[Tilesathome] Proposal: New T at H Server structure

[Gert Gremmen]

One of the main services of T at H, namely being a means
of quick response to map modifications is being lost
just for those tiles that are a little bit more complex then
the average. 
As long as tiles are being returned to the server (by low resource
clients)
for complexity reasons, after 1-2 hours of fruitless processing and
a client crash, there is still work to do.
Currently the NL tileserver running Mapnik, often
provides a quicker update (max 48h) as T at H for NL tiles.

I have requested several times for modification of the T at H starting
point to level 13. The render jobs will be smaller, allowing
more clients to participate successfully. 
In my opinion it is very frustrating that in the morning the 
t at h process was stopped due to too many heap sections or a
inkscape memory problem. Spill of energy, effort and
computer time.
Level 13 will allow most t at h clients to run complex tiles much faster,
creating a fast turnaround time. Stitching four captionless
tiles 13 will create a level 12 tile.
The downside is that for a given area 4x more requests are needed,
but each upload will contain 4 x less tiles.

Is this a too big change of strategy ?
Will the level 12 results be too bad of quality ? 
Does the t at H community think this is not relevant (yet) ? 
Is there any major reason that I overlooked ?
Will inkscape be replaced soon, making this unnecessary (like ORP)?

Gert

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: tilesathome-bounces at openstreetmap.org
[mailto:tilesathome-bounces at openstreetmap.org] Namens Frederik Ramm
Verzonden: Monday, June 02, 2008 9:50 AM
Aan: Sebastian Spaeth
CC: tilesathome at openstreetmap.org
Onderwerp: Re: [Tilesathome] Proposal: New T at H Server structure

Hi,

>> I always perceive t at h as the more haphazard hobbyist layer. Look 
>> at our current map at zoom level 2 and try not to run away crying.
>> Makes one think that a good distributed server concept is not the 
>> No 1 on the list of things we'd need ;-)
> 
> Agreed, extreme lowzoom is not pretty.

I didn't even want to suggest that someone should go fix it (although 
obviously it is great if it can be fixed) - if the price for the 
flexibity we have with t at h is the occasional botched map, then I don't 
think that's a big problem. I just wanted to put the "swiss timepiece 
engineering" being suggested for the server in contrast with the usual 
attitude in t at h.

Bye
Frederik


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