Mapnik is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

mapping toolkit for desktop and server based map rendering, written in C++. Artem Pavlenko, the original developer of Mapnik, set out with the explicit goal of creating beautiful mapsBeautiful Maps as an explicit goal in the Mapnik FAQ
/ref> by employing the sub-pixel anti-aliasing of the Anti-Grain Geometry (AGG) library. Mapnik now also has a

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

rendering backend. For handling common software tasks such as memory management, file system access, regular expressions, and XML parsing, Mapnik utilizes the

Boost C++ libraries Boost, boosted or boosting may refer to: Science, technology and mathematics * Boost, positive manifold pressure in turbocharged engines * Boost (C++ libraries), a set of free peer-reviewed portable C++ libraries * Boost (material), a material b ...

. An

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

file can be used to define a collection of mapping objects that determine the appearance of a map, or objects can be constructed programmatically in C++, Python, and Node.js.

Data format

A number of data formats are supported in Mapnik using a plugin framework. Current plugins exist that utilize OGR and

GDAL The Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) is a computer software library for reading and writing raster and vector geospatial data formats (e.g. shapefile), and is released under the permissive X/MIT style free software license by the ...

to read a range of vector and raster datasets. Mapnik also has custom

Shapefile The shapefile format is a geospatial vector data format for geographic information system (GIS) software. It is developed and regulated by Esri as a mostly open specification for data interoperability among Esri and other GIS software product ...

PostGIS PostGIS ( ) is an open source software program that adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL object-relational database. PostGIS follows the Simple Features for SQL specification from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). PostGIS is ...

and

GeoTIFF GeoTIFF is a public domain metadata standard which allows georeferencing information to be embedded within a TIFF file. The potential additional information includes map projection, coordinate systems, ellipsoids, datums, and everything else nec ...

readers. There is also an osm2pgsql utility, that converts

OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (abbreviated OSM) is a free, Open Database License, open geographic database, map database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveying, surveys, trace from Ae ...

data into a format that can be loaded into

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL ( ) also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source software, free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. PostgreSQL features transaction processing, transactions ...

. Mapnik can then be used to render the OSM data into maps with the appearance the user wants.

Platforms

Mapnik is a cross platform toolkit that runs on Windows, Mac,

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix or *NIX) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Uni ...

systems like

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

and Solaris (since release 0.4).

Usage

One of its many users is the

project (OSM), which uses it in combination with an

Apache Web Server The Apache HTTP Server ( ) is a free and open-source cross-platform web server, released under the terms of Apache License 2.0. It is developed and maintained by a community of developers under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation. ...

module (mod_tile) and openstreetmap-carto style to render tiles that make up the OSM default layer.OpenStreetMap's main Slippy Map layer
/ref> Mapnik is also used by CloudMade, MapQuest, and MapBox.

License

Mapnik is free software and is released under

LGPL The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...

(GNU Lesser General Public Licence).

References

External links

* {{OpenStreetMap Distributed computing projects Free GIS software Free software programmed in C++ Free-content websites Geographic information systems OpenStreetMap Web Map Services Web mapping