Mapnik 3.x Binaries for Windows (again)
Buddy Mash
Last October, I wanted to return to using Mapnik after a bit of a break. I had enjoyed using the project in the past and had a perfect project to “get back in the saddle”. I was a bit disappointed that the latest Windows binaries posted had not changed but, while I’m not a programmer, I thought I’d have a go at building from source. I spent about a week on it, with lots of expert help from here and a C++ developer in my office, but did not get to something usable. I gave up in the end and created my map in ArcGIS instead. I then had to explain to my manager why I’d wasted a working week. She was really unimpressed with me and I would not be surprised is the incident comes up in my next annual review.
It’s now six months later and I see that Mapnik 3.x has moved on a bit, but the latest binaries for Windows are still from v2.2 dated June 2013... that's almost THREE YEARS AGO! Annoyingly, the website still says “We plan on providing prebuilt binaries soon for Mapnik 3.0.10”. Let’s be realistic… I don’t think there’s any evidence, impetus or intention on doing this!
I really love open source geo projects and have used many, but I have to say that I’m pretty frustrated with Mapnik. I’ve heard many comments about the project since coming back... last of developer diversity, too much vested interest by Mapbox, etc. That all aside, I’d really just like to know if the project is going to support Windows-based users like me. If so, great – I’ll continue to be a fan and user. If not, it’s time to find something else. While I’m tremendously grateful to everyone who puts their spare time into open source software, there has to be a critical mass of support for it to be viable in the real world. I know Windows is not the typical open source developers operating system of choice, but it’s what many of us in the real world have to work with. I lost track of how many private e-mails I got asking if I had a working Windows solution. It was so many, I didn’t get back to all of them (sorry, if that includes you).
So, I’m really grateful for Mapnik, but I need to know if I can rely on it. At the end of the day, it’s not worth losing my job over.
BR/
Bud
Jeff McKenna
I assume you were following MapBox's github "windows-builds" repository
closely? https://github.com/mapbox/windows-builds They seem to be
actively maintaining that very well, and it seems to be well documented.
(note that I do not follow/use that, or Mapnik, I'm actually a binary
packager for the MapServer project, on Windows, I maintain MapServer for
Windows: MS4W http://ms4w.com)
So I know the battle all too well. I applaud MapBox (Dane and crew) for
doing so well in documenting their steps, it seems very well done.
-jeff
--
Jeff McKenna
MapServer Consulting and Training Services
http://www.gatewaygeomatics.com/
Jukka Rahkonen
I assume he followed http://mapnik.org/pages/downloads.html. The
mapnik.org site does not seem to be so actively maintained. Perhaps
Mapnik site could have link to Mapbox windows-builds in the same way
than Mapserver site has link to MS4W in
http://mapserver.org/download.html.
-Jukka Rahkonen-
Jeff McKenna
On 2016-05-09 10:27 AM, Jukka Rahkonen wrote:
> I assume he followed http://mapnik.org/pages/downloads.html. The
> mapnik.org site does not seem to be so actively maintained. Perhaps
> Mapnik site could have link to Mapbox windows-builds in the same way
> than Mapserver site has link to MS4W in http://mapserver.org/download.html.
>
referring to packagers like Bud, who (as an outsider myself) I think
should be following closely the steps maintained nicely by MapBox in
their github repository. I am not sure where that link should be placed
on mapnik.org, if there is an "installation.html" or "How to Compile"
page then for sure the link could be placed in that.
Wilhelm Berg
Donny Velazquez
Wilhelm Berg
David Castelblanco Benavides
When I try to import mapnik in python I get the following error:
from ._mapink import *
Import error: No module named _mapnik