Switch to OpenStreetMap • Hacker News Board

Re: Switch to OpenStreetMap

#181

Post by pedalpete » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 11:35 PM UTC

"Do your maps look like everyone else’s?"

This is the theme of an advertisement I'm putting together for next week.

We've built a 3D API which is used by RedBull, Microsoft, ViewRanger, Polaris, and more to better engage their users than 2D Maps.

All the sports tracking apps look the same, so if you want to differentiate your product, 3D maps can help tell the story. People use 3D maps for transportation, wildlife research, commercial drone operations and more.

Check it out at https://ayvri.com API at https://ayvri.com/pages/api

Re: Switch to OpenStreetMap

#182

Post by ryantgtg » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 12:22 AM UTC

sp8962 wrote: post #162

ocodia wrote: post #102

I wish you could just download a big bunch of pre-rendered tiles for each country.

a) there are more than enough companies that would be willing to provide that as a service. Any larger country will simply be very big depending on the maximum zoom level (there is a reason why most tile service providers don't pre-render high zoom levels), b) the more sensible approach would be to use pre-generated vector tiles, for example from https://openmaptiles.org/

We switched last year from the Google Maps API to hosting our own pre-generated vector tiles from Open Map Tiles in a docker image (using the mapbox api, and we're hosted somewhere in aws (not my expertise there - I get lost in the acronyms)). It seems to strike a good balance of managing costs + controlling our own stuff while relieving us of the burden of generating our own vector tiles. I could not find great docs on generating them ourselves, and as a newbie to that world I quickly gave up.

Now we just have to periodically take a fresh pull of the tile package, so our tiles aren't too out of date.

Re: Switch to OpenStreetMap

#183

Post by _bxg1 » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 3:13 AM UTC

I love the idea of OpenStreetMap, and I tried really hard to use it on Android when I purged Google from my life, but the client itself was just atrociously awful (OsmAnd). The data wasn't the main problem; most of the time it couldn't figure out my location at all. It constantly made my device hot. It was nearly useless as a mapping daily-driver. Now that I've switched to iOS, Apple Maps is leaps and bounds better, which should tell you something.

It seems like a great dataset, and maybe the editing tools are better than the consumer clients, but if they really want it to gain traction they desperately need to put some effort into the end-user experience.

Re: Switch to OpenStreetMap

#184

Post by waste_monk » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 4:53 AM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #55

Ok.. i want to serve tiles... ok, I go here: https://switch2osm.org/serving-tiles/ First option (Build a tile server using packages) ... i click on it.. ubuntu packages... i don't have ubuntu here, let's go back. Second option (Build a tile server from source), takes me here: https://switch2osm.org/?page_id=76 ... where is the documentation? How do i build it from source? Ok fsck it, let's try the "all in one solutio…

If you're running a publicly facing service you should probably be competent enough to administer it yourself.

Re: Switch to OpenStreetMap

#185

Post by dvdkon » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 6:08 AM UTC

ezzzzz wrote: post #114

ridaj wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have, a few years ago. Unless things have changed dramatically, I would plan to have one full-time person work for a couple weeks to set this up, and a few weeks more if you want to set it up in a way that the map updates automatically over time. Doc is often out of date, some of the tools are unstable, the amount of data to wrangle is not trivial, and checking that your map is ok is actually not that easy, eg you…

Still, judging by the parent comment, it sounds like setting up a tile server in OSM isn't exactly trivial. Rather than editing, In my comment above, I meant PostGIS, not OpenGIS. Anyway, I was interested in this at the time for a hobby project and (rightly) decided the effort would not be worth it. Thanks for the insight!

Importing OSM data into PostGIS is mostly painless with imposm3, probably because it's actually documented, unlike most other pieces in the tile-serving stack. The biggest hurdle is probably understanding both the OSM and SQL way of thinking.

Re: Switch to OpenStreetMap

#186

Post by dvdkon » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 6:35 AM UTC

have_faith wrote: post #41

I recently looked into using OSM for a side project and after going down a rabbit hole of researching 3rd party tools for generating (vector) tile sets and how to setup a tile server I eventually gave up (my mapping knowledge is limited to using Google Maps through their JS API). Can anyone point me in the direction of a more complete resource/tutorial that would help? Eager to get back on it at some point. I clicked…

As said already, hosting your own tile server isn't really an alternative to a service like Google Maps. I'd like to add that there are multiple such services listed on the "Providers" page of switch2osm, though I'd argue that they should be featured more prominently. I recommend MapTiler, as I've used their open source backend on a project once.

Re: Switch to OpenStreetMap

#187

Post by anticodon » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 8:31 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #106

anticodon wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some countries are mapped poorly in OSM. Examples are: Mongolia and Cambodia. Many roads and buildings are missing.

Interesting, like I said I've never seen a country that isn't shockingly good. I travelled extensively in 35 African countries - including a bunch you wouldn't expect to get good data for like The DRC, Burundi, Sudan, Mali, Gambia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, etc. As well as Belgium, France, Spain, Canada, USA

I lived for one year in Cambodia. Major roads are mapped, so you can generally navigate, but lots of small streets and roads are missing. Also, even in the capital most of the buildings are not mapped. I've mapped a few buildings and streets but didn't have time to do a lot. Also, it's incredibly hard for a foreigner that doesn't know Khmer language.

Mongolia is poorly mapped on all maps, not just OSM. But OSM coverage was the poorest about one year ago. Don't know if it is improved since then.

Re: Switch to OpenStreetMap

#188

Post by thefz » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 8:50 AM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #55

Ok.. i want to serve tiles... ok, I go here: https://switch2osm.org/serving-tiles/ First option (Build a tile server using packages) ... i click on it.. ubuntu packages... i don't have ubuntu here, let's go back. Second option (Build a tile server from source), takes me here: https://switch2osm.org/?page_id=76 ... where is the documentation? How do i build it from source? Ok fsck it, let's try the "all in one solutio…

But they say explicitly

> If you are setting up your own tile server, we recommend that you use Ubuntu Linux.

Re: Switch to OpenStreetMap

#189

Post by bambax » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 9:23 AM UTC

Piskvorrr wrote: post #89

bambax wrote: post #56

A few years ago I did make my own tiles for Paris from OSM; it's pretty exciting to be able to design everything. But it's a lot of work that has to be redone constantly to keep up with map changes... Not realistic for a small organization (or an individual!) unfortunately.

Oh, it's fairly realistic for an individual with `cron`, no worries. But the up-front setup is still nontrivial, and running a server costs at least power, if not system administration time.

In theory you could automate generating the tiles, but you can't really automate downloading the dataset; it's enormous (hundreds of Go IIRC) and most of the time has to be checked by hand.

Re: Switch to OpenStreetMap

#190

Post by rmc » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 9:27 AM UTC

SkyPuncher wrote: post #161

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #55

Ok.. i want to serve tiles... ok, I go here: https://switch2osm.org/serving-tiles/ First option (Build a tile server using packages) ... i click on it.. ubuntu packages... i don't have ubuntu here, let's go back. Second option (Build a tile server from source), takes me here: https://switch2osm.org/?page_id=76 ... where is the documentation? How do i build it from source? Ok fsck it, let's try the "all in one solutio…

I had this same thought. We were building a HIPAA compliant app a few years ago. OSM looked like a good option and fit a lot of our requirements. Then I looked into actually using it and ran. To me, it seems like there's a huge opportunity for OSM or a third party to run a managed OSM instance.

There are plenty of companies offering hosted OSM Tile servers, or are willing to install the software on your server