Mapnik: An Overview

Presented to the Northwest Washington GIS User Group. June 18th, 2010. A high-level overview of Mapnik.

Transcript

1. Mapnik: An Overview
   June 18, 2010 – NWWaGIS
   

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2. What is Mapnik?
   • Toolkit for generating static map images
   – Most commonly used for generating custom web-
   mapping tiles.
   • Cross-platform
   – Windows Binaries available
   • Accepts many data formats
   – SHP/PostGIS/TIFF/OSM/GDAL/OGR
   • Produces many data outputs
   – PNG/JPEG/SVG/PDF
   • Built-in WMS Server
   

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3. Who is using it?
   • OpenStreetMap
   • Cloudmade
   • EveryBlock
   • Others
   

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4. How does it work?
   

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5. Styling
   • Multiple rules style a
   single feature
   • Features rendered in
   a ‘Painters Order’
   

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6. Styling
   • Mapfile can be large
   – OpenStreetMap XML:
   • 6763 lines long
   • 30 Layers
   • 106 Styles
   • 628 Rules
   

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7. Render the Map
   • Python script to seed a tile cache
   – Declare Bounding Box, Zoom Scales, Source Map File, Output
   Directory
   – Creates a Z/X/Y File Structure
   – http://mkgeomatics.com/apps/bus/tiles/15/5239/11286.png
   • File structure can be accessed directly
   by display client
   – OpenLayers
   

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8. Extending Mapnik
   • Quantumnik
   – Developed by Seattle based geo-developer Dane
   Springmeyer (dbsgeo.com)
   – Style the map in QGIS GUI
   – Generate the XML mapfile automatically
   – Can view mapfile live via console
   – Great tool to learn mapfile syntax
   

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9. Extending Mapnik
   • Cascadenik
   – Developed by Stamen Design’s Michal Migurski
   – CSS Preprocessor
   • CSS is converted into an XML map file
   • Familiar to web designers
   

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10. The Future
    • Better typography controls
    • New expression engine
    – Support filtering with Regular Expressions
    • Increase performance
    – Planned entry in FOSS4G WMS Shootout
    • Single File Map (SFM)
    – Create a map package with the data and styling to
    be viewable offline.
    

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11. Learn More
    • Mapnik: mapnik.org
    • Quantumnik:
    http://bitbucket.org/springmeyer/quantumnik/wiki/Home
    • Cascadenik: http://mike.teczno.com/notes/cascadenik.html
    • E-mail: matt@ridolfi.com
    

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