I'm one of the devs on the script. It basically downloads a set of map data in XML format, transforms this into a (rectangular) svg and then inkscape is used to export these svgs as square 256x256 truecolor pngs.
On a sidenode: why does inkscape try opening a DISPLAY at all when in batch mode? -- Running Inkscape repeatedly by script causes X to use lots of CPU https://launchpad.net/bugs/87009 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
