how to set mapnik up

[Declan Marks]

I an new to rendering maps. I have read the manual for mapnik and it is very confusing. I am currently using OS X. I was wondering if anyone could write clear instructions on how to get started and set up. The official instructions are not very clear for beginners.

I want to be able to produce a map that has the same style as the map on the official openstreetmap website. I want the map to be in tile form so I can convert it with MOBAC into another form.

[Stephan Knauss]

Declan Marks writes:

> I an new to rendering maps. I have read the manual for mapnik and it is
> very confusing. I am currently using OS X. I was wondering if anyone could
> write clear instructions on how to get started and set up.

Is this helpful? Might not be copy/paste for mac, but the general steps
should be clear:

http://www.switch2osm.com/

Stephan

[Declan Marks]

I have already looked at that site. I didn't find it of any use. I couldn't find anything about mapnik in there. 

[Graham Jones]

Declan,

If you want to use OpenStreetmap data with mapnik to produce map tiles, I think the 'Manually Building a tile server' page in the link that Stephan sent would be a good place to start (http://switch2osm.org/serving-tiles/manually-building-a-tile-server/)  - that includes installing Mapnik, but the database handling stuff is all necessary because that is what mapnik uses to get the OpenStreetMap data.   If you don't particularly want a tile server, just generate tile images, there is a python generate_tiles.py script that you can use instead of the mod_tile and renderd things, but you still need the database bits.

A few years ago I drew a few pictures of the data handling route to get from openstreetmap data to mapnik generated maps, which might give you some useful background (but it may be a bit out of date by now), but I don't think the concepts have changed (http://www.slideshare.net/jones139/rendering-openstreetmap-data-using-mapnik).

Hope that helps.

Graham.

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Graham Jones

Hartlepool, UK.