Many trekkers and bikers consider that the current Mapnik style provides an unsightly rendering of mountain areas and I am with them. Among the many aspects that would need improvement, there is a need that notable places which are effective references in a mountainous area could not only be shown at high zoom level (e.g., >=16 or >=17) but also at medium zooms (e.g., >=13 or 14), in accordance with the common practice used in standard topographic maps (e.g., 1:50000 - 1:25000 - 1:10000).
Those points typically refer to places of worship, campaniles, crosses, towers, monuments, chalets in the mountains, shelters, huts and also to elements that can be seen from the surrounding landscape or that are viewpoints (e.g., places from which one can look in the distance and by consequence that can be identified from a great distance). There are reasons for the current situation where those places are only displayed at high zooms: one is to keep coherence with the already well tuned rendering typically referring to populated places: when systematically highlighting PoIs of scarcely populated places at medium zooms, the rendering produces too much density in cities and suburbs especially at some latitudes. Another is to try controlling as much as possible the abuse of tagging made by mappers that sometimes are wrong or imprecise but more often improperly privilege information basing on business interests. Also the current description for these aspects provided within OSM wiki is not enough to define and explain a precise method that mappers shall adopt for tagging. With this preamble, it might appear rather complex to discuss about a proposal aiming to address a different visibility of reference elements in scarcely populated places. Would it be possible or this will lead too far away from the actual OSM/osm-carto implementation and trend? I would propose to try discussing this topic though some questions. Would you consider appropriate to define specific tags to be used to reduce the minimum zooming level for some reference elements? Would "landmark=yes" be appropriate? It is not yet documented here http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Key:landmark <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Key:landmark&redirect=no> &redirect=no but there is a discussion here http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Key:landmark. Is there some allowance to be used it now? Or maybe "denotation=landmark" shall be used, which is already ratified for trees? Would "tourism=viewpoint" be appropriate? Which kind of element could be a landmark? Would you consider appropriate that also "tourism=viewpoint" will be considered? What about elements that are both landmarks and viewpoints? Both "denotation=landmark" and "tourism=viewpoint" shall be used? What is actually a viewpoint in OSM? Do you consider for instance that the churches in the above links are viewpoints themselves or just some surrounding area close to them (so, not the churches)? http://footage.framepool.com/shotimg/qf/297459944-cortina-d'ampezzo-cappella -dolomiti-paesaggio-collinare.jpg http://www.buonviaggioitalia.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/2015-04-14-2629.j pg http://www.hafling-meran2000.eu/bilder/stkathrein-meran-hafling-suedtirol.jp g http://www.golivefvg.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/milani_c1-162-2455-650x4 33.jpg Would zoom=13 be the most appropriate minimum rendering for features tagged as landmarks or viewpoints? Alberto
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