Hi.
So there are 2 issues (it seems): At what zoom does the road show, and
at what zoom does the name show?
Take for example https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=11/-31.7211/150.4649
At this zoom no roads have names.
Zoom in to 12, and you see highway=unclassified roads that weren't
visible at 11.
You don't start to see the names of any roads at all until zoom 13. At
zoom 15 you see the names of all roads.
I think showing more detail a little bit sooner when there is less
detail to show is going to be a difficult problem for a renderer to
solve in a way that makes more sense than the current popular renderers.
I think going from some roads to all roads over 2 zooms (13->15) is not
a bad compromise.
- Ben.
On 22/1/19 13:50, Graeme Fitzpatrick wrote:
A while back, there was mention on the list of OSM only showing vast
amounts of blank whiteness when looking at remote country areas; &
then there was further mention regarding Aussie country roads not
showing up well enough in OSM.
A lady I speak to on another forum, lives in a small town in FNQ, &
had complained on the forum about various on-line maps not showing any
details.
After I asked her for some details, so we could possibly examine
things, she has said: (for privacy, I have deleted the name of her
actual town):
I live in an isolated remote town called xxxxxxx, although not as
isolated as some. Two hours/150km west of Mareeba and three
hours/210km west of Cairns.
So its: Cairns, Mareeba, Dimbulah, Petford, Almaden, Chillagoe.
Petford & Almaden are way smaller than xxxxx.
I rarely use Google Maps, but use Google Earth a lot. Today is
probably the first time I've looked at GM for this specific area.
I've now realised OpenStreetMaps is actually no worse than Google
Maps, and in some things it's actually better.
Zooming into xxxxxx, OpenStreetMaps is accurate and up-to-date, with
roads and tracks that are actually in use.
Google Maps shows streets that no longer exist. They may be/have
been/are gazetted roads, but now don't even look like they ever
existed even in track form (although they did way way back in the
mining days, I think).
The problem when I originally commented was that if I looked at the
area between Dimbulah (or Petford) and Chillagoe, there was nothing to
tell me the name of the road. But looking at Google Maps today,
there's nothing there either. Although when I zoom in a name comes up
more quickly than it does on OpenStreetMaps.
If I'm looking at a hard copy paper map from RACQ or Sunmap or
whoever, I can see at a glance where I am and what the names of
everything are.
It's just that our distances are vast, and at the amount zoomed out
that I want some detail, the populated areas have no detail either. So
in a way I can't expect it.
However, outback roads are usually the *only* roads there are and it
would be nice to have labelling when that much zoomed out. (Is this
making sense to you?)
I have a reasonable knowledge of east coast highways and roads between
them (mainly Qld and NSW) and reference to a map is just double
checking or looking for shortcuts or detours. I'm a bit of a map
freak. Have a stack of hard copy maps for the east coast, and spend
time on Google Earth and Google Maps just checking out old and new
roads, and looking up places I read about in the news. Unfortunately
I'm not that good with terrain on topo maps, but never needed to use
them enough. And I've recently learned that I need to double check
altitudes on GE before I make assumptions about geography. Not always
what it looks like.
Here is a starting point for my area. (Bearing in mind I'm on a Sony
Vaio with a 13 inch screen (13.3" ??).)
Google Maps
Seems to have more 'stops' in its zoom ability.
https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-17.3121687,144.755859,11.75z
Looking at it today
OpenStreetMap
Unfamiliar map. If I zoom in more than this I have absolutely nothing...
Not enough 'stops' in the zoom. All or nothing.
https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=11/-17.2500/144.7895
Also, at first glance it looks like the railway line is the main road.
In fact you can't see there's a road there until I zoom right in. You
can see the rest of Burke Development Road to Chillagoe, you can see
the road from Petford to Irvinebank, but you can't see the Almaden
Gingerella Road running generally to the west of the rail line, and on
down to Mount Garnet or Mount Surprise. You wouldn't know it was
there. (Local name is the Ootan Road.)
Google Maps is not much better to look at, but you can see the road,
and the road is 'highlighted' (slightly)more than the rail line.
This railway line carries The Savannahlander which leaves Cairns for
Forsayth on Wednesday and returns on Saturday except in the Wet
Season. Nothing else travels on it, except the occasional QR Toyota
with rail wheels.
So, to me, a lot of this would seem to tie in with country roads being
mapped as =unclassified (& I noticed from clearing some of the Telenav
errors, that it doesn't seem to like highway=unclassified, having
street names?), with even the "main" road only being =secondary (if
that!).
Her other comment re population areas not being visible is also tied
back in to the frequent discussions we've had about size of places,
Europe v Oz - these "towns" are (correctly) mapped as place=villages
as they only have 200-300 people living in them, but they're the
social, commercial & financial centre for a couple of thousand sq km :-(
Nice to hear that we actually compare quite well with the mega-$ enemy
:-), but it would be nice to be able to do better! :-)
Any thoughts of any way of fixing this sort of "problem", apart from
lieing to the map? :-)
Thanks
Graeme
_______________________________________________
Talk-au mailing list
Talk-au@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
