[OSM-dev] [Patch] Experimental extra symbols for mapnik layer

[Brian Quinion]

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 4:19 PM, Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemed.net> wrote:
> On a cartographical note: the icons look good and consistent, and
> work well per se.

Cheers!

> However, IMeversoHO the result of adding this number of icons -
> certainly not a reflection on your icon design - is that the map
> becomes a little too cluttered. It loses the "clean" look of our
> default Mapnik cartography and that, I think, is a shame. The
> automatic placement of point labels over ways tends to 'break up' the
> ways, making them harder to comprehend at a glance: Surrey Street in
> your osm-sample2.png is a good example.

Actually I agree!

Adding icons need to be done careful moderation and adding any
significant number runs the risk of making the default map unsuitable
for some purposes (for instance a hotel chain would not want other
hotels appearing on their maps!).  I'm also not particularly happy
with the placement of the icons - I'm currently working on a patch to
mapnik to allow icons to be 'nudged' into clear space to improve the
cartographical result - I'm also trying translucency and various other
effects.  Suggestions welcome.

> Stefan de Konink alluded to the ideal solution in his posting - "just
> another reason to have 'layers'. :)". If these icons weren't visible
> by default, but were available as a selectable overlay, that'd be
> utterly fantastic.

This sounds like a good alternative - but if anything it involves more
work and more server side changes than just adding the symbols (which
is quite a bit of work in itself!).  I'm happy to work on something
like that - but only if I know it is going to be used at the end so
this is in the way of a feeling out to see what people think.

I can also think of other alternatives too.  For instance we could
provide 2 mapnik layers (one naked, one with icons) or try to find
some way to overlay individual symbols browser side without too much of a
performance hit.

--
 Brian