[OSM-talk] Recent changes to slippymap Mapnik rendering

[Michal Migurski]

>> I'm really looking to spark discussion here, rather than be  
>> critical, though unfortunately all of my comments happen to be  
>> negative.
>>
>
> Here are some positives (they're not that hard to find):
> - Colour scheme is now much more consistent

Consistently bland. =(

> -- OSM is about more than mapping main roads and the new styles serve
> to highlight the detail instead of the traditional dominant features.

This is a huge positive, important to mention.

FWIW, I've been working on my own stylesheets that I've posted here  
before.

Here are some comparisons to regular OSM:
	http://s3.amazonaws.com/mike.teczno.com-img/osm-comparisons-20081029/bayarea-low.png
	http://s3.amazonaws.com/mike.teczno.com-img/osm-comparisons-20081029/bayarea-medium.png
	http://s3.amazonaws.com/mike.teczno.com-img/osm-comparisons-20081029/bayarea-high.png

	http://s3.amazonaws.com/mike.teczno.com-img/osm-comparisons-20081029/osm-low.png
	http://s3.amazonaws.com/mike.teczno.com-img/osm-comparisons-20081029/osm-medium.png
	http://s3.amazonaws.com/mike.teczno.com-img/osm-comparisons-20081029/osm-high.png

An actual slippy map is available here, under "OpenStreetMap":
	http://teczno.com/old-oakland/

I've similarly been trying to place greater emphasis on non-road  
features, esp. rail, schools, and parks. I think I'm also a little  
closer to the mark with road shields and choice of place names. I'm  
missing airports and forests entirely. Recently, I added a few of Matt  
Amos' excellent icons with more on the way for amenities etc.. I've  
also opted for a more US-centric rendering style that puts freeways in  
red and places less emphasis on primary and secondary roads (which  
don't have quite the same definite meaning here as in the UK, I  
believe).

The stylesheets are controlled through a pre-processor I've been  
working on called Cascadenik:
	http://code.google.com/p/mapnik-utils/

...with the actual stylesheets here:
	http://mapnik-utils.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/serverside/cascadenik/openstreetmap/

I believe the cascadenik stylesheets might be easier for a newcomer to  
modify than the pure mapnik ones, and I'd be interested in exploring a  
way to vary the road color rendering among countries. I know that  
there are different cartographic conventions everywhere, it'd be  
interesting to see OSM support these.

-mike.

----------------------------------------------------------------
michal migurski- mike at stamen.com
                  415.558.1610