[OSM-dev] OpenStreetMap

[Steve Coast]

Derek

Thanks much for your email. I'm CC'ing Jon Burgess who now manages our  
main tile server and may be able to push this in to our tiles.

I'm also pulling in Oliver and Chris from the tiles at home effort as  
this applies to them too.

If I can be of any more help please let me know.

Best

Steve



On 17 Nov 2007, at 03:21, Derek Tonn wrote:

> Hi Steve!
>
> My name is Derek Tonn.  I am the Founder and CEO of mapformation,  
> LLC, a custom cartography firm based in Springfield, Minnesota, USA (www.mapformation.com 
> ). I am also the Founder of our firm's recent spin-off venture,  
> GraphicsOptimization, which is a service designed to achieve  
> economic, environmental and societal benefits associated with the  
> optimization of imagery for display in electronic mediums such as  
> software and web sites.  It is for this second "spin-off" venture  
> that I wanted to contact you.
>
> I recently became aware of your service via a professional colleague  
> of mine in Europe, and wanted to commend you for your efforts!  I am  
> a substantial supporter of the Open Source movement/philosophy...and  
> yours is an effort that I have been recommending to a number of  
> individuals since I became aware of it.  I have noticed, however,  
> that most/all of the image tiles you use in your service have not  
> been fully optimized for on-screen display.
>
> The vast majority of map tiles used by services such as OSM, Google,  
> Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. could easily be reduced to 6-bit color vs. 8- 
> bit color, a shift that would almost immediately save you over 20%  
> in bandwidth consumption and download/display times.  Running  
> your .png tiles through a great little service such as PNGSlim (http://people.bath.ac.uk/ea2aced/tech/png/pngslim.zip 
> ) will consistently save you an additional 8-10+ percent in image  
> file sizes. Translated: your service could load/display in one-third  
> less time than most of the other large mapping engines on the web,  
> consuming one-third less bandwidth in the process.
>
> I hope you don't mind, but I blogged about that very fact on my  
> Graphics Optimization Blog tonight (http://graphicsoptimization.com/blog/?p=18 
> ).  I wanted to illustrate the optimization process as an  
> opportunity to educate others...as well as draw some additional  
> positive attention to your service.  You deserve it, as I think what  
> you are building with OSM will be absolutely wonderful!
>
> I hope you find this information useful!  I might be telling you  
> things that you already know, but I think OSM would be an even  
> BETTER tool if all of those tiles could be truly optimized for on- 
> screen display.  Have a wonderful weekend!  All the best in the  
> months and years to come.
>
> Derek Tonn
>
> -- 
>
> GraphicsOptimization (a spin-off venture of mapformation, LLC)
> 220 South Burns Avenue
> Springfield, MN 56087
> 507-227-3338 (P)
> 206-203-0411 (F)
>
> AIM: optimizegraphics
> YIM: optimizegraphics
> www.graphicsoptimization.com