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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">The OSM map is great in hi density
places like Europe and USA.<br>
The map is configured to show these places well, this is where
most people look. <br>
<br>
In low density places like Australia, Africa, Siberia the map is
devoid of information.<br>
<br>
What is needed is a bit of detection that the map lacks content
and then to add features that would normal show when zoomed in, at
this zoom level. <br>
How can this detection be done? <br>
Possibly by the number of nodes, ways and relations rendered would
be simplest. If that number is low add more things in until a
minimum is reached.<br>
This would get around the inclination of mapping for the render
and give us a better map everywhere. <br>
Of course this only works where there is data not shown! Adding
sand hills in the Simpson is not fun, I have done some in the east
... should do some in the west too. <br>
<br>
I assume the same problem is evident in other online/gps maps. The
advantage of a GPS map is that they usually cover an area smaller
than the world so can implement local rules. <br>
<br>
On 22/01/19 14:26, Ben Kelley wrote:<br>
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<p>Hi.</p>
<p>So there are 2 issues (it seems): At what zoom does the road
show, and at what zoom does the name show?</p>
<p>Take for example <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=11/-31.7211/150.4649"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=11/-31.7211/150.4649</a></p>
<p>At this zoom no roads have names.</p>
<p>Zoom in to 12, and you see highway=unclassified roads that
weren't visible at 11.</p>
<p>You don't start to see the names of any roads at all until zoom
13. At zoom 15 you see the names of all roads.</p>
<p>I think showing more detail a little bit sooner when there is
less detail to show is going to be a difficult problem for a
renderer to solve in a way that makes more sense than the
current popular renderers.</p>
<p>I think going from some roads to all roads over 2 zooms
(13->15) is not a bad compromise.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p> - Ben.<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 22/1/19 13:50, Graeme Fitzpatrick
wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">A while back, there was mention on the list of
OSM only showing vast amounts of blank whiteness when looking
at remote country areas; & then there was further mention
regarding Aussie country roads not showing up well enough in
OSM.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>A lady I speak to on another forum, lives in a small town
in FNQ, & had complained on the forum about various
on-line maps not showing any details.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>After I asked her for some details, so we could possibly
examine things, she has said: (for privacy, I have deleted
the name of her actual town):</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">I
live in an isolated remote town called xxxxxxx, although not
as isolated as some. Two hours/150km west of Mareeba and
three hours/210km west of Cairns. <br>
So its: Cairns, Mareeba, Dimbulah, Petford, Almaden,
Chillagoe. Petford & Almaden are way smaller than xxxxx.</p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">I
rarely use Google Maps, but use Google Earth a lot. Today is
probably the first time I've looked at GM for this specific
area.</p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">I've
now realised OpenStreetMaps is actually no worse than Google
Maps, and in some things it's actually better.</p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">Zooming
into xxxxxx, OpenStreetMaps is accurate and up-to-date, with
roads and tracks that are actually in use.</p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">Google
Maps shows streets that no longer exist. They may be/have
been/are gazetted roads, but now don't even look like they
ever existed even in track form (although they did way way
back in the mining days, I think).</p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">The
problem when I originally commented was that if I looked at
the area between Dimbulah (or Petford) and Chillagoe, there
was nothing to tell me the name of the road. But looking at
Google Maps today, there's nothing there either. Although
when I zoom in a name comes up more quickly than it does on
OpenStreetMaps.</p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">If
I'm looking at a hard copy paper map from RACQ or Sunmap or
whoever, I can see at a glance where I am and what the names
of everything are.</p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">It's
just that our distances are vast, and at the amount zoomed
out that I want some detail, the populated areas have no
detail either. So in a way I can't expect it.</p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">However,
outback roads are usually the *only* roads there are and it
would be nice to have labelling when that much zoomed out.
(Is this making sense to you?)</p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">I
have a reasonable knowledge of east coast highways and roads
between them (mainly Qld and NSW) and reference to a map is
just double checking or looking for shortcuts or detours.
I'm a bit of a map freak. Have a stack of hard copy maps for
the east coast, and spend time on Google Earth and Google
Maps just checking out old and new roads, and looking up
places I read about in the news. Unfortunately I'm not that
good with terrain on topo maps, but never needed to use them
enough. And I've recently learned that I need to double
check altitudes on GE before I make assumptions about
geography. Not always what it looks like.</p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">Here
is a starting point for my area. (Bearing in mind I'm on a
Sony Vaio with a 13 inch screen (13.3" ??).)</p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">Google
Maps<br>
Seems to have more 'stops' in its zoom ability. <br>
<a class="external" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
href="https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-17.3121687,144.755859,11.75z"
style="background:url("/img/extlink.gif") 100%
0% no-repeat
transparent;color:rgb(34,51,153);text-decoration-line:none;padding-right:7px"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-17.3121687,144.755859,11.75z</a><br>
Looking at it today</p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">OpenStreetMap<br>
Unfamiliar map. If I zoom in more than this I have
absolutely nothing...<br>
Not enough 'stops' in the zoom. All or nothing.<br>
<a class="external" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=11/-17.2500/144.7895"
style="background:url("/img/extlink.gif") 100%
0% no-repeat
transparent;color:rgb(34,51,153);text-decoration-line:none;padding-right:7px"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=11/-17.2500/144.7895</a></p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">Also,
at first glance it looks like the railway line is the main
road. In fact you can't see there's a road there until I
zoom right in. You can see the rest of Burke Development
Road to Chillagoe, you can see the road from Petford to
Irvinebank, but you can't see the Almaden Gingerella Road
running generally to the west of the rail line, and on down
to Mount Garnet or Mount Surprise. You wouldn't know it was
there. (Local name is the Ootan Road.)</p>
<p style="margin:0.8em
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px;background-color:rgb(204,201,197)">Google
Maps is not much better to look at, but you can see the
road, and the road is 'highlighted' (slightly)more than the
rail line.</p>
<div><span
style="background-color:rgb(204,201,197);color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:CustomOpenSans,Verdana,"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6px">This
railway line carries The Savannahlander which leaves
Cairns for Forsayth on Wednesday and returns on Saturday
except in the Wet Season. Nothing else travels on it,
except the occasional QR Toyota with rail wheels.</span> <br>
</div>
<div>
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data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr"><br>
</div>
<div>So, to me, a lot of this would seem to tie in with
country roads being mapped as =unclassified (& I
noticed from clearing some of the Telenav errors, that
it doesn't seem to like highway=unclassified, having
street names?), with even the "main" road only being
=secondary (if that!).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Her other comment re population areas not being
visible is also tied back in to the frequent
discussions we've had about size of places, Europe v
Oz - these "towns" are (correctly) mapped as
place=villages as they only have 200-300 people living
in them, but they're the social, commercial &
financial centre for a couple of thousand sq km :-(</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Nice to hear that we actually compare quite well
with the mega-$ enemy :-), but it would be nice to be
able to do better! :-)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Any thoughts of any way of fixing this sort of
"problem", apart from lieing to the map? :-)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">Thanks
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Graeme</div>
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