CODEWITHSUNDEEP
postgistilemill
wizard_draziw
wizard_draziw

Reputation: 515

Hosted OSM PostGIS connection?

So I've been playing with TileMill a bit and then suddenly thought "Let's grab some OSM map tiles and make this map really nice!!"

Wait a minute. Oh darn.

I really don't want to have to download and set up my own PostGIS server (or whatever)...

Isn't there anything online I can simply point to that will give me some tiles? I'm honestly not too picky either, it'd just be nice to have place names and some roads and geography on it...

Upvotes: 0

Views: 415

Answers (2)

ubahnverleih
ubahnverleih

Reputation: 141

I don't think there is any open Server where you can point your Postgres requests directly. But there are two possible solutions:

For a smaller area you can create your Layers via Overpass-Turbo. E.g. to get all buildings in the mapview: http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/5Q0

[out:json][timeout:25];
(
  way["building"="yes"]({{bbox}});>;
); out;

Then you can Export this data to GeoJSON. TileMill can read this GeoJSON file as Layer. This solution is a bit complex, because you maybe have to learn the Overpass Query Language (or using the Overpass-Turbo Wizard). But it's very flexible: You can visualize every OSM tag you need. But its also limited to smaller areas, because Overpass-Turbo can't handle so much data.

The other solution is to use Mapbox Studio instead of TileMill. It generates the Maps from OSM-Vectordata Mapbox is hosting. For MapBox Studio you will need a MapBox Account and you're limited to the tags and layers Mapbox provides. From Mapbox Studio you can export images but no tiles or Mapnik XML.

Upvotes: 1

tmcw
tmcw

Reputation: 11882

So the questions of

Hosted OSM PostGIS connection?

And

Isn't there anything online I can simply point to that will give me some tiles?

Are very different: the former doesn't exist anywhere, for a technical (it would be slow) and practical (it would be expensive) reasons. The latter exists in lots of places: commercial services like Mapbox, freemium services like MapQuest Open, and grant-funded services like Stamen Tiles all provide pre-baked OSM tiles as a service.

Upvotes: 0

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