Cross posting to discovery

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tomasz Finc tfinc@wikimedia.org Date: Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 12:26 PM Subject: Announcing the launch of Maps To: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Yuri Astrakhan yastrakhan@wikimedia.org, Max Semenik < msemenik@wikimedia.org>

The Discovery Department has launched an experimental tile and static maps service available at https://maps.wikimedia.org.

Using this service you can browse and embed map tiles into your own tools using OpenStreetMap data. Currently, we handle traffic from *.wmflabs .org and *.wikivoyage .org (referrer header must be either missing or set to these values) but we would like to open it up to Wikipedia traffic if we see enough use. Our hope is that this service fits the needs of the numerous maps developers and tool authors who have asked for a WMF hosted tile service with an initial focus on WikiVoyage.

We'd love for you to try our new service, experiment writing tools using our tiles, and giving us feedback https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Maps . If you've built a tool using OpenStreetMap-based imagery then using our service is a simple drop-in replacement.

Getting started is as easy as https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Maps#Getting_Started

How can you help?

* Adapt your labs tool to use this service - for example, use Leaflet js library and point it to https://maps.wikimedia.org * File bugs in Phabricator https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/discovery-maps-sprint/ * Provide us feedback to help guide future features https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Maps * Improve our map style https://github.com/kartotherian/osm-bright.tm2 * Improve our data extraction https://github.com/kartotherian/osm-bright.tm2source

Based on usage and your feedback, the Discovery team https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Discovery will decide how to proceed.

We could add more data sources (both vector and raster), work on additional services such as static maps or geosearch, work on supporting all languages, switch to client-side WebGL rendering, etc. Please help us decide what is most important.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Maps has more about the project and related Maps work.

== In Depth ==

Tiles are served from https://maps.wikimedia.org, but can only be accessed from any subdomains of *.wmflabs .org and *.wikivoyage.org. Kartotherian can produce tiles as images (png), and as raw vector data (PBF Mapbox format or json):

.../{source}/{zoom}/{x}/{y}[@{scale}x].{format}

Additionally, Kartotherian can produce snapshot (static) images of any location, scaling, and zoom level with

.../{source},{zoom},{lat},{lon},{width}x{height}[@{scale}x].{format}.

For example, to get an image centered at 42,-3.14, at zoom level 4, size 800x600, use https://maps.wikimedia.org/img/osm-intl,4,42,-3.14,800x600.png (copy/paste the link, or else it might not work due to referrer restriction).

Do note that the static feature is highly experimental right now.

We would like to thank WMF Ops (especially Alex Kosiaris, Brandon Black, and Jaime Crespo), services team, OSM community and engineers, and the Mapnik and Mapbox teams. The project would not have completed so fast without you.

Thank You

--tomasz