Hi Chris, I've read through the replies to your post and my take on this is client side rendering - it's hard to make this as pretty or neat as bitmap tiles, but for random exploration of the dataset it's powerfull.
Pre-generating tiles for every concievable view of the OSM dataset is not a very efficient way of dealing with different people wanting to view different geographic areas in different styles. I have an iOS app that renders vector map data on the fly, to allow configurable rendering with selectable views (contours, waterways etc). Streaming data to the app is a bit of a problem, so it runs from an offline binary cache that is pre-optimised for fast rendering. I can imagine a similar approach for OSM as a whole, where there is a vector data server that provides data pre-optimised for configurable, on the fly rendering. This could then be used in a variety of ways such as: 1) Custom viewer applications, mobile or desktop - with local cacheing of vector data this is blindingly fast 2) Browser based viewer using javascript - this could be a hybrid bitmap/vector renderer that annotates bitmap tiles The key thing is to make a vector viewing tool, not a full-blown GIS tool - so an emphasis on redraw speed and ease of use over raw power. I have some experience and thoughts of this to add if anyone is interested. Regards, Chris Saunter On 17 January 2011 23:05, Chris Moss <mosch...@googlemail.com> wrote: > I'm interested in the GB waterways and it seems there's quite a bit of work > done but it's totally invisible. Is anyone working on a layer like the cycle > map, which leaps out from the overlays as the only minority interest yet > developed? > > It's not the only layer I'd like to see. What about walking paths, railways, > contours, points of interest, postcode areas, administrative boundaries, > constituencies, bus routes, etc., etc. > > Shouldn't maps allow you to concentrate on whatever you're interested in? > Can someone please explain to me how or if this can be done with > openstreetmap? > > Chris > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-GB mailing list > Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb > _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb