[OSM-dev] Proposal for new tiles at home lowzoom method

[80n]

Folks
I've been experimenting with a different method of generating lowzoom tiles
for tiles at home.

The approach I am taking is to use the old tile stitching method coupled
with a separate place name layer.

The tile stitching starts with a layer of z12 tiles that are the same as
normal z12 tiles except the main roads are about 50% thicker and it there
are no place names.  You can get a rough idea of what that will look like by
looking at the the current lowzoom tiles for the US - most of it was
rendered using the old stitching method before many place names had been
added.

I then propose a separate transparent layer for place names.  This
potentially allows for multiple name layers for different scripts and
languages.  I've heard some comments that  transparent layers are not a good
solution - I'd be interested in understanding the pros and cons of doing
this.  The alternative is to merge the transparent layer with the lowzoom
tiles using Image Magick, which would achieve the same visual result but
without the ability to dynamically switch the language.

I've started doing some test renderings in the south of England, although
there is not really enough there yet to get a good feel for what it would
look like:
http://www.informationfreeway.org/?lat=50.87948576831506&lon=-0.8263735442015004&user=80n&zoom=11&layers=0000F00BT

At this stage I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions.

80n
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