Rendering OSM PBF and GeoJSON with pure Ruby (libgd-gis)

General talk
1

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on an open-source project that renders OpenStreetMap PBF and GeoJSON data into PNG maps using pure Ruby and libgd, without using tiles, Mapnik, or JavaScript.

Example features:

  • reading OSM PBF extracts
  • rendering streets, parks, and railways from GeoJSON
  • drawing labels, icons, overlays
  • custom projections and bounding boxes

Project: GitHub - ggerman/libgd-gis: libgd-gis is a native GIS and map-rendering engine for Ruby built on top of ruby-libgd. It lets Ruby applications generate map images, tiles, and geospatial visualizations directly from latitude/longitude data — without external map servers or image pipelines.
Article with examples: Ruby Can Now Draw Maps — And I Started With Ice Cream – Now open for 2026 sponsorships

I’d love feedback from people who have worked on OSM renderers or GIS pipelines, especially about data format handling and performance.

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