[OSM-newbies] Some questions

[Phil! Gold]

* Jonas Minnberg <sasq64 at gmail.com> [2010-05-11 11:02 +0200]:
> What is the easiest way to change how mapnik renders things? There are many
> POIs that it doesn't render at all and things that I'd like to change (like
> that residential roads are too wide). First to experiment with locally, then
> hopefully suggest changes for the live site?

Unfortunately, the "easiest" way is fairly involved and time-consuming.
You need to set up PostgreSQL, PostGIS, and Mapnik on your own computer,
then download and import the OpenStreetMap data into the PostGIS
database.  Richard Weait has a guide to doing that on an Ubuntu Linux
computer at http://weait.com/content/build-your-own-openstreetmap-server .
I was able to follow the directions on a Debian install without much
problem.  Other distributions are probably going to be more different, and
you're probably on your own if you run OSX or Windows.

After you've gotten rendering working with the stock osm.xml file, you can
start experimenting with the rules to get the rendering you want.  If you
have changes you'd like to see made to the main slippy map, open a ticket
at http://trac.openstreetmap.org/ and include a diff to the osm.xml file
that will make the requested changes.  (You can, of course, just request a
change without supplying a diff, but the less work that other people need
to do to make your change, the sooner it'll be acted upon.)

-- 
...computer contrarian of the first order... / http://aperiodic.net/phil/
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