Is there a way to render 3D map tiles?

Question

I am looking for a way to create map tiles from OSM data but I would like the resulting map tile images rendered at a 45 degree angle. Is there any way this can be done? I have never see such an example.

Answer 1

There is a project at https://gitorious.org/osm2blender that imports Openstreetmap map xml data and renders in in 2.5d using the open source 3d suite Blender.

An online OpenLayers example of the output can be found at http://www.anzui.de/osm2blender/openlayers/

Answer 2

You might want to follow this ticket, which discusses custom map rotations. Those, combined with the BuildingSymbolizer, might be what you're looking for.

In the meantime, it's certainly possible to use the BuildingSymbolizer within TileMill and elsewhere to achieve a 2.5D effect. Though true 45° tiles, and placing anything on an orthographic map would require a lot of work through the whole stack, especially in the javascript map client.

Answer 3

Maybe you could rely on osm2x3d project. Demo here: http://web.osm2x3d.net The main feature is to convert osm xml data to x3d format (3D scene graph). Also using x3dom js library, it allows to render the result natively in a web browser.