View source for Marble/OSMVectorTileCreation

= OSM Vector Tiles =

== Creating tiles from a pbf file ==

As an example we'd like to render tiles for tile level 13, 15 and 17 of San Francisco. 
First you need the osm.pbf file for that region. In our case we get it from:

http://download.geofabrik.de/north-america/us/california.html

where we locate the link to the pbf file as http://download.geofabrik.de/north-america/us/california-latest.osm.pbf

=== Creating the tools - osmconvert and marble-vectorosm-tilecreator ===

Now we need the tools for conversion and filtering the pbf file into tiles. In order to compile the tools you should have zlib installed on your system (e.g. via sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev). Then run:

<source lang="bash">
cd /tmp
wget http://m.m.i24.cc/osmconvert.c
gcc -O3 -o osmconvert osmconvert.c -lz
sudo mv osmconvert /usr/local/bin
</source>

if that works, running

<source lang="bash">
osmconvert -h
</source>
should output usage instructions.

Please compile Marble from source code as well as described in https://marble.kde.org/sources.php and make sure to compile the development version (master branch). Pass the option -DBUILD_MARBLE_TOOLS=TRUE to cmake in order to compile all Marble tools.

=== Running the VectorTileCreator ===

Now our tool is needed. In a shell, go to the marble build directory and then
<source lang="bash">
cd tools/vectorosm-tilecreator
</source>
now running
<source lang="bash">
./marble-vectorosm-tilecreator -h
</source>
should give usage instructions.

The tile cutter tool works as follows: You call it with a link to an osm .pbf file as parameter. 

The tool will generate tiles for zoom levels 11, 13, 15 and 17 by default. You can overwrite that using the -z switch, e.g.
-z 13 15.

=== Full Example ===
If you follow the steps above, the final tile creation run after installing the required tools will look like this:

<source lang="bash">
cd ~/marble/build/
cd tools/vectorosm-tilecreator
./marble-vectorosm-tilecreator http://download.geofabrik.de/north-america/us/california-latest.osm.pbf
 [========================================>]  100%  734.4/734.4 MB  Downloading california-latest.osm.pbf
 [========================================>]  100%  0.0/0.0 MB  Downloading california.poly
 [========================================>]  100%  osm cache tiles complete.
 [========================================>]  100%  landmass cache tiles complete.                    
 [========================================>]  100%  Vector OSM tiles complete.
</source>

=== Smaller Regions ===
For large countries the tile creation can take several hours or even days. If you're just interested in a certain region (say, a city), you can preprocess the pbf and extract the region you're interested in. Use osmconvert for that like this:
<source lang="bash">
osmconvert --complex-ways --complete-ways -b=8.3735,49.0016,8.4409,49.0261 -o=smallregion.pbf largeregion.pbf
./marble-vectorosm-tilecreator smallregion.pbf
</source>
The four numbers of the bounding box passed with the -b=... parameter can be obtained from the [https://www.openstreetmap.org/export#map=15/49.0139/8.4072 OSM export tool] in the order left, bottom, right, top.

=== Resolving errors ===
If you get an error message after the tile creation downloaded the cache files, a likely cause is that you are missing the shapelib (libshp) dependency. It's an optional dependency of Marble, but a required dependency for vector tile creation.

To check whether shapelib (libshp) was found, examine the first few lines of cmake. They should contain a list of dependencies needed, with a note if it was found or not. You might get a warning that shapelib (libshp) is missing. Installing it and recompiling Marble will then fix the error.

In the example cmake output below, the optional packages libgps and libwlocate are missing, but shapelib (libshp) is found after installing it using the package manager of the Linux distribution:
<source lang="bash">
$ cmake -DBUILD_MARBLE_TOOLS=TRUE ../marble
-- Could NOT find libgps (missing:  LIBGPS_INCLUDE_DIR LIBGPS_LIBRARIES) 
-- Could NOT find libwlocate (missing:  LIBWLOCATE_INCLUDE_DIR LIBWLOCATE_LIBRARIES) 
-- 
-- The following OPTIONAL packages have been found:
[...]
 * libshp , reading and writing of ESRI Shapefiles (.shp) , <http://shapelib.maptools.org/>
   reading and displaying .shp files
[...]
</source>