corrupted at the bounds of the tiles. I added the extra SQL to include 
segments which pass through tiles (see dev list March 30th) but there appear 
to be other issues too.

2. at certain times of day it can be slow. This is, I guess, because people 
are doing things on the dev server,  but probably the SQL could be optimised 
better. Have to admit, SQL optimisation is not my strongest point so if 
anyone would like to hack on this aspect of the code....

3. I want to make my own code cleaner and more OO, it has the form of hacky, 
proof-of-concept code in places at the moment....

As I have other things on the go such as osmeditor2 and (while it's the 
holidays) going out into the countryside and surveying paths, it's doubtful I 
can do all this by myself so if anyone likes the look of this feel free to 
contribute code/suggestions. In particular while "issues" 1 and 3 I can 
probably sort out myself, "issue" 2 (the SQL optimisation) I would appreciate 
input.

Nick