TileDownloader Files

TileDownloader by nickelliott.

TileDownloader is released under the GNU Public License (GPL).  The program and source code may be found at https://sourceforge.net/projects/tiledownloader/

Installation instructions:

Simply copy the tiledownloader.exe and the two WindowsAPICodePack files anywhere you want.  I would suggest putting them in their own folder in "Program files" or "Program files(x86)" (the latter if you are using a 64bit version of Windows).

Note that TileDownloader will save an xml file (TileServers.xml) containing details of the servers you use in the same directory that it is located in.

I'm afraid the calls to the WindowsAPICodePack will cause the program to crash under Windows XP - sorry about that.  I'm working on it..


Usage instructions:

The first time you run TileDownloader (in fact anytime it can't locate TileServers.xml), it will create a new set of server details for MapQuest, and save those settings to file.  You may add other OSM tile servers, and remove MapQuest from the list if you don't want to use it. (However you have to have at least one server in the list!)

To download an area of tiles, select the server you wish to use and the location on your computer you want to download the tiles to. Then either:

Use the slippy map - Pan/zoom to the approximate area you want, then hold <shift> whilst dragging a rectangle on the map.  Select the zoom levels you want.  TileDownloader will show you how many tiles your selection covers.  When ready, click download.  A new window will open, showing you the progress for this download.  You may select another area, and have multiple download operations going on concurrently.  You will get a pop-up window for each job.

Enter the X/Y coordinates - select the 2nd tab and enter the x/y coordinates and corresponding zoom level, then press Download to begin.


Note: Prior to downloading a tile, TileDownLoader will check whether it has already been downloaded, and if it has it will compare the timestamps of the local and online versions, only downloading a tile if it is newer than the one you already have.


The update tab will, for every tile found in the directory specified in the "Download To.." textbox, check at the specified server when that tile was last redered.  If it has been rendered more recently than your local copy, it will be re-downloaded.  

Note: I believe that, since the higher zoom levels are rendered on the fly rather than being stored, they will only get updated when someone actually looks at them.  If you have uploaded a set of data and now want to get the newly rendered tiles downloaded, wait a short while (for the upload to make it into the database) then pan around the area of interest at the required zoom in either your web browser or the slippy map in TileDownloader.  This will force the server to re-render the tile, and TileDownloader's Update function will now see a fresh tile and download it.  For lower zoom levels (<17 I think), you just have to wait for the tile to be updated and re-rendered.