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How can I switch on and off different community layers? Where can I find layers made by the community? How can I create layers and see my own layers?

Adding weather info to the map or taxi info or anything a community might make a layer for that I don't want to see in the general map all the time cause I just want to toggle it off or on.

The layers. Where are they?

asked 06 Apr '14, 05:56

joshua%20robison's gravatar image

joshua robison
46114
accept rate: 0%

I'm not seeing this kind of thing on youtube either. I see people coding in java or javascript or something but I don't see people clicking on maps and entering info and saving layers to toggle off and on.

(06 Apr '14, 05:57) joshua robison
4

This question is way too vague and broad to answer at all intelligibly. I don't know what a 'community layer' is, you appear to mean a thematic map. Please tighten up the question and provide more obvious examples.

(06 Apr '14, 07:58) SK53 ♦
1

The ability to add custom extra web tile layers to the layer switcher in OSM is perhaps something to consider suggesting over at Github, unless it is being discussed already. However there aren't an infinite number of people ready to dive in and start coding enhancements, so the answer might well be "yes, that sounds nice; why don't you submit a patch?".

(06 Apr '14, 11:05) SomeoneElse ♦

The wiki has a long list of "community layers". We cannot display them on the main website because of resource requirements. Many of them are hosted on private servers. Exposing them to all visitors would surely exceed their traffic limit and other resources.

If you want to create your own layer then it depends on what you want to achieve.

How to render your own tiles is described on switch2osm. This step is only necessary if you want to change the style of the tiles. TileMill is another approach for rendering your own tiles, among many many others.

If you are instead just interested in adding a custom overlay, then go for Leaflet or OpenLayers. These libraries allow you to add markers, photos, polygons, popups, GPX/KML/... tracks and similar things on top of already existing tiles.

permanent link

answered 06 Apr '14, 09:23

scai's gravatar image

scai ♦
33.3k21309459
accept rate: 23%

edited 06 Apr '14, 10:59

3

Just to expand a little bit on that - since OpenStreetMap is at its heart a big lump of data rather than a map, many "layers" are data representations that aren't maps, and many OSM maps aren't web tile layers (such as maps displayed in handheld GPSs and offline maps displayed by e.g. OSmAnd on mobile phones)

(06 Apr '14, 11:15) SomeoneElse ♦
2

Note umap.openstreetmap.fr has a large number of layers available that can be used to produce a customized map.

(08 Apr '14, 18:55) SimonPoole ♦

This answer does not answer part of question clearly IMO: I want to provide, not tiles, but primitives (example a bunch of markers). I need guidance on the best and common ways of doing this. For example I know I could put some thin, custom API on top of some geo database and let people access it willy nilly, but do API standards exist? What is http://openstreetview.org/ doing to query their database for example?

(10 Dec '14, 10:58) mapgenius323
4

Creating personalized markers is a different question. A possible solution is using uMap besides the already mentioned tools Leaflet and OpenLayers.

(10 Dec '14, 11:03) scai ♦

@scai Leaflet and OpenLayers are both front end libraries for visualizing data pulled from tile or map servers, not "solutions to creating personalized markers". uMap seem to be a front end as well. Argh. Visualizing tiles and implementing tile map servers seems to be covered fairly well. But serving geo data that is not tiles is not. Maybe people just assume its not worth standardizing? I dont know.

(11 Dec '14, 06:40) mapgenius323
2

Can you please open a new question? Your problem has nothing to do with the original question.

(11 Dec '14, 07:51) scai ♦
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question asked: 06 Apr '14, 05:56

question was seen: 6,756 times

last updated: 11 Dec '14, 07:51

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum