Re: [OSM-talk] CJK fallback fonts - testing needed
> From: Paul Norman [mailto:penor...@mac.com] > Sent: Saturday, January 11, 2014 9:19 PM > To: talk@openstreetmap.org; talk...@openstreetmap.org; talk- > k...@openstreetmap.org > Subject: [OSM-talk] CJK fallback fonts - testing needed > > Right now the main OpenStreetMap.org stylesheet uses Unifont as a > fallback font to render Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) characters, > as well as any other characters not present in the DejaVu font. Unifont > is mainly designed to support all characters, and is not designed to > look good. > > I'm looking at Droid Sans Fallback, a free font developed for Android, > and evaluating if it would be a better fallback font than Unifont. > Because I don't read Chinese, Japanese or Korean, I could use help. > > I have prepared a demo at http://tile.paulnorman.ca/demo/fonts.html with > three layers: conventional OSM.org, tiles without any fallback font, and > tiles using Droid Fallback as a fallback font. > > What I would like is for people to look at the difference between the > conventional OSM.org and Droid Fallback tiles and see which is easier to > read for the CJK glyphs. The tiles without any fallback font can be used > to find areas where DejaVu doesn't have glyphs and the fallback font is > being used. I've gathered various feedback and comments > The fonts are too small Andy wants to increase the font size, but this is a separate issue. Currently the smallest font-size is 8pt, so even if everything gets bumped up 2pt, that's still 10pt. Rendering POIs on a webmap means you need small fonts to get everything in. > The hinting and anti-aliasing of the characters is bad It's not clear if this comment is about it being bad, or it being worth with Droid Fallback than with Unifont. The first is not relevant for what I'm looking at right now, but the second would be a concern. > Missing glyphs It is intentional that I am missing glyphs on the test rendering, as I don't want Unifont used at all while testing. > Different fonts are needed for labels based on their language, even when > the characters are the same in two labels This is a complicated one. Frankly, as long as people are using tags like name=近畿 (Kinki Region) instead of putting the name of the feature as it is on the ground (e.g. name=近畿), the chances of being able to do this are about zero. If it was tagged consistently, you could maybe detect that name is the same as name:xx, know that you're in the xx language, and adjust fonts accordingly. This would be some time off, and definitely out of scope for what I'm doing right now. > smaller pieces of kanji are easier to read with droid sans > droid font looks better for Hangul Good feedback to hear ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] CJK fallback fonts - testing needed
Hi Paul and Hans For traditional Chinese characters, the Droid Fallback font looks better than current OSM version. I'd like to contiune Hans's opinions. Current OSM only uses "zh" tag to display Chinese characters. It seems not enough. The areas where people use Chinese are consist of China, Taiwan, Hong-Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, and even Indonesia. Besides the difference between traditional and simplized Chinese characters, the use of Chinese is often very different. Thus, in Wikipedia, we can see that a Chinese wiki page has five different language types, including zh-cn, zh-hk, zh-mo, zh-sg, and zh-tw. The display of languages on the map is a political thing. It sometimes becomes a problem. For example, the controvertial areas. A couple of months ago, a Taiwanese mapper persisted in adding Senkaku Islands[1] on Taiwanses place name "釣魚台". The chage caused that Chinese and Janpanese mappers competatively re-name the island. I think most mappers don't like to such kind of "mapping" happen again. Cheers, Dongpo [1] http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1788110205 On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 2:50 PM, Hans Schmidt wrote: > Hello, > > thanks for the test! Although it looks better than the first one, to be > honest, it is still completely unsuitable for Japanese (if you want to > have a “real” map): It is clearly a Chinese font, which is really > different in some characters than a Japanese person would expect. This > is also true for Taiwan, which is a little bit different. Korea also > uses different characters, but because Korean usually uses Hangul, this > is not so much of a problem. > > Therefore the only solution would be to render Japanese text (either the > name:ja tag everywhere or the name tag in Japan) with a Japanese font. > In essence, use 4 fonts (Chinese mainland, this can be the current one, > Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean) and select them based on the language and > area. > > But the problem for East Asia in OSM does not only lie in the fonts: The > entire OSM rendering is completely European centered. For Japan (and the > other east Asian countries; I guess also for other regions like India, > Middle East etc) being usuable in OSM, the entire rendering for this > countries should be rewritten from scratch. For example, in Japan and > Korea the street crossings have names, in contrast to the street. The > houses are arranged in house blocks and city blocks, which have to be > shown. Also, for example, buddhist temples show a 卍 on the map, hot > springs show a ♨. Some shops should be much more prominently displayed > (for example the ubiquitious convenience stores) etc. I am not well > versed with other regions of the world, but I guess they have similar > problems. > > Keeping all that in mind, at some point I come to the conclusion that > the only real possibilty for OSM to be used in these countries is to let > the different countries create their own tile servers. They know best > what should be displayed and until OSM does not offer a way to > incorporate these changes on the main map (which is nonetheless the best > way and a method for that should be persued, I think!), OSM in this > countries will not be used in any way. > > As to your original question (Sorry for the long off topic text): > Actually I cannot see much of a difference. The problems making it > rather unreadable are the followings: > > 1. The fonts are too small: This works for latin text, and would work > for CJK text if used on a higher resolution screen, but for currently > used computer screens (and the rendering in the tiles), it is too small. > Well, I am not a native CJK speaker, so this might be different for > other people, but for me, it is too small and unreadlable. > > 2. Connected to the first issue: The hinting and anti-aliasing of the > characters is bad. If you have such a small rendering of the font, > rather use a nicely hinted bitmap font. I have created a comparision of > this issue: First MS Mincho 11 pt with a 70% zoom in MS Word (where > bitmap fonts are used), second MS Mincho with 11 pt and 200% zoom (no > bitmap fonts at this zoom), afterwards shrinking it to 35%. Admitely, > rather a bad method, but you can clearly see the difference. > http://abload.de/img/comparisonidqpu.png > > 3. The white shadow makes it at some points even more difficult, but I > cannot say that for sure. > > This is connected to the Chinese characters, Korean works relatively > fine I guess (although I don't speak Korean). > > By the way, there is also a DroidSansJapanese font with Japanese > characters. > > Am 12.01.2014 14:19, schrieb Paul Norman: > > Right now the main OpenStreetMap.org stylesheet uses Unifont as a > > fallback font to render Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) characters, > > as well as any other characters not present in the DejaVu font. Unifont > > is mainly designed to support all characters, and is not designed to > > look good. > > > > I'm looking at Droid Sans Fallback, a free font dev
Re: [OSM-talk] CJK fallback fonts - testing needed
Am 12.01.2014 18:30, schrieb Christoph Hormann: > > The problems with the fonts are not at all limited to CJK - Arabic and > other languages using Arabic script are not well readable either. As > Hans Schmidt said much of this is related to size - in a unified font > the non-latin scripts are usually arbitrarily scaled to fit into a > latin line geometry. > > In your demo the alternative fallbacks do not seem to contain Arabic > characters - the missing glyphs are however often the ones worst to > read in the normal rendering (although the other ones are not great > either). > Yes, as I said (actually I have done this several times before :D): Create custom style sheets for every country. Even Germany could use a different style sheet than UK. The matter is even more severe for completely other countries. Let every country/language group create their own style sheet (own colours, own fonts etc) which will be active in their country. The OSM web page should then use *those* stylesheets when rendering the global map. A common style sheet guide can help creating a familiar “OSM style” over country borders, but it can still be changed to make country specific changes possible. A large and difficult change in the software? Yes. The only way to make OSM really globally usuable? In my opinion definitely. Take a look at Google Maps, where every country looks slightly different, but still has a common appearance. Start a fund raising campain for this. I would definitely spend money for that. Or, if you are fine with restricting OSM only to Europe/America, then this is fine as well. But then don’t call OSM a “map of the world”. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] CJK fallback fonts - testing needed
On Sunday 12 January 2014, Paul Norman wrote: > Right now the main OpenStreetMap.org stylesheet uses Unifont as a > fallback font to render Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) > characters, as well as any other characters not present in the DejaVu > font. Unifont is mainly designed to support all characters, and is > not designed to look good. The problems with the fonts are not at all limited to CJK - Arabic and other languages using Arabic script are not well readable either. As Hans Schmidt said much of this is related to size - in a unified font the non-latin scripts are usually arbitrarily scaled to fit into a latin line geometry. In your demo the alternative fallbacks do not seem to contain Arabic characters - the missing glyphs are however often the ones worst to read in the normal rendering (although the other ones are not great either). -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] CJK fallback fonts - testing needed
On 12.01.2014 06:19, Paul Norman wrote: I have prepared a demo at http://tile.paulnorman.ca/demo/fonts.html with three layers: conventional OSM.org, tiles without any fallback font, and tiles using Droid Fallback as a fallback font. I checked Thailand: Original font of OSM.org is too small to be readable. http://a.tile.openstreetmap.org/14/12698/7321.png Your font is missing glyphs: http://a.tile.paulnorman.ca/font_droid/14/12698/7321.png This is my rendering http://thaimap.osm-tools.org/ http://tile.osm-tools.org/osm_then/14/12698/7321.png It uses the GPL font "Loma" with an increased size. http://linux.thai.net/projects/thaifonts-scalable Stephan ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] CJK fallback fonts - testing needed
Hello, thanks for the test! Although it looks better than the first one, to be honest, it is still completely unsuitable for Japanese (if you want to have a “real” map): It is clearly a Chinese font, which is really different in some characters than a Japanese person would expect. This is also true for Taiwan, which is a little bit different. Korea also uses different characters, but because Korean usually uses Hangul, this is not so much of a problem. Therefore the only solution would be to render Japanese text (either the name:ja tag everywhere or the name tag in Japan) with a Japanese font. In essence, use 4 fonts (Chinese mainland, this can be the current one, Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean) and select them based on the language and area. But the problem for East Asia in OSM does not only lie in the fonts: The entire OSM rendering is completely European centered. For Japan (and the other east Asian countries; I guess also for other regions like India, Middle East etc) being usuable in OSM, the entire rendering for this countries should be rewritten from scratch. For example, in Japan and Korea the street crossings have names, in contrast to the street. The houses are arranged in house blocks and city blocks, which have to be shown. Also, for example, buddhist temples show a 卍 on the map, hot springs show a ♨. Some shops should be much more prominently displayed (for example the ubiquitious convenience stores) etc. I am not well versed with other regions of the world, but I guess they have similar problems. Keeping all that in mind, at some point I come to the conclusion that the only real possibilty for OSM to be used in these countries is to let the different countries create their own tile servers. They know best what should be displayed and until OSM does not offer a way to incorporate these changes on the main map (which is nonetheless the best way and a method for that should be persued, I think!), OSM in this countries will not be used in any way. As to your original question (Sorry for the long off topic text): Actually I cannot see much of a difference. The problems making it rather unreadable are the followings: 1. The fonts are too small: This works for latin text, and would work for CJK text if used on a higher resolution screen, but for currently used computer screens (and the rendering in the tiles), it is too small. Well, I am not a native CJK speaker, so this might be different for other people, but for me, it is too small and unreadlable. 2. Connected to the first issue: The hinting and anti-aliasing of the characters is bad. If you have such a small rendering of the font, rather use a nicely hinted bitmap font. I have created a comparision of this issue: First MS Mincho 11 pt with a 70% zoom in MS Word (where bitmap fonts are used), second MS Mincho with 11 pt and 200% zoom (no bitmap fonts at this zoom), afterwards shrinking it to 35%. Admitely, rather a bad method, but you can clearly see the difference. http://abload.de/img/comparisonidqpu.png 3. The white shadow makes it at some points even more difficult, but I cannot say that for sure. This is connected to the Chinese characters, Korean works relatively fine I guess (although I don't speak Korean). By the way, there is also a DroidSansJapanese font with Japanese characters. Am 12.01.2014 14:19, schrieb Paul Norman: > Right now the main OpenStreetMap.org stylesheet uses Unifont as a > fallback font to render Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) characters, > as well as any other characters not present in the DejaVu font. Unifont > is mainly designed to support all characters, and is not designed to > look good. > > I'm looking at Droid Sans Fallback, a free font developed for Android, > and evaluating if it would be a better fallback font than Unifont. > Because I don't read Chinese, Japanese or Korean, I could use help. > > I have prepared a demo at http://tile.paulnorman.ca/demo/fonts.html with > three layers: conventional OSM.org, tiles without any fallback font, and > tiles using Droid Fallback as a fallback font. > > What I would like is for people to look at the difference between the > conventional OSM.org and Droid Fallback tiles and see which is easier to > read for the CJK glyphs. The tiles without any fallback font can be used > to find areas where DejaVu doesn't have glyphs and the fallback font is > being used. > > Some examples > > Japanese cities: http://tile.paulnorman.ca/demo/fonts.html#9/35.443/138.247 > > Japanese train stations: > http://tile.paulnorman.ca/demo/fonts.html#16/36.415/139.325 > > Korean cities: http://tile.paulnorman.ca/demo/fonts.html#9/37.25/127.22 > > Chinese tourist attraction: > http://tile.paulnorman.ca/demo/fonts.html#15/39.94/116.48 > > Please keep in mind that > > - My server is not nearly as powerful as tile.osm.org, so renders slower > and has less cached data > - Only Asia is loaded on my server > - The data is a couple of days old and isn't being updated > > I
[OSM-talk] CJK fallback fonts - testing needed
Right now the main OpenStreetMap.org stylesheet uses Unifont as a fallback font to render Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) characters, as well as any other characters not present in the DejaVu font. Unifont is mainly designed to support all characters, and is not designed to look good. I'm looking at Droid Sans Fallback, a free font developed for Android, and evaluating if it would be a better fallback font than Unifont. Because I don't read Chinese, Japanese or Korean, I could use help. I have prepared a demo at http://tile.paulnorman.ca/demo/fonts.html with three layers: conventional OSM.org, tiles without any fallback font, and tiles using Droid Fallback as a fallback font. What I would like is for people to look at the difference between the conventional OSM.org and Droid Fallback tiles and see which is easier to read for the CJK glyphs. The tiles without any fallback font can be used to find areas where DejaVu doesn't have glyphs and the fallback font is being used. Some examples Japanese cities: http://tile.paulnorman.ca/demo/fonts.html#9/35.443/138.247 Japanese train stations: http://tile.paulnorman.ca/demo/fonts.html#16/36.415/139.325 Korean cities: http://tile.paulnorman.ca/demo/fonts.html#9/37.25/127.22 Chinese tourist attraction: http://tile.paulnorman.ca/demo/fonts.html#15/39.94/116.48 Please keep in mind that - My server is not nearly as powerful as tile.osm.org, so renders slower and has less cached data - Only Asia is loaded on my server - The data is a couple of days old and isn't being updated I would like some feedback on if Unifont or Droid Sans Fallback looks better. Please keep in mind that I don't read the languages being rendered. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
