Articles about map export formats, tools and OpenStreetMap data use cases.
PMTiles is a single-file Protomaps container for vector/raster tiles with HTTP range request reading: serverless map hosting without a tileserver on CloudFlare R2/S3/GitHub Pages.
PLY is the Stanford Polygon File format by Greg Turk (1994): ASCII/binary, per-vertex attributes; standard for point clouds, photogrammetry, 3D scanning, MeshLab.
OsmAnd OBF is the proprietary binary format for OsmAnd Maps & Navigation: multi-zoom indexing, routing graph, POI; standard for offline maps in the open-source nav app since 2010.
OSM XML from OpenStreetMap 2004: nodes/ways/relations + tags, Overpass API, JOSM editor, .osm vs .pbf trade-off.
José Vázquez's OruxMaps for Android: own .map format with manifest + raster tiles, OziExplorer .ozf compatibility, MBTiles support. Free outdoor navigator for hikers.
OpenDRIVE is an ASAM XML standard describing road networks for autonomous driving simulators: CARLA, IPG CarMaker, NVIDIA DriveSim; v1.8 (2024), lanes/signs/junctions.
OBJ deep dive: line-based ASCII from Wavefront Technologies, .mtl companion materials, OSM building extrusion via building:levels, opening in Blender and Maya.
NetCDF from Unidata/UCAR 1989: NetCDF-3 vs NetCDF-4 on HDF5, CF-Conventions, CMIP6+ERA5+MODIS, OSM analytics export.
MIF/MID from MapInfo Corp 1990: ASCII 2-file pair, REGION/PLINE/ARC geometry, GDAL MITAB, legacy GIS archives.
MVT (Mapbox Vector Tile) since 2014: open spec for protobuf-encoded binary vector tiles. Tippecanoe, PMTiles, MBTiles and rendering via MapLibre.
MBTiles is a Mapbox SQLite tile container for vector and raster tiles: the offline-map standard for OSMAnd, Maps.me, Locus, MapTiler since 2011.
Maps.me and Organic Maps MWM container: binary vector format for Android/iOS, 2022 fork after Daegu acquisition, OSM-to-MWM build via generate_mwm pipeline.