[Xastir] Announcing tile support for OSM

[Fred Hillhouse]

Greetings Jerry,

Even though I don't use Xastir, I follow the postings: using the OSM tiles
is a very good thing. My hat is off to you!

One of the best parts of OSM is the ability to add new data to current map
tiles. If a road, trail or other feature is not present, add it. I have not
explored this yet but I watch some of that activity as well and plan to help
in the future. Another Xastir user has mentioned this as well.

One item that will be useful at some point is the ability to grab to latest
tile if there has been a change to it. In many areas the data is thin at
best and there is a mapping community out there improving the data set which
makes it likely that many tiles will change. The APRSISCE/32 author is
exploring this as well.

It may end up being best to have a separate application for the update
ability rather than wrap it into Xastir. I only throw this out to generate
thinking along the path. :)

Best regards,
Fred


 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xastir-bounces at lists.xastir.org 
> [mailto:xastir-bounces at lists.xastir.org] On Behalf Of Jerry Dunmire
> Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 13:11
> To: Xastir - APRS client software discussion
> Subject: [Xastir] Announcing tile support for OSM
> 
> Early this morning Curt committed my patches to add tile 
> support for OSM to the CVS tree (thanks Curt).
> 
> Tiles are small (256x256) map sections that get assembled 
> on-the-fly to make an image that fills the xastir window. 
> Since typical xastir windows are larger than 256x256, there 
> is a small penalty for the extra http requests, but a big 
> gain in re-use. Use of tiles is the key to 'slippy map' 
> implementations in browsers and some newer apps (take a look 
> at TangoGPS for an example). Tiles also improve the OSM 
> experience with xastir, just don't expect 'slippy map' performance.
> Xastir's strengths like in other areas.
> 
> There is an new README file describing OSM that gives a lot 
> more details on both the static and tiled maps. Please read 
> it carefully.
> 
> The default setup provides new OSM*.geo map description 
> files. There are a mix of tiled and static maps. You can tell 
> the difference by file name. While any of the OSM based 
> styles could be tiled, the tiles from CloudMade require an 
> access key. You have to register for at the CloudMade site to 
> get a key and then modify the appropriate GEO file.
> 
> The biggest weakness in the present tiling implementation is 
> that a slow server, or worse one that does not respond, is a 
> real problem since for large screens you could have to wait 
> 20 or more tiles to time out before the display will refresh. 
> The ski trail version of OSM was giving me headaches with 
> timeouts yesterday- take care.
> 
> I am working on a way to cancel the tile downloads, but since 
> most sites are responsive I don't think you will run into too 
> many problems (unless you are a skier - hi hi ).
> 
> Tiles are separated from the standard Xastir cache so that 
> they can be shared with other OSM applications. I have 
> successfully shared tiles between Xastir and TangoGPS. See 
> the README.OSM_maps file for more details.
> 
>  Let me know if you run into problems.
> 
> 73,
> ...jerry
> KA6HLD
> _______________________________________________
> Xastir mailing list
> Xastir at lists.xastir.org
> http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
>