Announcing PostGIS Support in TileMill

Announcing PostGIS Support in TileMill



New release makes OpenStreetMap and TileMill integration better and easier

We just released version 0.3.1 of TileMill, our open source map design studio. The big new feature in this release is support for PostGIS layer types, followed by a couple new opacity options in Carto and some bug fixes.

PostGIS support in TileMill 0.3.1

For those not familiar with it, PostGIS is an extension for PostgreSQL databases that provides additional functions for storing, manipulating, and retrieving spatial data. PostGIS (along with Mapnik) powers the main maps on OpenStreetMap.org (OSM) and Open.MapQuest.com. Using OSM data extracts from Geofabrik or Cloudmade, it’s relatively easy for anyone to set up a PostGIS database for a particular area of interest.

Adding PostGIS support to TileMill will allow us to have easy access to up-to-date OSM data, which will be a great new feature. We have already begun work on a new map tileset design utilizing OSM data called “Open Streets”, and we’ll be working to update the current OSM Bright tileset to work with TileMill and Carto.

Open Streets style preview

The PostGIS support in 0.3.1 just the first iteration. We have plans to further improve this feature in future versions of TileMill, for example by allowing connection presets. There are a lot of cool things that can be done right now, and we’re exploring what make sense to integrate into TileMill.

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