I need to create about a 9-level deep SLIPPY map of the world from OSM-like data (for offline use). So I cannot use the MapQuest, CloudMade, etc. servers). The projection must be EPSG4326 (LL84) which is another reason I cannot use them. The viewer is Leaflet which I have working fine with EPSG4326 tiles (currently I am diced the NASA Blue Marble to 9 levels).
I like the look of the Mapquest tiles:
http://open.mapquest.co.uk/
But let’s say I try the natural earth path. I know how to take the Raster World Natural Earth 2, GeoTiff and tile it into SLIPPY maps using FME.
What sort of process (and data) would I use to create each zoom level for the some basic country, state, provence, cities, and some other detail on top of this map?
Tools that I have at my disposal include FME Professional (my favorite), QGIS, PostGIS 2.0, and GDAL. I am working on a large Windows 7SP1 box.
How about using TileMill for creating your tiles?
https://www.mapbox.com/tilemill/
Thank you for the link. It was worthwhile doing some research into TileMill (which I heard of but did not see the connection).
But one the the constraints is that the output has to be EPSG4326 (ll84), and as you can see from this support request:
http://support.mapbox.com/discussions/tilemill/122-projection-support-wanted
The MapBox people are not interested in anything other than WebMercator right now.
But since TileMill is just built on MapNik, and they spit out the XML style, it might be possible.
Right now, I have heard that FME 2014 will have direct MapNik support, so that is what I am looking at. Since FME is much more polished than the GDAL, python, C++, NODE etc stack that the MapBox, MapQuest, and MapNik solutions that I am seeing, but I keep looking at this stuff.
Obviously, with a 9 level deep world map I need something that scales, which also pushes me to FME.
.
