[OSM-talk] Response to A critique of OpenStreetMap

Richard Mann richard.mann.westoxford at googlemail.com
Fri Oct 15 13:15:00 BST 2010


I thought the critique was useful for those of us who rarely look at
low zooms, other than as a quick way to pan across a few
hundred/thousand miles. Yes they are a bit bland; wouldn't hurt to do
something about it (wouldn't spend much time on it, but worth a few
tweaks). Text overlaps are something that Mapnik is supposed to be
good at, so that can probably be fixed. Boundary rendering could
certainly be better.

It was also useful to highlight the miscategorisation of roads in the
US. If a city centre is an orange blob that's because they've (we've)
made too many roads secondary. It's the data that needs fixing, not
the rendering. So make them all unclassified and let someone locally
pick out the roads that really do have a secondary distribution
function.

Those turnpike labels should be loc_ref or some such.

I think it's a useful learning point - look at the low zooms a bit
more often. Write some trac tickets if you think there's a good
solution to a rendering problem, but don't know how to do it.

Richard



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