[Tilesathome] 404s? Not anymore!

[Christophe Cattelain]

Christopher Schmidt a écrit :
> So, the new tiles at home server is now set up to automatically add 
> requests to the queue for z12 tiles which are 404s. (This means that for
> areas not covered by t at h yet, adding tiles to the queue is as easy as
> browsing around informationfreeway at level12.) This is largely to help
> get tiles which are browsed onto HyperCube, so we don't have to redirect
> most requests to dev.
>   
When I request a tile (control-click) on

    http://www.informationfreeway.org level-12

I don't get 'Ok' anymore, but always 'Already in queue' while the change
of priority seems Ok.  I usually get rivers in Africa rendered in a
couple of minutes when I control-click.  But the message is disturbing. 
Couldn't the message be more explicit?  Like to give the position in
queues.  I don't know if this information is easily available but it
would be nice to see : position 1789 in low-pri changed to position 17
in hi-priority queue/Already in hi-priority queue (pos 17).  The minimum
would be 'hi-priority queued' and 'already in the hi-priority queue'.

I am afraid you'll get a lot of empty-tiles with your system.
Isn't it a problem for the OSM database, to get many more requests?  It
seems to be slow lately.
----
Another idea for http://www.informationfreeway.org : it would be nice to
display the (red squared/selected) tile address along the Lat/Lon/Zoom
display (under the permalink).  So, when I want to render one myself, I
don't need to ask 'image display' or 'image properties' (with a FireFox
right-click) to get the tile address.  Are the tiles rendered that way
(using 'perl tilesGen.pl xy 2394 1821') well removed from the queues?

Rivers are thousands of kilometers long and the side of a tile-12 is 10
km.  When you follow one in Africa, you are in the middle of nowhere. 
However, they are essential marks on some parts of the map.

   
http://www.informationfreeway.org/?lat=-0.36&lon=22.57&zoom=5&layers=B000F000
(Central Africa)

About 'Tiles at Home-Account' requests. I feel that it is not because T at H
would not need it that they must not be granted.  An account gives a
better control to the guy.  He can (possibly) get his tile rendered
faster or with a specific version of the renderer.  So, I would not like
'we don't need it anymore/we have enough rendering engines'.  But, of
course, one has to cope with growth, bottlenecks, priorities,...  (I
hope T at H is not bringing OSM on its knees; maybe it's TIGER (or some
configuration to check)...  ;-)
----
And some newbie questions to end :

- What/who controls the propagation to low-zoom?  For example, I am
presently requesting/rendering the Nile river, when will it show on
zoom-5?  Is this rendering part of Tiles at Home? (can I do it myself?,
how?).  I though it was done by shrinking tiles sets.  If this is the
case and I can ask myself 4 zoom-12 tiles to make 1 zoom-11 tile.  I
hope this will not generate (too many) 404-autorequest tiles.  Because,
if I want to see Tamanrasset on zoom-6, most of the (mostly empty)
Sahara desert will (somehow) be queued (and rendered)(to zoom-17?).

    http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=22.796439&lon=5.493164&z=5&l=0&m=h
(Tamanrasset)

- Is there a way to know (in advance) the Yahoo! pictures maximum
zoom-level for some place? (and when better resolutions become
available)?  Hi-res pictures availability limits the Potlatch mapping
capability :

   
http://www.informationfreeway.org/?lat=50.63&lon=4.68&zoom=11&layers=B000F000
(Belgium)



Tiles at Home and OSM are fun, usefull and ...dangerously addictive!


;-)


xof,
Liege, Belgium
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