Creating a city map for use in a laser using Maperitive and Affinity Designer

NOTE: I've significantly modified my workflow and my rules files recently in an attempt to further refine this process. I will be re-producing this video with the modifications and new content as soon as possible. (2024/07/22)

In this tutorial I show my workflow for creating maps for use in our laser. I accomplish this by exporting OpenStreetMap data into a simplified SVG using Maperitive software and custom rendering rules. Once the data is exported I leverage Affinity Designer to clean up the SVG and merge the hundreds of lines into shapes that Lightburn will render and burn reliably.

Requirements:
Maperitive Software: http://maperitive.net/
OpenStreetMaps: https://www.openstreetmap.org
Custom map rendering rules: https://github.com/zaphodbb/maperitiv...
Affinity Designers: https://affinity.serif.com
Lightburn: https://lightburnsoftware.com/ (or your laser control software of choice - RDWorks, K40 Whisperer, etc)

Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Title
00:00:05 - Intro and requirements
00:00:37 - Getting Maperitive and the custom rendering rules
00:01:18 - Using Maperitive to generate initial SVG
00:04:43 - Why the SVG is not useable in lightburn yet
00:05:25 - Affinity Designer file cleanup
00:11:27 - Start of railroad cleanup pain
00:15:00 - End of railroad cleanup
00:22:49 - CORRECTION - fixing rivers and railroad, adding knockouts and title
00:27:51 - Export from Affinity Designer for Lightburn
00:28:25 - Loading into Lightburn
00:29:05 - Like, Comment, Subscribe