[OSM-talk] "Crudely-drawn pint glasses"

[Artem Pavlenko]

On 30 Jan 2008, at 10:25, bvh wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 08:56:13AM +0000, Tom Hughes wrote:
>> So it is reasonable or optimal for us to maintain an infinite number
>> of custom maps for third parties that want custom maps but don't want
>> the hassle of rendering them?
>
> No, we should provide tools that make it very easy to create a custom
> map. Mapnik is not (yet?) that tool.

Mapnik is that tool and it's also free and easy to use ;) . It is  
used in many exciting projects to generate custom maps e.g

http://www.everyblock.com/
http://www.placebase.com/
http://www.mysociety.org/2007/more-travel-maps/


>
> I believe Kosmos wants to fill that gap.

Kosmos is win32 only and it also relies on inferior GDI+ rendering.

> Merkaartor is also
> getting some of it : I just added an integrated gui to edit the map  
> style
> to subversion, effectively with the aim to make merkaartor a full
> wysiwyg map editor/renderer combination.
>

If you're serious about rendering high-quality maps and I believe  
you're using qt4 in your project, why don't you join forces and work  
on Mapnik GUI ?

Artem