[OSM-dev] Experimenting with ClearTables, self-hosted vector tiles, and Tangram client-side rendering

I've been experimenting with generating my own vector tiles and client-side rendering with Tangram[1] in order to figure out how to best write its styling language. Tangram is a GL-based renderer written by Mapzen and normally used with their Tilezen[2] vector tiles, but I'm interested in being able to make my own vector tiles and different cartographic choices. I also consider diversity of vector tile schemas important. I hope to avoid a situation where only large players in the market can get involved like we have right now. For a toolchain I used osm2pgsql with ClearTables[3] and Mapnik via Kosmtik[4] to write vector tiles. On the demo I'm serving the tiles with Apache but in development I used Kosmtik because it's xray functionality is useful. For development I worked in Tangram Play, a web-based editor that automatically reloads the map when you change the style. The cartography and vector tile definitions are loosely based on OSM Clear[5], a demo style I wrote. As it's a learning exercise I don't consider the style complete or free of bugs. The demo page is on my server at http://tangram-clear-demo.faramir.paulnorman.ca/ with the style and vector tile code at https://github.com/ClearTables/tangram-clear-demo. I'm not sure what direction I'm going to take next as I don't have any particular style goals right now, or collaborators. [1] https://mapzen.com/products/tangram/ [2] https://mapzen.com/projects/vector-tiles/ [3] https://github.com/ClearTables/ClearTables [4] https://github.com/kosmtik/kosmtik [5] https://github.com/ClearTables/osm-clear