Tracestrack Tile service
Last update: Wed Oct 11 2023

Information

Table of Content

  1. Map Style
  2. Tile Servers
  3. Tile Update
  4. Map Style Updates
  5. Artworks and Fonts Credit
  6. Open Source Software Credit
  7. Data Credit

Company

Tracestrack is a sole proprietorship (eenmanszaak) registered in the Netherlands (KvK 87031469, VAT NL004347242B39). Its focus is OpenStreetMap based raster map styling, rendering and delivery.
Our contact information:
Email: info@tracestrack.com
Mastodon: @tracestrack
Twitter: @tracestrack (dormant)

Products

  • Base maps: Carto and Topo
  • Language labels: 18+ languages
  • Route overlays: bus, bicycle, subway and train.
To explore all maps that we offer, please visit Map Explorer.

Why raster maps

Raster maps are mature and easy to support on mobile/desktop apps and websites. With 512px tile size, maps can also be sharp on HD screens. Raster maps can show more details on low zoom than vector. When raster data sources, such as hillshades and satellite data is involved, raster map may also perform better than vector maps.

1. Map Style

Tracestrack Carto style is forked from openstreetmap-carto on Jan 12, 2021. Following is a main list of changes:

Removed rendering

  • Power lines
  • Underground subways

Updated rendering

  • Buildings are visible from Z17
  • Simple 3D buildings
  • Pedestrian areas and ways
  • Simplified footway/cycleway/path
  • Man-made bridges
  • Improved high density highway rendering (e.g. Cairo: See in TracesMap.com)
  • Trees and tree rows

Added rendering

  • City districts: place=borough
  • Sea and ocean: place=seaplace=ocean
  • Aquaculture areas: landuse=aquaculture
  • Tourism attractions: tourism=attraction
  • Busways: highway=busway
  • Solar farms and wind farms: power=plantplant:source=solarplant:source=wind
  • Highway/railway embankment: embankment=yes
  • Government landuse: landuse=governmental landuse=civic_admin landuse=institutional
  • Pitch sport icons: leisure=pitch

Misc

  • Use place:CN for Chinese place names
  • Use correct CJK fonts in Japan and Taiwan
  • Better line breaking for longer CJK place names

Tracestrack Topo style is a hybrid of Carto and OpenTopoMap. It uses the same SRTM data to generate hillshades and countours, which lie on top of Carto style background.

2. Tile Servers

Currently, Tracestrack has three high performance rendering servers and several edge servers.

Our DNS routes traffic to the best available edge servers. There is failover setup to improve availability.
See DNS Checker for real time config.

3. Tile Update

The database is synchronized with OSM everyday. Tile cache is rerendered roughly every 10 days, depending on the number of updated regions. The following map keeps track of update areas and schedules.

4. Map Style Updates

We love to make our map style meet users' needs. If you want to render new tags or update current styles, let us know by mentioning @tracestrack on Twitter, or send us an email at info(at)tracestrack.com.

The source code of Tracestrack Carto style is not open. We plan to make it open source in certain moment in future.

We take issues and pull requests from openstreetmap-carto as sources to improve the maps. Following is a list of issues and PRs that influenced Tracestrack Carto style:

  • Fix shop=car_repair label/icon colour mismatch (brown) #4536
  • added rendering of amenity=parcel_locker #4512

5. Artworks & Fonts Credit

6. Open Source Software Credit

7. Data Credit