[OSM-dev] Migrating osm.org to vectors/Kartotherian

Peter Wendorff wendorff at uni-paderborn.de
Sat Oct 31 08:32:39 UTC 2015


Hi Colin,

just stitching a labels-layer and a base layer together would work, but 
most often would not look well.

Map rendering involves deciding which labels to show considering more 
than just the labels, but icons and shields etc. as well to avoid 
overlapping between all of them.

You don't want to get a map where the label overlaps icons.

As names in different languages differ in their need for geometrical 
space on the map, these placement decisions have to be taken for each 
language differently, thus the labels layer would include icons and 
stuff like that as well - even oneway and so on.

Of course it would be possible to do, but the result would look worse 
than our current maps.

regards
Peter

Am 30.10.2015 um 12:41 schrieb Colin Smale:
> Can't we have a multi-lingual map by overlaying a base tile with a
> transparent text layer in the chosen language? We wouldn't *need* vector
> tiles for that, just a bit more storage (bitmap-based text layers should
> compress nicely) and clients which can handle the selection and display
> of the extra layer, which is pretty commonplace these days anyway).
>
> --colin
>
> On 2015-10-30 12:29, Oleksiy Muzalyev wrote:
>
>> I've heard from the OSM operations team's member at the conference
>> that it is the question of the servers' infrastructure cost.
>>
>> But if we have a vector-based map itself language selection, that we
>> could just add tags /name:fr/ or /name: ru/ and have the OSM map of
>> say New York in French or in Russian for tourists. Or map of Siberia
>> in German also for tourists, Middle East in English, etc. without any
>> additions cost on the server side. It is not that difficult to add
>> such multi-language tags. There could be also the map in Basque,
>> Catalan, Kurdish, Scots and other smaller (by number of speakers)
>> languages without any additional cost and without a civil conflict.
>>
>> I realize that mobile hardware is not enough advanced for that yet and
>> vector-based technology is only in an development stage.
>>
>> brgds
>> Oleksiy
>>
>> On 30.10.2015 12:06, Maarten Deen wrote:
>>> On 2015-10-30 11:53, Oleksiy Muzalyev wrote:
>>>> One of the advantages of the the vector-based map would be the
>>>> multilingualism.
>>>>
>>>> For instance at the moment the OSM map of the Middle East is basically
>>>> useless for me as I do not know the Arabic alphabet yet. But as far as
>>>> I understand and as I heard at the conference the vector-based map
>>>> would allow the choice of a language of the map itself.
>>>
>>> I do not see how that can not be solved with png-based tiles. You
>>> only have to render the tiles.
>>> The method for detecting which tileset/language to show is the same.
>>>
>>> BTW: it is still not as simple as rendering "in a different
>>> language". Then you start rendering a map in English and see names
>>> like "Cologne" or "Brussels"  show up on the map.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Maarten
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> dev mailing list
>>> dev at openstreetmap.org
>>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> dev mailing list
>> dev at openstreetmap.org <mailto:dev at openstreetmap.org>
>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> dev mailing list
> dev at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
>




More information about the dev mailing list