Mapnik

I like the cartography on http://open.MapQuest.com . The style differs from our mapnik and osmarender styles by rendering fewer types of objects and by using subtler colors. It's different. Their selectable thematic layers are great and let you add objects to the map that interest you at the moment. That's all pretty cool and that's not what I started this article to talk about.

I want to talk about golf.  read more »

I did a 20-minute presentation for the Waterloo Web Design and Technology Meetup Group in September 2010. The slides and links are available here.  read more »

The terms Mapnik and osmarender can be confusing to OpenStreetMap newcomers. The OSM community uses the term Mapnik to refer to multiple things. osmarender also refers to more than one thing. And if that weren't enough, each of Mapnik and osmarender refer to things that are similar. We can't fix this, but perhaps we can clear it up.  read more »

Build your own OpenStreetMap server. Build your own what?

OpenStreetMap is the editable World map of everything. It is the Wikipedia of maps. It is to other on-line maps as Wikipedia is to Britannica. And it is awesome in every possible way.  read more »

In July 2009, Peter Miller wondered aloud on the OpenStreetMap-talk mailing list, if detailed rendering of golf courses was coming to OpenStreetMap? It's a fair question and one that has run through the mind of any OpenStreetMap enthusiast who has spent an afternoon at a good walk ruined.  read more »

This is an addition to Build your own OpenStreetMap Server. The original article addresses the general case of installing on Ubuntu.

My mapnik installation broke during or after I upgraded to Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04).

If you see the following error ...

ImportError: No module named mapnik 

... these instructions may resolve the problem.  read more »

Why does Mapnik render so much of Germany and so little of Cleveland?

That's a great question from one regular reader.

Let's go through how to get Mapnik to render the areas that interest you. Follow along and I'll make this general enough that you can render Cleveland, Columbus or even Cincinnati!  read more »

OpenStreetMap offers many choices and great power. We know that with great power, there must also come great responsibility.[1] And so it is with fonts. Your choice is likely to be a font from your corporate brand guide or a font mandated by regulation. It would be irresponsible to use a decorative font like Olde English on our maps so for this demo we'll add a suitable font to the system and show how to bring it in to play on the map.  read more »

This article is now archived as http://weait.com/content/build-your-own-openstreetmap-server-v1. The updated article is based on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

Build your own OpenStreetMap server. Build your own what?  read more »