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FAQ

Have a question? You've come to the right place

We've done our best to compile a comprehensive list of Frequently Asked Questions.
They are broken up by category and listed below.

Feedback

How can I get in touch with you guys?
You can email us at info@cloudmade.com, or leave a comment in the feedback link at the top-right of this page and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. We read all the emails and comments that are sent to us, but sometimes things get a bit busy so it might be a few days before you hear from us.
Do you have mailing lists?
Of course. You can sign up to our developers mailing list here.
I still want to hear more.
Check out our blog, drop us an email (info@cloudmade.com) or follow us on Twitter.

OpenStreetMap

What is OpenStreetMap?
OpenStreetMap is an online community of people like you who are making a free map of the world.
You can find out more about OpenStreetMap on our about page.
Is CloudMade part of OpenStreetMap?
No. CloudMade is an independent company. Lots of the people who work at CloudMade are also very active within OpenStreetMap, you can find out more from our team page. We support OpenStreetMap in a few different ways like hosting developer events, mapping parties, sponsoring conferences and running a grants scheme.
Is anyone allowed to sell and make money from OpenStreetMap?
All of the data in OpenStreetMap is licensed for use by the individual contributors under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.0 License. The terms of the license allow anyone to re-use the data in any way, so long as they give appropriate attribution. This includes the right to re-sell the data, so yes, anyone can make money from OpenStreetMap.
Isn't that against the spirit of the project?
This is not against the spirit of the project. OpenStreetMap was founded because most maps are not free and because most map data is controlled in a way that blocks innovation and creativity. By making OSM data available to people through our APIs and by supporting the OSM project in other ways, we want to help make OSM data even more accessible and help more people do unexpected and wonderful things with the data.

Technical

Where do you host your servers?
Our servers are hosted inside Amazon's EC2 service, which lets us rapidly scale to meed your needs.
What technologies are you building on?
We use a variety of open source technologies. Our web-servers are running Ubuntu, Ruby on Rails and MySQL. Our tile servers are built on OpenStreetMap's mod_tile Apache plugin with a PostGIS backend.
Do you contribute back to open source projects?
Yes. Our developers have contributed code, patches and bug-reports back to the projects we work on.
Do you have a code repository?
Not yet, but we'll be opening access to lots of bits and pieces of code in the next few months.
What is a pre-Alpha release?
Pre-Alpha releases are the bleeding edge of our services, they are early releases that are still undergoing testing. Whether they are small projects or core services, the pre-Alpha releases are there to be tested and experimented with. They may be slightly erratic and buggy so be warned - we do not recommend using our pre-Alphas in a production environment. Pre-Alphas are there for people who just can't wait to get their hands on the latest services and APIs around.
What is an Alpha release?
Alpha releases are generally solid, well rounded and reliable. They may not have a complete feature set and there's still a chance that certain things won't work as you might expect. We'll always do our best to minimize changes to interfaces between Alpha and Beta so that you don't have to change your code too much. We don't recommend the use of Alpha services in any production systems - they are just not quite ready for the big bad world.
What is a Beta release?
Beta releases are stable, have full feature sets and are ready for use in the wild. Betas come with SLAs so you can use them in production systems without worrying about unexpected downtime.

API Keys

Why do you have API keys?
API keys allow services to be personalized for your use and let us know which sites and applications are using our tiles. We need to keep track of which applications and websites use our tiles to help us maintain a high level of performance, to identify any problems with tile serving and to help us make sure that the terms of the Creative-Commons license that our tiles are licensed under are respected.
What information does an API key contain?
The API key is just a randomly generated string that identifies a user and a particular site or application that uses our services.
Why do I need a different API key for each different service?
We issue different API keys for different services for a few different reasons. First it allows us to tell which different services are using our tile servers. Our main services right now are the Mobile Tiles API and the Web Maps Lite API and as we add more services in the future we want to know which one is which. Also, as our current pre-Alpha services become more mature we will be offering SLAs and other services garantees. As we do this we will want to know which services have SLAs and which don't and be able to closely monitor their performance.
Do I need to register a URL to use your Mobile Maps API even if the application is not running in a browser?
Yes. We still ask for a URL so that we have a reference for the application. If you already have an application and you wish to integrate with any of CloudMade's services you should add the application's download page as the URL. If your application does not have its own page, you are still testing or you are just trying out our APIs, please add the URL of your personal website or blog. If you don't have a personal site or a blog or an application homepage then please drop us an email and tell us how you will use the Mobile Maps API.
My API key doesn't work. I keep getting errors when I try to use your tiles. What can I do?
If you are getting errors when trying to use any of our services the first thing you should do is check that you are using the correct API key. To do this, please visit your account page and check that you are using the API key registered to the URL of the site you want maps to appear at. If you are still getting errors, try asking on our developers' mailing list. By asking on our mailing list you can talk directly to the developers who coded and maintain the API. If you are still having problems, please contact support@cloudmade.com, listing the API key you are having trouble with, your user name, registered email address and any code snippets you think are relevant.

Licenses, Copyright and Attribution

What kind of attribution and copyright notices should I provide when I use your maps on my website?
If you use our maps via the Web Maps Lite API a copyright and attribution notice will appear in the bottom right hand corner of the window which says "© 2008 CloudMade - Map data CCBYSA 2008 OpenStreetMap.org contributors - Terms of Use". You must show this attribution whenever you access our map tiles. If you are using a client such as OpenLayers to display our tiles you must insert the same attribution, with links, in a place that is clearly visible to people visiting your site.
What kind of attribution and copyright notices should I provide when I use your maps in a mobile application?
If you use our maps from a mobile application like a J2ME or Symbian you still need to include attribution and copyright notices. You should include the following information somewhere in the application where it can be easily accessed, such as a "Help" or "About" screen or on a splash screen: "© 2008 CloudMade - Map data CCBYSA 2008 OpenStreetMap.org contributors - Terms of Use". Whereever possible you should also include links to CloudMade.com, the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.0 license page, OpenStreetMap.org and to the Terms of Use for the API you are using to display maps tiles.

Downloads Service

What files do you offer for download?
Name Compressed Extension Native Extension Description More information
OSM XML .bz2 .osm, .osm.administrative, .osm.coastline, .osm.highway OSM XML files are the native format used by the OpenStreetMap API and also by many OpenStreetMap applications. Use OSM XML if you want to load the files into an application like JOSM, or if you want to convert to other formats using a library such as osm-lib. In addition to full osm extracts there are partial feature extracts which contain administrative boundaries, coastlines or highways only. To find out more about OSM XML, take a look at the OSM Protocol page on OpenStreetMap's wiki.
Garmin Map Files - OSM err edition .zip .img The Garmin Map Files (OSM err edition) are maps that can be loaded onto many Garmin GPS units and used to assist mapping for OpenStreetMap. The files highlight features that are likely to be incorrect, such as roads with no noname, which are highlighted in red. The files are created using the Mkgmap utility. To find out more about Garmin Map Files, take a look at the Mkgmap project home page.
Osmosis Country bounding polygon NA .poly Osmosis country bounding polygons are files which contain an approximate bounding box for each of the countries supported by downloads.cloudmade.com. They can be used with the Osmosis tool to extract specific bounding boxes of data from OSM XML format files. To find out more about Osmosis country bounding polygons, take a look at the Osmosis project page on the OpenStreetMap wiki.
Shapefiles .zip .shp, .shx, .dbf Shapefiles are a data exchange format created by ESRI which are one of the most widely used geodata formats. When we talk about a "shapefile" we are usually talking about three different files - .shp, .shx, .dbf. All three files must all be present in order to use the data. Each shapefile can hold only one geometry type. Our files are split into several categories - highway, which contains features like roads and footpaths, natural, which contains area features like parks and forests, poi (point of interest), which contains point features like amenities and tourist attractions, administrative boundaries and finally coastlines and water bodies. Because shapefiles are widely used they can be combined with other geodata and used inside GIS (Geographic Information Systems), such as the open source QGIS application. To find out more about shapefiles, take a look at the wikipedia article. To find out more about GIS software take a look at this Wikipedia article.
Navit files .zip .bin Navit navigable files contain road and POI data and can be used with Navit navigation software. Navit is an open source (GPL) car navigation software for Linux systems that is much like other in-car navigation software. To find out more about navit project, take a look at Navit website.
GPX POI files .zip .gpx OSM Points of Interest in GPX format. GPX (the GPS Exchange Format) is a light-weight XML data format for the interchange of GPS data between applications and Web services on the Internet. To find out more about GPX format take a look at GPX page in Wikipedia or Official GPX website.
TomTom POI files .zip .ov2 OSM Points of Interest in TomTom POI format - Point of Interest database for TomTom navigators. To find out how to use TomTom POI databases take a look at correspondent page on TomTom website.
I don't know which file I want!
The .osm.bz2 are extract files which contain all the OpenStreetMap data for the country or state, and are the building blocks for many different applications. The OpenStreetMap XML format is described on the OpenStreetMap wiki. The Garmin .img files can be previewed on your computer (see below) but are most useful if you own a Garmin GPS unit that can display add-on maps.
What is the .poly file for?
The .poly file fully describes the area that we use to generate both the extracts and the Garmin files, and is used by Osmosis with the --bounding-polygon parameter.
How do I preview the .img on my computer?
You can preview the .img files using QLandKarte, which is cross-platform previewer for Garmin map files.
How do I transfer the .img file to my Garmin GPS?
This is easiest where your GPS unit can be put into "USB mass storage" mode, or where you are using a removable micro-SD card. In both cases the .img file needs to be renamed to 'gmapsupp.img' and put in the 'Garmin' subfolder.
If you can't access the GPS memory like this, then sendMap can be downloaded from cGPSmapper and can transfer .img files over both serial and usb connections.
The Garmin maps look a bit funny. Why?
The .img files from downloads.cloudmade.com are our "OpenStreetMap Error Edition". These are intended to help OSM volunteers when they are out mapping, and so highlight roads that are missing names and other features that may be of interest only to mappers. If you're not helping out with OSM then it may look a little confusing!
I've downloaded the extract and I want an even smaller area.
You'll want to investigate Osmosis further - it's what we use to make the extracts in the first place, and you can use it to extract even smaller areas such as towns or suburbs that you are interested in.
How do I turn the extract into a rendered map of my area?
That's quite tricky, and there's a lot to learn. You can read more about it on the OpenStreetMap wiki - but it's far easier to use our Web Maps Lite and Mobile Maps APIs instead and let us do the hard work!
What can I do if a file format I am interested in isn't available for download?
If you want to request a file format send us an email or ask on the developers' mailing list
What projection and coordinate system are the Shapefile downloads in?
The Shapefiles hosted at downloads.cloudmade.com are in the WGS84 co-ordinate system using latitude and longitude. After downloading the files, you can use a GIS to re-projected them to fit local co-ordinate systems such as OSGB36 in the UK or NAD in the United States.

Costs

Are CloudMade's services free?
Our pre-Alpha services are available free of charge. As we develop our services, and our Service Levels, we will charge for certain services.

CloudMade Careers

Are you guys hiring?
We always want to hear from talented, interesting people who want to help us create the greatest map the world has ever seen. For job opportunities, take a look at jobs page.

Still looking for an answer?

If you have a question that is not listed here or need further assistance,
please, contact us via e-mail: support@cloudmade.com