[talk-au] Tagging towns by relative importance, not just population size

[Michael Collinson]

On 28/09/2023 10:19, Warin wrote:
>
> On 28/9/23 17:04, Michael Collinson wrote:
>>
>> TL;DR: We need to get a systematic measure of population density into 
>> OSM to act as a guideline for mapping software to vary what goes at 
>> what zoom level.
>>
> Off topic:
>
> On a global scale that does not work due to the population densities 
> changing over the world. When adjusted for Europe to have a 'good map' 
> then using the same software rules the map goes blank in various 
> places like central Australia.

Yes, agreed, it has to be regional/local. That is thrust of the essay, 
so I'd reword the summary as:

TL;DR: We need to get systematic measures of regional/local population 
density into OSM to act as a guideline for mapping software to vary what 
goes at what zoom level.

That can be done in the existing db by attaching a tag to admin boundary 
relations. The drawback is that it needs to be done at at least a 
sub-state level to accommodate, say, Western Australia minus Perth 
economic envelope. I personally feel the long-term solution is to be 
able to define more arbitrary polygons as they can be used for many 
other metadata use cases.

>
> My thinking is the map generating software should fill the map at a 
> zoom with data until the map density reaches a certain level and then 
> stop. This way the map would not be blank nor over crowed, but what is 
> displayed adjusts to suit the data available. There could be limits on 
> what detail could be displayed in both directions - minimum data and 
> maximum data but what it uses is simply between the two limits and 
> adjusted for data/map density ... Of course there is a lot more to 
> this .. like the tiles being sized to suit the data density rather 
> than an arbitrary lat/long size.
Yes, another good idea. Potentially practical at "big iron" level, such 
as commercial server solutions like Mapbox or the OSM server itself 
where you have processing power and memory.
>
>
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