Mapnik Output Formats

Mapnik supports rendering with both AGG and Cairo (see MapnikRenderers for more detail), and can create maps or map tiles in a variety of formats.

Tradeoffs

Mapnik Format Renderer Type Visual Quality Rendering Speed* Size* Relevant Code
png AGG 32-bit png 0.12 s 16 KB source:trunk/include/mapnik/png_io.hpp
png256 AGG 8-bit png256 0.12 s 8 KB source:trunk/include/mapnik/png_io.hpp
jpeg AGG ? jpeg 0.12 s 8 KB source:trunk/include/mapnik/jpeg_io.hpp
ARGB32 (png) CAIRO 32 bit png24 0.24 s 20 KB source:trunk/include/mapnik/cairo_renderer.hpp
RGB24 (png) CAIRO 24 bit alpha png32 0.24 s 20 KB source:trunk/include/mapnik/cairo_renderer.hpp
svg CAIRO N/A svg 0.28 s 980 KB source:trunk/include/mapnik/cairo_renderer.hpp
pdf CAIRO N/A pdf 0.40 s 232 KB source:trunk/include/mapnik/cairo_renderer.hpp
ps CAIRO N/A postscript 0.36 s 1.4 MB source:trunk/include/mapnik/cairo_renderer.hpp

* Rendering speeds and output sizes based on sample 256 X 256 tiles created using the GettingStarted sample data, run using Mapnik SVN Head (r 747), cairo 1.8.0, and pycairo 1.4.12.

More tests with complex styles, labeling are needed

Tradeoffs

TODO: discussion of tradeoffs and situations to use which format

References