[HN Gopher] Map To Poster - Create Art of your favourite city
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Map To Poster - Create Art of your favourite city
Author : originalankur
Score : 203 points
Date : 2026-01-17 10:13 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| giuliomagnifico wrote:
| Nice! Thanks
| doophus wrote:
| Why are big chunks of Sam Francisco missing (eg around the
| bridge) missing from the example?
| Sajarin wrote:
| Those smooth chunks are all (mostly) public park land. Known as
| Presidio and part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
| originalankur wrote:
| You know your city.
| originalankur wrote:
| python create_map_poster.py -c "San Francisco" -C "USA" -t
| sunset -d 10000
|
| -d should be approx. 10k to 14k given the size of the city. You
| can give it a shot.
| cinntaile wrote:
| It says there are examples but I can't see them?
| originalankur wrote:
| Please check on desktop, the table is hiding images in
| responsive mode - You can see the images on X here
| https://x.com/getpy/status/2009255303775174684
| cinntaile wrote:
| Thanks, I didn't notice there was another column that I could
| sidescroll to!
| mft_ wrote:
| I believe (from a quick code check on my phone) it should be
| possible to output the images to SVG with a little tweak, thanks
| to your use of matplotlib?
|
| Is there a reason you've defaulted to PNG that I'm missing?
| originalankur wrote:
| Valid Point @mft_ plt.savefig(output_file, format='svg',
| facecolor=THEME['bg']) should do it. I will add a --format
| parameter and make the change.
| Footprint0521 wrote:
| Holy heck exporting to PDF/SVG for large cities is laggy, just
| patched the repo and did it for one over half a million people
| and it's insanely slow lol
| originalankur wrote:
| There is throttling in the code when making api request to
| respect the map provider as per their terms and conditions.
| Can make few thing parallel but it's a hobby project how many
| posters would one person want to generate?.
| tianqi wrote:
| That's splendid. I've long wanted to make a jigsaw puzzle out of
| Sydney's road map, so I can familiarise myself with the layout of
| roads while having fun. That way I can reduce my reliance on nav
| app and become one of those old-school drivers.
| bobnamob wrote:
| There's a reason Where 2 -> Google Maps happened in Sydney. The
| sheer number of one-way roads combined with the imposition of
| the harbour and the messy tunnel system make internalising
| Sydney navigation a life-long endeavour
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| The map of Venice seems to be the only one whose image is
| "squeezed" horizontally. Wondering why.
| originalankur wrote:
| need to take into consideration the length and width of the
| city and choose distance appropriately. I haven't followed my
| own suggestion here -
| https://github.com/originalankur/maptoposter?tab=readme-ov-f...
| will fix.
| hehe23 wrote:
| Hi! I generated a map as well, but indeed, the map is
| squeezed horizontally. I have here a screenshot from a map
| and the poster: https://photos.diffop.be/apps/photos/public/h
| 6JKMJImLZCXutcT...
|
| I have tried adjusting -d, but it only affects the scale.
|
| Here is the command I used: python create_map_poster.py
| --city Leuven --country Belgium --distance 4000 --theme
| sunset
| emaro wrote:
| I tried it in a python3 venv, but the download data step is stuck
| at 0% unfortunately.
| originalankur wrote:
| It will work, give it time. Also default distance is 29000.
| Give distance of 10000 to see faster results. It certainly is
| working as many users have generated maps.
| originalankur wrote:
| Also note that as per their terms and conditions I need to
| give a user agent, so multiple users will be sharing same
| user agent right now.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| The bar only updates once that entire step is complete (ie, if
| step 1 of 3 is downloading roads, it won't tell you what % of
| roads have been downloaded, but rather it will remain at 0%
| until all roads are downloaded at which point it will jump to
| 33%).
| tomashubelbauer wrote:
| Three random themes for anyone who's Czech or likes Prague and
| doesn't want to set up the script locally:
| https://imgur.com/a/Ovg8mDW
| originalankur wrote:
| Looks beautiful. The gold+dark color does justice.
| xixixao wrote:
| What's up with the Zizkovska tower highlight?
| hyperific wrote:
| Also check out prettymapp
|
| https://prettymapp.streamlit.app/
| croisillon wrote:
| and https://anvaka.github.io/city-roads
| stephenlf wrote:
| This repo is fantastic. The README should be the gold standard
| for OSS. Not to mention how stunning the outputs are. Thanks for
| sharing.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| Pretty cool! It would be great if there was a way to set
| coordinates manually, since Nominatim can sometimes produce
| mediocre results. Also, would be nice to have a way to render the
| same map in all themes, not just one.
| originalankur wrote:
| The initial version were coordinates actually but then realised
| people mostly love their cities more than anything and it's
| easy that way. Will add this feature back as optional
| parameters.
| arnavpraneet wrote:
| what are the blue dots? (not water bodies i think?)
| thamer wrote:
| Yes, the blue and orange dots are from the water and parks
| Nodes and Ways in the OSM data.
|
| It doesn't look like the orange and blue colors are part of the
| theme definitions, so the rendering library may be using some
| default values. This is why they are rendered in the same color
| on images using different theme files.
| m-hodges wrote:
| Etsy sellers devastated
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| San Francisco looks nice, but there seems to be a problem with
| the projection in some of the sample images. It looks as if it
| isn't UTM but a global sphere projection, which isn't suitable
| for local renders. It's suspicious that the word 'projection'
| isn't mentioned in the Readme.
| jasongill wrote:
| This is an artistic project to make a fun and artsy poster, so
| it's not at all "suspicious" that the map projection is not
| critical to the artwork.
|
| It also appears to be open source, so perhaps you can open a
| pull request with your improvements based on your
| cartographical experience.
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| You are absolutely correct. Suspicious was the wrong word and
| I did not mean to criticize the author or the work.
| jlarocco wrote:
| It looks like the final images have some kind of vignetting to
| make the corners and outter edges fade away. Probably grabbing
| OSM tiles and doing some image processing.
|
| Looks neat!
| nycerrrrrrrrrr wrote:
| Does anyone have recommendations for how to actually print a
| poster from images like these?
| hirako2000 wrote:
| A good print on demand that delivers ?
| xnx wrote:
| In the US, I've had good results with Staples
| dexterdog wrote:
| dotphoto.com
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| For something DIY, Rasterbator.net can make you a poster-sized
| print in multiple sheets. You'll need some elbow grease to
| assemble the print.
| jfengel wrote:
| For what it's worth, I use Vistaprint. That's not based on an
| extensive comparison, just that it always works for me and
| seems comparable in price and quality to other services.
| 7777777phil wrote:
| Very cool, thanks for sharing!!
| japoneris wrote:
| Looks amazing ! In my free time, i play with my laser cutting
| machine. It will save me some design time. Thanks
| dylan604 wrote:
| What happens if there are multiple cities with the same name.
| Maybe this is a US specific problem, but there are many states
| with cities of the same name from another state. As a few
| examples:
|
| Salem, OR and Salem, MA
|
| Portland, OR and Portland, ME
|
| Springfield, IL and Springfield, MO
|
| Dallas, TX and Dallas, GA
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Don't even get started on American cities named after world
| cities: Paris, Munster, London, Toledo, Memphis, Athens,...
| tokai wrote:
| Every country has those. There was some that found it very
| funny when Russia occupied New York last year (or last year
| again?).
| originalankur wrote:
| lol, I didn't even think of it. May be I should start taking
| country too. Edge case :-p
| fat_cantor wrote:
| If you just type "Salem" for the city, it just picks one and
| goes with it. If you type "Salem, Oregon" vs "Salem, MA", it
| gives the desired result (at least for the cases I've tried),
| and then uses your input text as the caption.
| stanko wrote:
| There is a related project which I used several times:
|
| https://github.com/anvaka/city-roads
|
| Edit: it outputs SVGs and you can try it online. Anvaka (author)
| has other really cool dataviz projects.
| kingforaday wrote:
| Awesome! After I generate, where can I take that super res image
| and get a high quality photo print to frame?
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(page generated 2026-01-17 23:00 UTC)