hardware accelerated real-time rendering

Hello everyone,
I’ve developed an application for real-time osm file visualization. It takes a country extract or any smaller osm file (size really depends on amount of ram available, up to 6gb osm files with 4gb of ram), and renders it in real-time using graphic card for hardware acceleration. No map tiles are used or created. I’ve made a small web presentation that should explain the idea http://osmrealtimerenderer.freehosting.com/
Application is downloadable and fully functional. Very simple to use.
Please let me know if there is anyone interested in this.

Very cool!

Are you using the mapnik render stylesheet by any chance or have you defined your own stylesheet?

I assume that there would be a lot of interest from the Mapnik community if this could work under Linux as well (I know this is a .NET and DirectX implementation). Do you see possibilities for a portable version?

Yes, cool!

(Unfortunately, I have no Window computer, only Linux and a mac.)

-peter

Everything except for the actual osm data is custom made. I did look at mapnik images to figure out what colors to use, though.
It only works on windows platform for now. I have no experience in linux programming. I will post a screen recording on youtube to show the features to people who don’t have windows, or simply do not want to bother downloading application and maps.
What I would like to do right now, is to add a link to my presentation somewhere on this page http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Main_Page, so more people can see my work. How can i do that? Am I supposed to ask someone for permission or something? Who maintains that web page anyway?

Well, it’s good to have a Windows application that’s easy to use (and fast too) because most of the OSM tools are mainly Linux based. So it depends a bit on what your target audience is: if you want to see ordinary people use your app then Windows is best. If you want to have your app used to provide e.g. much of the rendering on websites etc. then a Linux app is highly preferred.

For creating more awareness of your application: I think it’s best to create a wiki page for your application and add a nice screenshot there. It’s convention to nominate the image of the week on another page.

Live rendering is likely a key technology for OSM: It makes the ability to easily access the raw data much more relevant, which emphasizes one of the primary features of OSM. It would also solve issues like map localization, so it’s great that we are seeing some progress in that area. While I haven’t tested your application (Linux user), the screenshots look like a good start.

I support Lambertus’ suggestion of creating a page about your application on the OSM wiki. Also add the usual templates and categories to it so your software will more easily be discovered. You can copy & paste one of the existing application pages to get started.

Moreover, you should think about adopting one of the existing render style file formats, at least if you want to support configurable map styles. Being able to use the same styles for multiple applications would be very useful, and future tools (such as render style editors) could work for a wide range of applications. As an alternative to the Mapnik format, you could also try to work with with the rather new, but promising MapCSS.

Well, you have to be aware that many of the OSM developers and some experienced mappers use Linux - and it’s desirable to have mappers actually use your application, because then they will care about whether it works with their data. So even if your users are mostly on Windows, cross-plattform development would (imo) be preferable for an OSM application. But of course that’s almost impossible with .NET and DirectX, and being able to use a familiar framework can be more important than that disadvantage.

I’ve created a wiki page here http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Hardware_accelerated_real-time_rendering
and also aded info here http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Featured_image_proposals and here http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Rendering
I hope that’s all ok, I’ve never used this site before.
Here is the short video clip showing the application in action http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpoiUKBV6D0. How do I embed it in wiki page?
Capturing software makes it look choppy, but it actually runs very smooth :slight_smile:

Thanks a lot man, like a good documentation :slight_smile:

Has anybody ideas which processes can be accelerated using direct GPUs (e.g. CUDA Framework) for number crunching?

Wow - that’s a fantastic application!

Great Application. Very Useful. Would it be possible, to use additional to .osm-Format the new osm.pbf-Format. It’s binary, so its very much smaller filesize than osm-Format.

Download link does not work.

Once the osm data is imported to my binary file format, the original osm file is no longer needed. Map in this format takes around 10% size of the original osm file. I will check out that pbf format, though.

Sorry about that. Turns out there might be some legal issues. I will make the application publicly available again, as soon as I get approval from the company I work for.