Mapnik

Mapnik

Original author(s)	Artem Pavlenko
Developer(s)	The Mapnik Contributors
Stable release	0.7.1 / March 23, 2010; 18 months ago (2010-03-23)
Development status	Active
Written in	C++
Operating system	Cross-platform
License	LGPL
Website	mapnik.org

Mapnik is an open source mapping toolkit, written in C++ and useful for both desktop- and server-based map rendering. One of its many users is the OpenStreetMap project (OSM) which uses it in combination with an Apache Web Server module (mod_tile) to render tiles that make up the OSM 'Slippy Map' Layer^[1]. An XML file can also be used to define a collection of mapping objects that determine the appearance of a map, or objects can be constructed programatically in C++ or Python. Artem Pavlenko, the original developer of Mapnik, set out with the explicit goal of creating beautiful maps^[2] by employing the subpixel anti-aliasing of the Anti-Grain Geometry (AGG) library. Mapnik now also has a powerful Cairo rendering backend. When it comes to handling common software tasks such as memory management, filesystem access, regular expressions, and XML parsing, Mapnik utilizes the Boost C++ Libraries.

Data Format

A number of data formats are supported in Mapnik using a plugin framework. Current plugins exist that utilize OGR and GDAL to read a range of vector and raster datasets. Mapnik also has custom Shapefile, PostGIS and GeoTIFF readers. More data access plug-ins will be available in the future. There is also an osm2pgsql utility^[3], that converts OpenStreetMap data into a format that can be loaded into PostgreSQL. Mapnik can then be used to render the OSM data into maps with the appearance you want.

Platforms

Mapnik is a cross platform toolkit that runs on Windows, Mac, Unix-like systems like Linux and Solaris (since release 0.4).

Usage

Mapnik is used as the rendering backend of OpenStreetMap's default layer^[4], but is also used by CloudMade^[5], MapQuest^[6], and Development Seed^[7].

License

Mapnik is free software and is released under LGPL (Lesser General Public Licence).

References

1. ^ OpenStreetMap's main Slippy Map layer
2. ^ Beautiful Maps as an explicit goal in the Mapnik FAQ
3. ^ "Osm2pgsql". http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osm2pgsql. 
4. ^ "Mapnik". OpenStreetMap Wiki. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapnik. 
5. ^ "CloudMade". OpenStreetMap Wiki. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/CloudMade#Technical. 
6. ^ "MapQuest Mapnik Style". GitHub. https://github.com/MapQuest/MapQuest-Mapnik-Style. 
7. ^ "Mapnik Performance". Development Seed. http://developmentseed.org/blog/2010/oct/19/qa-mapnik-performance-just-important-its-beauty. 

External links

Free software portal

• Project page
• Mapnik wiki page