[OSM-talk] Survey: Bad Map Rendering

[David Stevenson]

Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>     I've been approached by a student of Geoinformatics who wants to
> write her Master's Thesis about something OSM related. 
> 
> I suggested to look into the rendering topic: Where are our current
> problems in rendering, can they be solved by simply improving the
> renderer(s) or will they need additional input from mappers in the
> form of "hints" or extra data, or are they maybe completely unsolvable
> for computers.
> 
> I recognize this is more a general cartography topic than an OSM
> specific one, but our "crowdsourcing" powers might come in if it turns
> out that there are certain areas where map rendering could be improved
> dramatically if mappers did enter a few extra "hints"; nobody else
> could achieve that on a global scale but us.

Most of the rendering questions involve how best to automate production
of maps that look like the best paper maps.
But one area that would be specific to electronic maps is user defined
rendering.
At present we have this as an option for anyone into writing xml and
running there own rendering system. But is there a future for end user
control of how prominent town names are at varying zoom levels, while
they are driving?

David