[Talk-GB] Customised Maps (was OSM Analysis New Data and bot)

Wed Jun 15 22:41:27 BST 2011

Hi Adam,
No problem - these lists have been a bit busy over the last few days....

If you have got mapnik running and generating maps using the 'standard' osm
stylesheet, you have got over the biggest learning curve.    You will
probably have noticed that the 'standard' osm stylesheet is very complicated
- this is because it renders lots of different information differently at
different zoom levels.

If you want to add contours, it is possible to do that by importing the
contours into your postgresql database, and modifying the standard osm style
file to plot them.   I have a crude example of this at
http://code.google.com/p/ntmisc/source/browse/#svn%2Fkefalonia_map - all my
changes compared to the standard osm style file are in the 'inc' directory -
I added a file that defines the style for the contour line drawing, and also
changed some other files to include the new one - search the osm wiki for
contours to see how to get contours into your postgresql database.   I did a
little write up on how I did this (but not much detail I am afraid) at
http://nerdytoad.blogspot.com/2011/04/kefalonia-map.html.

To work on building up a mapnik stylesheet from scratch to get a better
understanding of how it works, I would suggest starting on a simple
transparent overlay to display over other map tiles.   I put together a few
slides on my version of how to render map data with mapnik, which you can
see at http://maps3.org.uk/doc/index.html.   If you look at
http://maps3.org.uk/osm_opendata, the 'about' link has a bit of a descripton
of how I produced the overlays for that map (another example of a very
simple overlay).

Both of the above examples use the standard xml stylesheet for mapnik.   I
have been experimenting with a different way of producing the xml stylesheet
using a different language and a pre-processor called 'carto'.   I did a
little write up at
http://nerdytoad.blogspot.com/2011/05/rendering-openstreetmap-data-using.htmlon
where I have got to - It is much less complete than the full OSM
stylesheet, and I think I need to learn some of the tricks used in that
style to make the map look better, but I think it is simpler to see what it
is doing, so I think I will stick with this for simple things.

Hope that gets you started.   Let me know if you get stuck and I will see
what I can do.   The mapnik-users mailing list is a good place to ask for
help too.

Regards

Graham.

On 15 June 2011 14:22, Adam Hoyle <adam.lists at dotankstudios.com> wrote:

> Hi Graham,
>
> Sorry, I got a bit over excited and subscribed to tons of OSM mailing lists
> and so totally missed your awesome reply :-(
>
> Sorry if I wasn't clear - I've successfully got Mapnik installed (did it a
> week or three ago and it was pretty painless as far as I recall), so am
> particularly after a sample config file to start from, particularly one with
> hill contours / gradients /
> whatever-they-are-really-called-outside-the-confines-of-my-head.
>
> Altho' having said that the package that Parveen Arora is putting together
> looks pretty awesome, so maybe I should hold out for that, even tho' it
> looks more targeted for Debian than OS X - I guess if push comes to shove I
> could install Debian in VMware, which I already have on my laptop.
>
> By the way townguide looks rather amazing, so adding that to my (rather
> long) list of things to check out :-)
>
> Thanks for the offer of helping generate the configuration file, not sure
> of the best way to do that tho' as I want something I can start with and
> hack around with and iterate a lot until it's "right". The primary thing I
> want is pubs and post boxes available when zoomed out (ideally the same zoom
> range as footpaths show up on), and if possible the mountain
> gradients/contours - I've seen a couple of maps "in the wild" that use
> these, but not sure how possible/straightforward it is for a Mapnik newbie
> such as myself.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Adam
>
> On 10 Jun 2011, at 10:46, Graham Jones wrote:
>
> Adam (changed the title of the thread to keep this one separate),
> The simplest way to do it is to make overlays that are transparent and you
> can view over another set of tiles.
> I have done a few before now - there is one visible at http://maps3.org.uk,
> which highlights historic things over the normal mapnik rendering.
> I still have the idea to set up something to make the learning curve
> easier, because I appreciate that setting up mapnik and all its dependencies
> is quite daunting - there is something on my osm user page about it
> (grahamjones).
>
> If you want to do it yourself, there are a few different sets of
> instructions - the osm wiki 'mapnik' page is a good start.  Note that linux
> is much easier than Windows (or at least there are better instructions!).
>
> I have a set of instructions that work for me at
> http://code.google.com/p/townguide/wiki/InstallationInstructions.   (there
> may be a minor issue with postgresql authentication that I need to fix).
>
> Parveen Aurora is currently working on making a simple package that will
> install and configure everything for you for his Google Summer of Code
> project, but you will have to give him a few weeks to get something ready
> for testing (https://github.com/ParveenArora/MeraMap).
>
> If you would like to work out what you would like to render (ie which tag
> combinations), how you would like them drawn (line colour and width, icon
> image etc.), I can help you turn that into a mapnik configuration file and
> generate the map for you on my computer.    I think it is better to spend
> time thinking about the rendering than having to worry about database
> configuration nuts and bolts.
>
> Regards
>
>
> Graham.
>
> Regards
>
>
> Graham.
>
> On 10 June 2011 10:27, Adam Hoyle <adam.lists at dotankstudios.com> wrote:
>
>> Sorry in advance - after writing this I've realised I'm possibly heading
>> off on a tangent (I do that).
>>
>> Speaking of the awesomeness of Cycle Map and how that encourages people -
>> I really want an openwalkingtothepubmap, which would basically be a clone of
>> the gorgeous cycle map, but with the coloured cycle routes removed in favour
>> of coloured paths and also pubs visible when quite zoomed out (and prolly
>> post boxes too, but that is probably particularly niche).
>>
>> I'm starting to realise that I might need to roll up my sleeves and do
>> this myself.
>>
>> Every now and then I try to install Mapnik on my Mac, and mostly fail, but
>> I tried t'other day and it worked, so I'm wondering where the various styles
>> that are used on OSM are kept (or even if they are actually available for
>> derivative use) - I'm most keen on cyclemap or something that has gradients,
>> cos as a walker I'm quite interested in whether I am about to walk over a
>> massive hill or not.
>>
>> Can anyone point me in the right direction?
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Adam
>>
>> On 10 Jun 2011, at 09:35, Bob Kerr wrote:
>>
>> I agree with Andy about increasing the number of mappers is essential.
>> With Cycle map he has increased the interest in the cycling communities.
>> Getting interest and publicity is very difficult. I can see many other
>> communities that we could encourage to start helping us, from NHS to golfers
>> but we have no organised way of doing this at the moment. Using a bot to
>> replace large sections of data in the UK is going to be counterproductive or
>> destructive, especially as the UK is now 80% (road name)complete.  However
>> restricting a bot by area to the size of small villages may help. I believe
>> we can both encourage people to join us and use the a bot on small areas at
>> the same time.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> bob
>>
>>
>> *From:* Andy Allan <gravitystorm at gmail.com>
>> *To:* SK53_osm at yahoo.co.uk
>> *Cc:* talk-gb at openstreetmap.org
>> *Sent:* Thursday, 9 June 2011, 16:45
>> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-GB] OSM Analysis New Data and bot
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 3:42 PM, Jerry Clough : SK53 on OSM
>> <SK53_osm at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> > In order to get  a better level of completeness in the UK what we need
>> are
>> > more mappers.
>>
>> Absolutely.
>>
>> Everything we do should be focussed on helping get more mappers, or
>> helping the mappers we have get their jobs done more easily.
>> Everything that is a direct substitute for having more mappers is, at
>> best, a distraction from (what I see as) the desired goal. If we have
>> mappers, and lots of them, then - as we've now demonstrated - we can
>> get a glorious dataset.
>>
>> Note that not everyone here shares the same goals - some people are
>> focussed on the data, others on the community. It might be worth
>> examining why we (collectively) have a tendency to discuss the data
>> all the time and I see very few discussions on community matters.
>>
>> I find in most conversations, if the answer is "because we don't have
>> enough mappers yet" then the solution is not to bypass them with some
>> form of automation but to get more of them. Unfortunately to most
>> OSMers, community building seems hard (which it is), and writing bots
>> or doing imports seems easy (which it's not).
>>
>> > A bot is putting short-term gain ahead of our long-term interests.
>>
>> Indeed. What's more, all the effort that goes into writing bots,
>> discussing them, justifying them etc is time that hasn't gone into the
>> primary goal of recruiting and helping more people to OSM.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Andy
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Graham Jones
> Hartlepool, UK.
>
>
>

-- 
Graham Jones
Hartlepool, UK.
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