Custom map solution or QLocation?

[j_omega]

I am starting to wonder if I am reinventing the wheel as far as map rendering is concerned.

I currently have a custom tile set that I am rendering into a QGraphicsScene. I calculate the center of the current QGraphicsView, select the correct tiles, and load these into the QGraphicsScene. When the center of the QGraphicsView moves, I unload the tiles that have gone out of view and load new tiles.

On top of this, I also draw custom shapes which are loaded from an external database. I also have a custom UI overlayed on top.

This is implemented on an embedded platform so having the ability to use an OpenGL backend is important to shift the load off the processor.

Would I be better off using QLocation and the OSM map plugin? I could point the offline tiles to my custom tile set. My concern is that I will implement it just to find that it doesn't have the flexibility to do my custom shapes and UI. Also, it appears that the OSM plugin does not use the OpenGL backend.