[OSM-talk] Freemap in Mercator

[Nick Whitelegg]

> Hopefully, this will allow more involvement in controlling the way the
> rendering looks, less need to write complex rendering code, and more
> support for standards, as Mapserver is able to act as a WMS or WFS
> server, serving up the data in any format from gif to png to flash to
> SVG.

Chris,

Just out of interest how do you get Mapserver to read the OSM XML format 
and/or the OSM database? There must be some 'middle bit' - presumably a 
script of some sort - which performs the following task:

For each way in OSM
	Get tags
	Get style for tag 
	Tell mapserver to render the way in that style
end

The styles seem to be stored in a .map file but how do you instruct the .map 
file to match ways with tag "highway=primary" to red with black casing? Do 
you have to convert the OSM d/b and/or the OSM XML format to GML (not my 
favourite)... 
or are there other ways round it such as writing your own scripts to do the 
conversion? Or would that negate the advantages of mapserver anyhow?

> I hope that the new era of rendering will make things easier for people,
> as well as making the maps more attractive (as people contribute) and
> informative for people who are new to the project. And if I'm wrong,
> hell, it's in SVN: We can always go back to the old way of doing things.

Now it looks like we'll have a daily planet, I guess there's plenty of room 
for alternative renderers of the data too, to suit individuals' needs.

Nick