[OSM-talk] new tile goodness

[SteveC]

* @ 10/11/06 10:17:11 PM nick at hogweed.org wrote:
> 
> Hello Steve,
> 
> Really cool :-) So I didn't spend the last two hours wandering round random 
> streets of Southampton on a slightly damp November evening for nothing....
> 
> > www.openstreetmap.org now shows artems lovely tiles. They take a while
> > to render,
> 
> Very quick for me....

they're pre-rendered

> > more soon, apologies if you live somewhere not rendered yet. 
> > And yes, it's from a slightly old planet.osm.
> >
> > lot's of obvious improvements to be made.  Openlayers used instead of
> > our own javascript.
> 
> It *does* seem to use OpenLayers. What's the GoogleLike layer BTW?

artem used the google tiling system originally for his oxford map, it's
useful for droppin in to existing gmaps and beside, the people at google
probably (lets hope) thought quite a bit about the tiling system so
copying it leverages their R&D on file sizes etc.

> Just a few questions....
> 
> Is the procedure to generate the tiles documented anywhere? Is there a config 

On this list I think artem said some of it. AFAIK it goes roughly

planet.osm -> postgres -> mapnik -> tiles

Right now artem is rendering them with his machine and uploading
updates. As we move the dead stuff off the tile machines the tiles will
be rendered at OSM Central and we'll have much more data. The low zoom
level numbers will show VMAP0 and then drop in to more detail.

Right now and style bugs should be reported to trac and/or artem, as the
process gets documented and so on more of us can work on it. These tiles
really are a work in progress, I'm hoping they'll get rapidly better. I
figured getting this slice of the UK up was better than our old dead
tile server.

> file used to set the look and feel based on Map Features? One minor point is 
> that areas which aren't recognised (eg natural=wood) show as white lines.
> 
> I guess there'll be an automated procedure to generate the tiles each time 
> planet comes out? Is the idea for *all* tiles to be generated statically on 
> dev?

no, it will move to the tile machines. We'll also get a tile
invalidation/regeneration scheme up to make new tiles as the map
changes which you're welcome to help with nick - just need to get the
stuff moved and documented.

have fun,

SteveC steve at asklater.com http://www.asklater.com/steve/