Files
unique/src/content/find/2026/07/cartopolis/index.mdx
T

15 lines
997 B
Plaintext
Raw Blame History

This file contains ambiguous Unicode characters
This file contains Unicode characters that might be confused with other characters. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.
---
name: "Cartopolis"
subtitle: "Live OpenStreetMap data rendered exactly like a 1999 MapQuest GIF"
date: 2026-07-23
shortlist: true
link: "https://seriot.ch/drawing/cartopolis/"
linkText: "seriot.ch"
source: "Hacker News — Show HN"
topics: [web-tools, design-and-art]
tags: [maps, retro, openstreetmap, nostalgia]
description: "Cartopolis re-renders live OpenStreetMap data through a late-1990s web-map pipeline: a 216-color palette, no antialiasing, and aggressive line simplification."
---
Cartopolis re-renders live OpenStreetMap data through a pipeline built entirely from late-1990s constraints: a 216-color web-safe palette, zero antialiasing, aggressive DouglasPeucker line simplification, and fixed discrete zoom levels, so roads staircase and curves turn jagged exactly like a dial-up-era MapQuest tile. Nothing is faked afterward with a filter — the grainy look falls directly out of the rendering rules, currently covering the whole of Switzerland as exportable GIF89a files.