Slippy map
Slippy Map is, in general, a term referring to modern web maps which let you zoom and pan around (the map slips around when you drag the mouse).
{{Slippymap|lat = 48.2274 |lon = 16.3835 |zoom = 15 |width = 300 |height = 300 |layer = Leaflet }}
Here we often talk about "The Slippy Map" to mean the map display on the openstreetmap.org front page. This is a web interface for browsing rendered OpenStreetMap data.
By default the slippy map shows tiles rendered in our Standard OpenStreetMap style, but we offer several other featured tiles as layers to select and to link to.
- See the Browsing page for more basic help information on how to use the slippy map and link to it.
- See Deploying your own Slippy Map for different ways of setting up such a map on your own website
- See Leaflet for the software we are using for "The slippy map" (and how to use it on your own website)
- See Wiki:Maps for how to embed a (slippy) map within this wiki.
Technical details
The slippy map is an Ajax component. JavaScript runs in the browser, which dynamically requests maps from a server in the background (without reloading the whole HTML page) to give a smooth slippy zoomy map browsing experience. The implementation of this is provided by a JavaScript library, either OpenLayers or Leaflet. The map image is built up of many little square images called "tiles". These are rendered and served from a "tile server".
Tile rendering
The process of rendering, going from vector to raster map data, baking style choices into bitmap images, is a fairly resource-intensive process. It can be accomplished by many different rendering software options. A tile server typically does not render tiles in real time for each user browsing the map. The tiles are rendered ahead of time and stored on disk. Even so, relatively few rendering programs have a proven track record for serving high traffic regularly updating worldwide maps.
OpenStreetMap "Standard" tile server
Mapnik is the rendering software used for generating the "standard" OpenStreetMap style. Mapnik also powers many third parties renderings including the Cycle Map and Transport Map styles which are Featured tiles shown on the front page slippy map.
The standard tiles are generated on tile.openstreetmap.org. The OpenStreetMap standard tile server database is updated with minute diffs, so that most data changes should get rendered within a few minutes. In the past this server was updated solely based on a weekly Planet.osm dump, which is performed on a Wednesday morning (GMT/BST). Imagine having to wait that long to see your map edits appearing? Those were the days! The full planet dump is still imported occasionally to correct any quirks in the applying of diffs.
The Mapnik rendering for OpenStreetMap is run via an Apache module called mod tile, developed especially for OSM's high-performance needs. This also manages caching and queueing for re-render requests. A commercial Content Delivery Network (CDN) sits between the tile servers and the end users, and provides an extra level of caching, hence some direct links to access a tile's rendering status or force a re-rendering that used to work are now not available any longer.
See also
- Deploying your own Slippy Map
- Putting maps on your own site using various slippy map APIs and other approaches.
- Static map images
- Embed StaticMaps by using an <img /> tag.
- Tiles
- Definition of tiles and various related links.
- Slippy map tilenames
- Calculate a tile name (URL of the .png file) from the known coordinates (zoom, x, y).
- URL templates for Mapnik and similar services
- Browsing
- Basic user guide for the slippy map on the openstreetmap.org homepage
- Layer URL parameter
- How layers work on the homepage
- Standard tile layer
- User-centric description of the Standard layer on https://www.openstreetmap.org/ with focus on the key