[OSM-dev] Fwd: [Mapnik-devel] Problems in Mapnik

[Nick Black]

Forwarded from mapnik-devel


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdreist at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 3:35 PM
Subject: [Mapnik-devel] Problems in Mapnik
To: mapnik-devel at lists.berlios.de


Hi developpers,

 I'm a big fan of the mapnik render engine, but suffering a bit because
 of some deficits still immanent. As I couldn't put a
 Mapnik-Ticket in the trac, I'm trying to contact you via Email.

 The most serious issue IMHO is the missing squares. Mapnik unlike
 Osmarender renders highways that are tagged with area=yes just with
 outlines. As squares are very important for the grafical appearance /
 for orientation, this should be very nice to have also in Mapnik.
 This is also a problem for buildings, that share nodes with
 surrounding areas and by now are cut by overlappings from
 highway-outlines that should be areas instead.

 I don't know, but I seem to remember, that some of the features listed
 down here once have been in the Maps, anyway, at the moment they
 aren't but would be really nice to have.

 There are some features missing, that I would love to have in Mapnik,
 the following amenities:
 - pharmacy
 - drinking_water (there is a icon here, which is according to this page
 PD: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Talk:Proposed_features/Potable_Water:
 http://www.blm.gov/nstc/mapstandards/downloads/inter.pdf number 37)
 - telephone
 - theatre
 - cinema
 - university
 - fuel
 - arts-centre
 - fountain

 and also historic:
 -monument
 -ruins
 -archaeological_site

 and man_made:
 - lighthouse
 - tower

 railway:
 - subway_entrance

 shop:
 - bicycle
 - book (is still a proposed feature, unlike all the others mentioned above)

 also I suggest to put bicycle-paths generally above streets in the
 render, as they are dottet lines and allow to see the streets that lie
 underneath in cases, where bicycle paths follow the street in a narrow
 distance. For areas instead, this should not apply, as squares are
 often represented as highway =pedestrian, area = yes, with highway=
 <some car accessible street> running over it to show the actual
 traffic possibilities.

 Some days before I also experienced a problem with churches, who would
 on highest zoom level display only the icon whilst one zoomlevel below
 show also the name, but today, this wasn't there any more, so maybe
 it's already corrected (but still some churches don't even show their
 name on any zoom level).

 of course it would also be great to have relations in a more advanced
 way, but this will be more work to implement, I guess. (e.g. someone
 put all river segments in Rome into one relation (41,8014855
 12,3865226) with the result, that it doesn't appear on the map any
 more).

 best wishes and thanks for any reply,

 Martin
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-- 
Nick Black
--------------------------------
http://www.blacksworld.net