Using Mapnik inside a virtualenv on OSX

Mapnik is a tool to produce maps out of gis data.

Since installation in a virtualenv through pip install mapnik2 fails, due to compilation problems (boost library cannot be located correctly), the following workaround can be used.

• Install Mapnik through macports:

  sudo port install mapnik @2.2.0_0+python27
  

  This will install both the libraries and the python bindings, as global packages in:

  /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/
  

• Link mapnik directories into the virtualenv’s site_package directory:

  workon <virtualenv>
  cdsitepackages
  ln -s /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/mapnik .
  ln -s /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/mapnik2 .