Mapnik

Mapnik is not strictly a spatial web server, but a geospatial visualization and processing engine. It strives to provide pixel perfect image output with very efficient and fast cartographic algorithms and has interfaces that allow you to work with Mapnik in a variety of popular programming languages. Mapnik is widely used to render OpenStreetMap data and forms the code of software packages like MapBox, CartoDB, MapQuest and others. There are many ways to provide web services on top of the Mapnik rendering engine, and some are linked in the Reference Material Section below.

Goals/Objectives/Outcomes

• Understand the strengths of Mapnik vs other spatial web servers and rendering engines and how and why it is used
• Understand how to install and configure mapnik on your system
• Understand how to configure your data for use with Mapnik
• Understand how to create style sheets that specify how your data is to be rendered
• Understand how to configure web and/or tile servers to provide web services on top of Mapnik
• Understand how Mapnik is used in applications or stacks like MapBox, CartoDB etc

Reference Material

• http://mapnik.org/
• http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapnik
• https://github.com/mapnik/mapnik/wiki
• https://github.com/mapnik/mapnik
• https://github.com/mapnik/mapnik/wiki/Mapnik-Installation
• https://github.com/mapnik/mapnik/wiki/Paleoserver
• https://github.com/springmeyer/paleoserver
• https://github.com/mapnik/mapnik/wiki/MapnikUtilities
• https://github.com/mapnik/OGCServer/wiki
• http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mod_tile
• http://tilestache.org/

Measures of Success

• Participant has successfully installed mapnik in their local machine or in a VM
• Participant has successfully configured their data for use with Mapnik and authored or modified mapnik styles for rendering
• Participant has configured a tile server or web server to provide web services on top of Mapnik
• Participant has explored the Mapnik ecosystem including documentation and community resources