[OSM-talk] Cartography meetup

[Nick Black]

On 2/6/07, Jochen Topf <jochen at remote.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 06, 2007 at 12:48:39AM +0000, SteveC wrote:
> > I think it would be neat for the people who defined the map styles, the
> > people who run the tile render machinery, and some Real Cartographers to
> > sit down and improve the cartography of our maps.
> >
> > Lots has been done, but I think there's some room for improvement.
> >
> > I would suggest that we meet (in Oxford?) for a day. I think if we
> > structure a day around each zoom level and what to show and how to show
> > it we could achieve some kick-ass cartography.
> >
> > What you think? Is anyone up for hosting it?
>
> I have been working on Osmarender quite a lot and am very interested in
> improving map rendering. Currently our problems seem to stem more from
> such basic things such as the data model, incomplete tag sets, missing
> icons, battling with SVG etc. So things where a real cartographer could
> help (like with choosing colors etc.) are not that important yet.

But the two are linked.  Since we introduced the slippy map in
December, first with Mapnik tiles and then with Osmarender, there has
been an increase in the amount of tagging related discussions on the
mailing lists and IRC.  People are a lot more concerned about how they
tag things because they see the results on the maps.  for this reason,
improving the cartography would be a great step to take.  I dont think
there is anything wrong with the data model in terms of the database
or XML structure - sure there is room for improvement, but the other
problems you describe are all tied to the cartography - as in what
colours are used, what symbols are used, which features are shown at
different zoom levels.  All things that we could nail in a days work.

Similarly, improving the support for area representation in the
renderers would encourage area labelling - something that makes a very
big difference to the cartographic output.  With the yahoo
photography, OSM could have maps that are vastly superior to those
supplied by other web-based mapping services.

I'm more or less osmarender-ignorant, but I'd be interested in doing
some work with the Mapnik styles, esp if we could meet up somewhere
nice like Oxford.  Time is a bit of an issue though - there isnt much
of it around...



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