Mapping applications split up data into "tiles" so you can download only the data you are currently looking at. For example, you don't want to download the entire planet, just to look at your own neighborhood.
Historically, these tiles were literally images that the client application (i.e. web map) could "tile" side by side to cover the part of the map you were looking at. Now we refer to those images as "raster" tiles, to differentiate them with "vector" tiles.
Rather than a rendered image, Vector tiles contain the raw data that you could use to render such an image. Vector tiles allow a smaller file size and more flexibility. For example, with vector tiles you can crisply render at partial zoom levels, keeping lines sharp and avoid pixelating text. The client can also have customizable styles - hiding certain layers or accentuating others from the vector tiles.
Vector tiles are not new technology. For example, Google Maps started using them over a decade ago. So why has it taken so long for OpenStreetMap.org? One reason is no doubt a lack of engineering capacity. There were also concerns about older and less powerful clients hardware not being up to the task, but that concern has lessened over time.
OpenStreetMap also has some unique requirements. It is a community edited database, and users want to see their edits soon (immediately really). It's not feasible to dynamically generate every tile request from the latest data, so caching is essential. Still, to minimize the amount of time tiles will be stale, a lot of work went into being able to quickly regenerate stale tiles before the new vector tiles were rolled out.
Yeah, it really is not. Mapbox Vector Tiles spec came out in 2014, and they've been absolutely standard across all (non-government) web mapping for at least the last 5 years.
Tiles aren't just about data selection, they're also about caching. By turning a continuous domain (any part of the world at any scale) into a series of discrete requests (a grid of tiles at several fixed scales), maps become a series of cacheable requests.
For anyone who wants to actually try the new layer, it's called "Shortbread" and can be accessed under the layers selector. Or use this link: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map&layers=S
The blog post could do a better job of surfacing that bit!
There is also the MapTiler OMT style for OpenMapTiles, which uses Vector Tiles. It is a close copy of the Standard OSM map style. It appeared at the same time as Shortbread on the osm.org website.
The lack of boundaries below national level is off-putting. Both the style and the tile spec itself seem to need a lot of refinement... highways look like a patchwork at low zoom. I had also thought shortbread excluded a lot of POI types, but maybe I need to review again.
But that's not to diminish the accomplishment overall here for the OSM page itself– this is an awesome step forward!
OSM has always overdone boundaries in my opinion, the raster tiles show national/international waters and electoral districts, which are of limited use for most purposes.
The choices are tough, also in details: Which shops to show in busy areas at which zoom level?
But mind: openstreetmap.org is ment as a developer site, for developers to see their changes quickly. The official idea is that other people should take the data and do "nice" things elsewhere. But of course reality is that users want to use openstreetmap.org as alternative to Google maps ...
Personally I'm quite happy that these tiles cut down on the clutter in the original OSM tiles. It made it very hard for me to actually use them for navigation because there was just so much stuff everywhere.
For example the old tiles displayed rail tracks extremely prominently, which just aren't relevant 99% of the time even when traveling by train. In the vector tiles they're much more muted and thinner.
> I'm quite happy that these tiles cut down on the clutter in the original OSM tiles. It made it very hard for me to actually use them for navigation
The Openstreetmap.org tiles are a demo and a contributor quality assurance tool - they are not meant for end-user applications, hence the rather over-the-top selection of map objects.
What happened to maps trying to make the names of most or all streets visible? It looks like the vector layer on the web viewer is sort of trying to show some street names, but it seems extremely buggy right now — names appear and then disappear again when making small zoom adjustments.
Not that Apple Maps or Google Maps are much better in this regard.
I think mbtiles are being phased out for pmtiles because no DB required and can be served from static storage like R2/S3 (with a worker but hopefully the worker part goes away and they support byte offset requests soon)
You don't need a database to serve mbtiles. If you're deploying PMTiles somewhere that doesn't support byte offset requests, then they don't really have much advantage over mbtiles.
To answer the question: somebody needs to do the initial work and it's a further moving part that needs to be kept running (as the other responses point out such a distribution would likely use PMTiles as a container format). Given the current finances and staffing of the OSMF likely not top priority.
While vector tiles are often marketed as faster loading ones, and it is true in OSM case, I would like to see apples to apples comparison: vector tiles with same level of detail as original OSM raster tiles. Maybe someone already has such vector style built?
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Mapping applications split up data into "tiles" so you can download only the data you are currently looking at. For example, you don't want to download the entire planet, just to look at your own neighborhood.
Historically, these tiles were literally images that the client application (i.e. web map) could "tile" side by side to cover the part of the map you were looking at. Now we refer to those images as "raster" tiles, to differentiate them with "vector" tiles.
Rather than a rendered image, Vector tiles contain the raw data that you could use to render such an image. Vector tiles allow a smaller file size and more flexibility. For example, with vector tiles you can crisply render at partial zoom levels, keeping lines sharp and avoid pixelating text. The client can also have customizable styles - hiding certain layers or accentuating others from the vector tiles.
Vector tiles are not new technology. For example, Google Maps started using them over a decade ago. So why has it taken so long for OpenStreetMap.org? One reason is no doubt a lack of engineering capacity. There were also concerns about older and less powerful clients hardware not being up to the task, but that concern has lessened over time.
OpenStreetMap also has some unique requirements. It is a community edited database, and users want to see their edits soon (immediately really). It's not feasible to dynamically generate every tile request from the latest data, so caching is essential. Still, to minimize the amount of time tiles will be stale, a lot of work went into being able to quickly regenerate stale tiles before the new vector tiles were rolled out.
Yeah, it really is not. Mapbox Vector Tiles spec came out in 2014, and they've been absolutely standard across all (non-government) web mapping for at least the last 5 years.
The blog post could do a better job of surfacing that bit!
You can compare it to the existing vector tile layer created by MapTiler, which mimics the classic raster tile style: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map&layers=V
Hopefully it's vector tiles and information are there (I checked in Maputik) so it's possible to create my own style (which I will definitely try).
But that's not to diminish the accomplishment overall here for the OSM page itself– this is an awesome step forward!
https://github.com/systemed/tilemaker/issues/839
But mind: openstreetmap.org is ment as a developer site, for developers to see their changes quickly. The official idea is that other people should take the data and do "nice" things elsewhere. But of course reality is that users want to use openstreetmap.org as alternative to Google maps ...
I'd love to see OpenStreetMap.org be more directly useful to more people, rather than only as a "developer site".
For example the old tiles displayed rail tracks extremely prominently, which just aren't relevant 99% of the time even when traveling by train. In the vector tiles they're much more muted and thinner.
The Openstreetmap.org tiles are a demo and a contributor quality assurance tool - they are not meant for end-user applications, hence the rather over-the-top selection of map objects.
Not that Apple Maps or Google Maps are much better in this regard.
[1] https://registry.opendata.aws/osm/
Look at the network tab on https://pmtiles.io/#url=https%3A%2F%2Fdemo-bucket.protomaps....
It's great for exploring tiles but it essentially doesn't support range queries/requests, which pmtiles does.