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Software - Install critical software and links to tutorials.
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Data - Download OSM and Natural Earth data.
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Example workflow - Start a project, import data, export data, create tiles.
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Web mapping = API + tiles - Slippy maps on the web have two parts: images tiles that make up the map, and an API framework that stitches tiles together and handles interactive panning and zooming.
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Why go open source geo - Read what the community is saying.
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Map examples - Pretty basemap tiles and compelling interactive maps.
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PostGIS - Store your geography in a spatial database (kinda the open source version of an Esri GeoDB). Faster than raw SHP files when speed matters. Storage default for OSM data.
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OGR, GDAL - Reproject, sort, filter and otherwise modify Shapefiles and other vector map data formats. GDAL for raster. These are amazingly powerful.
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QGIS - The open source alternative to ArcMap, but not as industrial strength. It's a GUI for composing maps and doing simple analysis.
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Map Styling - Cascadenik, carto since raw Mapnik XML is hellish.
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Style Hub - Pre-baked stylesheets for drawing OSM and Natural Earth data.
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TileStache - Cache web map tiles, from Stamen.
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Dymo - Create beautiful map labels, from Stamen.
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Geocoding - This is the one hard part about going open source geo.
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Routing - tk tk tk
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Shapely - Python library for geometric objects, predicates, and operations without requiring PostGIS.
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Tiles - Once you're done designing your map, you'll have 10s of thousands of tiny image files, hundreds and thousands of megabytes in size. You'll need to post these online.
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Map scales/zooms, coordinate systems - Web maps have 20 preset scales, learn these “zoom” levels and their natural scale equivelents.
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[Generalize your data](https://github.com/nvkelso/geo-how-to/wiki/Generalize your data) - Seriously. Your maps will look better and load faster.
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GeoJSON - Make it smaller. Giving your data the precision it's accuracy deserves.
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MaPublisher - Make maps in Adobe Illustrator.
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Makefiles - Key to organizing your workflow and making it repeatable.
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Python - tk tk tk
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GREP - Data formatting problems? Advanced text find-replace to the rescue.
- Markdown is the devil - Yet another random raw text formatting style without a GUI.