TownGuide

Example output. view PDF version

The TownGuide map generator (townguide.webhop.net) is a python program that will render a map to a PDF file and include a street index and an index of user selectable points of interest.

It can run as either a web service or as a stand-alone program if the source code is installed on your computer (from code.google.com/p/townguide).

Note: The demonstration web service that used to be at [1] is not working at the moment - it used the xapi service to obtain OSM data, which was too unreliable, and it has not been updated to use the new jxapi service.

The current version of the program is really a proof of concept demonstration. There are many improvements that could/should be made. These include:

• Increased output resolution (the output is a bit 'fuzzy' because of low output resolution). (Included in 'townguide2' branch thanks to Waldemar's Google Summer of Code project).
• Different symbols for different categories of Points of Interest.
• Deal with overlapping point of interest symbols.
• Include a mapnik stylesheet editor to provide more customisation of base map.

Development

This programme was developed in parallel with maposmatic, so some of the features are similar. For a simple overview map, maposmatic produces much better output than townguide, so it would be best to use that. What townguide does (or aims to do!) is:

• Highlight points of interest with numbered markers and provide a key at the bottom.
• Provide different output formats (poster, booklet)
• Provide more customisation - add contours to the basic OSM map, add overlays of GPX traces to highlight routes etc.

There are currently two versions of townguide - the original version (in the trunk repository at [2]) and 'townguide2' ([3]). Townguide2 is based on Waldemar's Google Summer of Code project and has re-structured the code to provide the flexibility to add the customisations identified above. But there is more work to get this to a functioning state.

If anyone would like to work on this, they are very welcome to!

Examples

An example of a poster output is shown on this page.

A sample booklet can be found at file:Townguide_book.pdf. The book formatting needs more work, but is a proof of concept at the moment.

For details please contact grahamjones139@gmail.com.

See also

• OSM on Paper other ideas around getting OpenStreetMap into printable formats