Hexmap: Week 0x35

My successed with Copilot emboldened me to work on a big project I’d been putting off: self-hosting basemaps.

It was a bit of a slog, even with many agents in tow. But thanks to Brandon Liu’s Protomaps I now have a copy of relevant OpenStreetMap data for the whole planet on my own server. This allows me to keep costs under control (map services are expensive!) and slightly-more-confidently assure users of privacy. Ironically, it also introduces the S2 grid to the Hexmap project, but let’s just keep quiet about that.

Users will see no difference, but now I feel a bit more ready to scale and will be more willing to invest in features like custom basemap styles and pre-rendered map images for emails and sharing.