Planet.osm/bin to tiles howto ?

Hello,

I checked http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Converting_map_data_between_formats but didn’t find an answer.

I’m using multiple maps-using software and try to make them use only one repository
Apps like gmapcatcher, foxtrotgps, gpsprune, digikam

To avoid to much access on openstreetmap, as recommended, I want to download planet.osm or part of it.
Problem, I didn’t find any simple way to convert osm format to tiles file hierarchy which is mostly used by these software (sometimes also sqlite).

Any help on this ?

Thanks a lot

Maybe a firts source of information about your aim is http://switch2osm.org/ ??

Please report if you need more or different hints.

Hello Stephan,

the link http://switch2osm.org/serving-tiles/manually-building-a-tile-server/ is interesting but has the following workflow
planet.osm → pgsql → apache → serve content.

I want to use tiles in software directly like gmapcatcher, gpsprune, foxtrotgps, … and not all of them (only foxtrotgps allow to change server, I believe)
They all use tiles but sometimes with a different directory hierarchy (http://code.google.com/p/gmapcatcher/source/browse/trunk/gmapcatcher/tilesRepoFS.py?r=969#104; gpsprune uses basedir/zoom/x)

So no way to do
planet/region.osm → tiles ?

Two reason to use planet/region.osm:

  • easier to manage for user / no need to be online
  • no charge for osm web server
    but for now, no solution.

For producing tiles from OSM data, you need some rendering software. See the list on the wiki: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Rendering
There are a variety of options for rendering software, depending on just what you want to do, and what OS you are using etc.

If using Windows, probably the easiest option is Maperitive (it can also run on Linux or Mac OS X with Mono). It has a feature to generate tiles. Though note it loads all of the map data into memory, so may not cope if you want to render tiles for a large area, eg a whole country.

Or Mapnik is a more powerful renderer. Though it can be a bit tricky to setup - probably the easiest way is to use Ubuntu and install it the packages from repositories, see this guide http://switch2osm.org/serving-tiles/building-a-tile-server-from-packages/
And yes, Mapnik usually requires a PostGreSQL database, this can also be installed from packages. Or there is the “OsmPlugin” for Mapnik, which lets it load data directly from an .osm file. Though this plugin does have some limitations, eg rendering may not work with the standard Mapnik stylesheets, and it may not cope with large areas. https://github.com/mapnik/mapnik/wiki/OsmPlugin
Also, if you just want the tiles on your own PC, then you don’t need Apache and mod_tile. Mapnik will just output the tiles to a directory on your PC, then do what you like with the tiles. Note the standard Mapnik tile names are base_dir/zoom/x/y.png

Thanks for the link. Ok for mapnik rendering, apache to check tiles but after
tiles are in /var/lib/mod_tile but in which hierarchy ? (as seen above could change between software) and is there a way to change it (zoom/x, zoom/x/y/z.png, …)

so after I would want to symlink mod_tiles to tiles dir of those software in RW mode.
also, I’m in travel with a netbook, so rendering will not bea easy, even just for a country …

and for my country of interest, Argentine, seems there is only Cloudmade base
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Planet.osm#Country_and_area_extracts

Thanks