Hi I have been using the static map API (osm-tah-cache.firefishy.com) to render maps into the background of my Java desktop application. This method worked fast and satisfying for almost a year now. However, it seems like since Match 1st one of the OSM servers retired - and this URL is not available anymore. I have tried to use alternatives I saw in https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Static_map_images (like pafciu17.dev.openstreetmap.org and staticmap.openstreetmap.de) - but they are very not responsive and give a very bad performance (takes something like 30 seconds to download a single image from a fast internet connection). Are you aware of this performance? Is it going to be improved? Is there anything I can do (use another server? I have searched the web and haven't found alternatives so far)? Thanks a lot! Doron. asked 06 Mar '12, 13:07  dorfri |
One Answer:
Static maps are not good for use in applications. For that you might get better performence and responsiveness by using a tile server. The only slippymap implementation in java I know of is for JOSM and can be found at the josm svn under GPL. answered 06 Mar '12, 13:25  Gnonthgol ♦ edited 06 Mar '12, 13:44  Frederik Ramm ♦ |
+1 for using tiles.
However, it'd be interesting to know why those other staticmap servers are so much slower than the tah one.