[OSM-dev] Proposal: Database accelerator and dirty tile marker based on simple algorithm.

[Nick Whitelegg]

> > What happened to Chris Schmitt(was that it?)'s renderer using
> > shapefiles? That looked a lot faster than what we have now.
>
> doing planet.osm -> GML -> shapefile is problematic now that planet.osm
> is huge, anyone who can do it is welcome to try.

One project I had in mind was osm->shapefile direct. Whether I do this depends 
on time factors however, at the moment I've got the following things I want 
to do:

- display landsat on JOSM, for area drawing
- build Freemap
- work starts again on October 1st :-)

> Oh and im not sure if this has been discussed or relevant but the
> renderer at least spits out _projected_ tiles.

Given the issues with Chris' renderer, would it be worthwhile me doing some 
work on the current renderer, to improve/optimise it? If you (Steve) or other 
people think so, I'll prioritise time on that, because obviously the renderer 
is a big part of osm. 

Might rails mean many of the performance issues with it lessen anyhow?

Nick