How does one pull the full zoom images from the Cycle Map Repository on to his computer?

Question

My goal is to pull every single tile (by tile, I mean the rendered square images that are loaded as you scroll through the map) of the fully zoomed cycle map, and save them as a separate file onto my computer. I plan to use the height maps provided as a means to generate my own "Tactical" map for an opensource online game that I am developing. My basic plan is to do a basic

if color of top left pixel == "e7da81":
   set height to 86
elif color of top left pixel == "e7da82":
   set height to 87

(Ugly code? Yes, but it doesnt need to be quick; just functional.)

Answer 1

5

First of all, DON'T EVEN TRY TO DO THIS. Read the Tile Usage Policy.

Tile scraping imposes a very high load on servers and will result in your IP address being blocked. CycleMap is owned and run by a private individual who may have to meet server costs from his own income.

Second, if you want a large volume of tiles, you must generate your own, or pay someone for them.

If, as it appears from my reading of your question, you merely want tiles with contour lines, then it is fairly simple to generate your own (although for the whole world this will take a long time & lots of disk space). SRTM data can be downloaded and there are many tools for manipulating it.

Note that most tiled maps do not render more than a very small fraction of the most detailed tiles.

permanent link

answered 06 Mar '13, 09:26

SK53 ♦
28.1k●48●268●433
accept rate: 22%

1

That was very helpful. Two follow up questions; How large do you suppose the repository of tiles would be? How much do you suppose is reasonable to pay the for a mass download?

(06 Mar '13, 16:49) Akiva

3

A quick look at this table will tell you how many tiles make up the world at each level: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Slippy_map_tilenames#Zoom_levels. With 68 700 million tiles at level 18 in a naive implementation you need that many file handles in your system and anywhere from a few hundred bytes / tile. I think you want to think about alternatives.

(06 Mar '13, 17:13) SK53 ♦

How does one pull the full zoom images from the Cycle Map Repository on to his computer?

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