

Tilemill: Maps done right - will2live
http://tilemill.com/pages/index.html

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jinushaun
I've used TileMill pretty extensively, and while TileMill is great for
generating static maps (PNGs) for infographics, it won't replace Google Maps
any time soon for _serving_ dynamic maps.

For example, you can serve a dynamic map of Washington DC on a website using
TileStream and TileMap, but if you wanted to also view Fairfax, VA or
Baltimore, MD, you're out of luck unless the tileset includes those tiles.
With Google Maps, you always have access to all the tiles.

That's not to say that TileMill isn't a great product. The choice to use CSS
is brilliant. Plus they're based in Washington DC, where I'm currently living!
Nice to see tech outside of the Bay Area, NYC and Boston.

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tmcw
You're right by definition - TileMill doesn't serve maps. Right now it
generates them, and TileStream serves generated maps. It's extremely fast and
stable, but inherently limiting.

That's not to say this won't change in the future :)

~~~
jinushaun
Thanks for releasing a "native" app for OSX! This makes it much easier to use
TileMill. The previous installation method was not the most user friendly--
this coming from a Node.js developer.

~~~
incanus77
Glad you like the Mac app. We're definitely shooting for a first class OS X
app experience. Feedback on ways to improve it further are welcome, too.

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apostlion
Did you package it yourself or used some package/library?

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incanus77
We packaged it ourselves. It's open source, too. Check out
<https://github.com/mapbox/tilemill/tree/master/platforms/osx>

~~~
apostlion
Amazing, thanks!

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untog
This looks really, really slick. Next time I'm creating a map-based site I'm
going to have a play around and see what customisations I can do. It's very
difficult to match the default Google Maps style for clarity, but sometimes it
would be good to have more options than their styles permit.

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yxhuvud
Indeed. That css-clone looks like what SLD styling should have been.

~~~
philipn
BTW, geoserver (which uses SLD) has a CSS-styling extension which is much
easier to use.

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icefox
I never thought I would see the day where there is OS X and Linux downloads,
but only a VM image for Windows. Very cool.

~~~
3pt14159
I've started saying that the only way for windows to continue to be successful
is for windows 9 to be written on top of a common unix.

They have lost the hackers completely, but if they can make windows 9 a
platform that will autospin up a vm of the windows platform for things like
Office, etc. They _might_ have a chance.

My house mate is a civil construction engineer. He is so envious of my Ubuntu
setup.

"Wow, that looks as cool as Android"

"Android is actually the same thing only differently packaged"

"Really! Can I try out your computer?"

"Sure, let me make you an account and show you some hotkeys!"

 _After some time passes_

"Wow! This is awesome! Can you install it on my laptop?"

"Since you use AutoCAD and MS Office I'm afraid it would be too much of a
hassle for you, but if you are willing to learn I can."

Never thought I'd have someone ask me to install linux because they find it
more usable and attractive.

~~~
leoedin
That's the problem I have. I used to primarily use Ubuntu, but as an aerospace
engineering student I often need use Solidworks or other CAD applications.
Linux/Mac? Out of luck. Maybe that'll change one day (Dassault have released
their free 2D CAD application DraftSight on linux, and they develop
Solidworks), but we're probably at least 5 years off a decent linux/mac CAD
application for designers.

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cal5k
I'm consistently impressed by the work DevSeed puts out with such a small
team. What's the secret? :-)

~~~
uptown
I couldn't have said it better myself. Hands-down, they're one of the most
impressive organizations I've come across on the web both in the products they
create and the contribution to society their creations address.

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nollidge
I think the screenshot should use a bit higher-contrast color scheme for the
map. I was slouching in my chair a bit and couldn't really see what it was at
first :)

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crenshaw
Was just about to download and start using this. No Windows version though.
Maybe the start of a weekend project for me.

~~~
tmcw
There's a VirtualBox image as well. I wouldn't recommend cygwin unless you
want a weekend of hell.

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gmbuell
The main MapBox site (<http://mapbox.com/>) is definitely worth checking out
as well. They have a pretty cool iPad app and a nice ~6 minute video demoing
everything (<http://vimeo.com/20006926>)

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dave1010uk
The Google Maps API lets you style maps too [1]. You can change colors and
show/hide different map features. There's also a wizard [2] to make styling
easier. You can get some very interesting effects [3].

[1] [http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2010/05/add-touch-
of...](http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2010/05/add-touch-of-style-to-
your-maps.html)

[2] [http://gmaps-
samples-v3.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/styledmaps/...](http://gmaps-
samples-v3.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/styledmaps/wizard/index.html)

[3] [http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2010/10/five-
great-s...](http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2010/10/five-great-styled-
maps-examples.html)

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aw3c2
The ruleset screenshot reminds me of <http://www.maperitive.net/> which is an
excellent tool too (not web-based).

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pbhjpbhj
In case anyone is wondering about the shell script for Ubuntu install it
checks for maverick or natty and then installs like so:

    
    
        apt-add-repository ppa:developmentseed/mapbox
        apt-add-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js
        apt-get update
        apt-get install tilemill

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henry501
Love TileMill, love TileStream, love the tilesets. One day I'll move to DC...

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domhofmann
Really incredible work. Is there anything we can do to speed up exporting,
short of manually parallelizing across multiple computers? Distributed export
might be a nice feature.

~~~
tmcw
Recent updates (if you haven't updated since 0.3.0 or so) have doubled &
tripled export speed by a bunch of optimizations, especially metatiling.

If you really want to parallelize, you can run the ./index.js command in the
source version of TileMill to do exports programmatically.

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rmc
I have started to play around with this foR custom OpenStreetMap rendering.
Carto, the css format, seems a bit easier to play with than the raw mapnik
xml.

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geogra4
This looks great, thank you.

