By doing what is commonly called "rendering". "[rendering][1]". The process of taking OSM data (node, ways and relations) generating geometric objects from the raw data and then "drawing" the objects in to a bitmap. Both steps tend to be fully configurable (for example by deciding how wide a road of a certain classification should be drawn and in what color or which elements to draw at all). A good renderer for investigating what can be done is maperitive (see maperitive.net ).[maperitive.net][2] ). [1]: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Rendering [2]: http://maperitive.net

By doing what is commonly called "rendering". The process of taking OSM data (node, ways and relations) generating geometric objects from the raw data and then "drawing" the objects in to a bitmap. Both steps tend to be fully configurable (for example by deciding how wide a road of a certain classification should be drawn and in what color of or which elements to draw at all). A good renderer for investigating what can be done is maperitive (see maperitive.net ).

By doing what is commonly called "rendering". The process of taking OSM data (node, ways and relations) generating geometric objects from the raw data and then "drawing" the objects in to a bitmap. Both steps tend to be fully configurable (for example by deciding how wide a road of a certain classification should be drawn and in what color of which elements to draw at all). A good renderer for investigating what can be done is maperitive (see maperitive.net ).