topotresc

This is a project to build a map server customized for mountain hiking. It is based in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) data with high detail hillshading and elevation contour lines from different institutional open data sources. You can see the live site here:

https://www.topotresc.com

It provides also a online map source (TMS) to be used in desktop and mobile applications:

• QMapShack
• MOBAC, SASPlanet, QGIS
• Gurumaps
• Oruxmaps
• OsmAnd
• MapPlus
• TwoNav Land

The system is built using mapnik, apache with mod_tile and the gdal tools among others. The development environment described here is built on docker to avoid all the installation and dependencies problems.

The map include layers with hillshading and elevation contour lines to achieve an efective relief highlighting and the look-and-feel is adapted for all kind of mountain activities.

Map features

Relief

Highlighting relief is essential for mountain hiking. This is achieved by:

• Elevation contours with labels giving values (proportional to zoom levels)
• HillShading brings a strong relief impresium.

Trails difficulty (SAC scale)

OSM data offers the possibility to distinguish hiking trails suitable for all (T1) from those reserved to experienced and well equipped hikers (T4-T5-T6). This is a tremendous advantage over any other classical topo map.

Trails visibility

Trails visibility describes attributes regarding trail visibility (not route visibility) and orientation. OSM data makes the distinction between trail visibility and trail difficulty using two different tags.

Rendering all the different combinations of difficulty and visibility can be confusing for the map user so a sensible approach has been taken to distinguish about six combinations based on the most common hiker profiles.

Here we can see diferent combinations of rendering for difficulty (red=easy, darker=difficult) and visibility (more dotted/smaller=less visible)

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Install docker and docker-composer.
• Tested in mac. For linux and windows should work fine with minor adjustments.

Installing and building

• Clone and build the docker images

git clone https://github.com/aresta/topotresc
cd topotresc
docker-compose build

This includes three images: the tileserver (debian, apache, mod_tile), the postgres server and a image with many tools installed (Ubuntu, gdal, ogr, osmium...)

• Download the DEM (digital elevation model) files of the map area.

This is needed to create the contour lines and hillshading. For the Picos area (or any other in Spain) you can download them here: http://centrodedescargas.cnig.es/CentroDescargas/index.jsp (MDT05 is ok, 5x5m). Put them in the folder mnt/dem/es/
For example, for the Picos area the files are:

PNOA_MDT05_ETRS89_HU30_0031_LID.asc
PNOA_MDT05_ETRS89_HU30_0032_LID.asc
PNOA_MDT05_ETRS89_HU30_0055_LID.asc
PNOA_MDT05_ETRS89_HU30_0056_LID.asc
PNOA_MDT05_ETRS89_HU30_0080_LID.asc
PNOA_MDT05_ETRS89_HU30_0081_LID.asc

• Start the containers

docker-compose up

Check posible errors. If everything is fine later you can also execute the command with the -d flag to make the containers run in backgrund, but now is better to be able to see the posible errors in the next steps.

• Download and build all the needed data

Open a second terminal, navigate to the project folder and execute the script:

./build_all.sh

This can take a long time and generate a lot of GBs, depending on the area. For the small picos area provided it is about 6GB and 30' downloading and building on a regular desktop computer. (Make sure that the postgres database in the container (previuos step) is up and running).

Note: For windows you should only adapt the two script in the root, renaming them to .bat could be enought. The other scripts are ok because they are executed inside the docker containers.

• Run the tile server If everything went fine in the previous steps (probably not ;-) you can point your browser to:

http://localhost

and cross the fingers :)

Customize the map to another area

• One geojson file with the boundaries of the map is included (mnt/conf/picos.geojson), it covers the Picos de Europa mountains in Spain. If you want to render another area, you have to create a new geojson file with the limits of your map. It doesn't need to be a rectangle.
• If the area is not in Spain you have to download the PBF from that area and find the DEMs somewhere else.
• You will also need to adjust the initial coordinates to show the map in the index.js file.
• If you want to adapt the styles (good luck) they are in mnt/openstreetmap-carto. You can compile them with:

docker-compose exec tools /scripts/compile_styles.sh

Examples

Visit the Pyrenees and Catalonia Topotresc map: Mapa del Pirineo

(still work in progress, not always online)

Acknowledgments

OpenStreetMap & contributors, ICGC, CNIG (among many others). CC-BY-SA