<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On 29/11/2011, at 3:20 PM, <a href="mailto:nicholas.g.lawrence@tmr.qld.gov.au">nicholas.g.lawrence@tmr.qld.gov.au</a> wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div><p><tt><font size="2">> > I will continue to edit to get the roads and intersections to look<br> > > professional, reflecting reality, rather than the confusing, chunky<br> > > rendering with an over-abundance of arrows and street names that I so<br> > > often come across.<br> > <br> > I for one don't want an OSM which looks pretty, but is useless! The<br> > reality we seek is utilitarian, not just aesthetic.<br> > <br> > John H<br> </font></tt><br> <tt><font size="2">Sounds like a data vs rendering issue?</font></tt><br> <br> <tt><font size="2">You want the data for routing, but the rendering should still look pretty.</font></tt><br> <br> <tt><font size="2">nick</font></tt><br></p></div></blockquote></div><br><div>Recently I read a suggestion for "zoom hinting" tags to assist / override renderers in deciding whether certain elements should be visible at certain zoom levels. Adopting an "assisted rendering" approach to hide various ugliness could be a step toward having the best of both worlds.</div><div><br></div><div>Not only with road elements, POIs, but also place names. </div><div><br></div><div>Here's a perfect example - it's my understanding that small, isolated regional townships in remote areas of Australia need to be tagged as towns or cities, despite their population being that of a village.</div><div><br></div><div>E.g. the township of Tennant Creek, NT is tagged "City", though it's population is only 3,500 (2005 data). The OSM wiki suggests a population centre of 100,000+ is a City.</div><div><br></div><div>However, we need to break these rules in order to put small but important isolated townships "on the map", so it's a case where tagging for the renderer is accepted, but it's something that I'm not comfortable with and is a perfect example to demonstrate a need for assisted rendering tags.</div><div><br></div><div>Imagine a tourist... off to see the "City" of Tennant Creek because OSM told them it's a major population centre... and they arrive to find a truckstop and a pub! :-)</div><div><br></div><div>BJ</div><div><br></div></body></html>