[OSM-talk] Creating custom OSM sites using the Mapnik OSM plugin?

[Frederik Ramm]

Nick,

   the main problem with the OSM plugin is that the user group most 
likely to be unable or unwilling to install PostGIS is also the group 
least likely to develop their own map style, and the plugin doesn't come 
with something even remotely resembling what these people usually 
expect, namely the openstreetmap.org style.

Regarding tile generation and uploading; I don't think this is something 
that can ever compete with a proper Mapnik setup. If I really were very 
limited regarding the tile server, say if that were a VM where I can do 
nothing but deliver pre-made tiles, I would still install a plain 
vanilla Mapnik/PostGIS setup on my home machine and run tilesgen there, 
uploading the results.

I haven't run the OSM plugin myself but I should be very surprised if, 
using a style that has about the same level of detail the osm.org style 
has, you could render an English county on an useful zoomlevel faster 
with that setup than, on the same machine, with a 
PostGIS+osm2pgsql+Mapnik setup. I regularly use the data for 
Baden-Wuerttemberg in Germany as a test bed and this takes only a few 
minutes to import with osm2pgsql on a normal desktop PC...

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"