From thilo.mu...@gmail.com on April 15, 2012 06:06:53

Our current default "Osmarender" theme is derived from the Osmarender map on the OpenStreetMap page, which unfortunately has been disabled a few weeks ago. While the quality of that map style is of course arguable, i would still like to keep our render-theme consistent to that style as much as possible. Comparing it to the Mapnik style makes not much sense, as both are quite different and each of them has its advantages and disadvantages.

For the future we will provide alternative (built-in) render-themes, maybe even special ones for bicycling or hiking. However, this is not our main area of work, as this can already be achieved via custom render-theme files. So application developers can take action here as well.

Only when it comes to the generation of map files, i see the urgent need for change. A so called "tag-mapping" XML file is used to define, which tags will be visible from which zoom level on. If a value is too high, the object is not read and thus will not be visible on the map, no matter how the render-theme is defined. But we have to be careful when we change any values here, as this might significantly increase the file size and decrease the rendering performance.

As i agree with your proposal in general, i have changed the default zoom-appear values of the "peak" and "alpine_hut" POI tags with revision r2009 . Note that this file is work in progress as we are continuously tweaking it. We will probably change more mountain-related tags to further improve the level of detail especially on lower zoom values in the future.

Status: Started
Labels: -Type-Defect Type-Enhancement

From filip.d.nikolov on April 17, 2012 04:49:11

Hi Thilo,

Anything that can be done to increase usability is good, so thank you for your change!

I would also like to state my use case so that you have it in consideration when further tweaking the map.

In the mountains users will not only want to look at what is around their current location, but also at possible destinations. Because mobile devices have limited screen space users tend to zoom out in order to see something that is (lets say) 10km away, but then vital elements starts to disappear from the screen, thus making it difficult to see the whole picture.

When it comes to keeping the size of the map small I have the following comments:

• tourism=alpine_hut are far and few between and only available in the mountains. For example in the whole of the Alps there are around 1300 huts, which is not much compared to the sheer size of the Alps spreading across multiple countries; therefore making those available at lower zoom level shouldn't increase much the size of the file.
• highway=path, mapsforge already displays highway=footway at zoom level 13, "path" in is the "footway" equivalent in the mountain, so I think it wood be also good to display it at zoom level 13. Again that would benefit a lot people using the map in the mountain.

I know that you are trying to balance usability and size, so your consideration is appreciated.

Thanks,
Filip

From filip.d.nikolov on April 17, 2012 08:56:48

If I can further add to my reply. Every Android device has Google maps. In some places OSM has better coverage on others Google, but the latest doesn't have any mountain related information, so apart from other reasons this awesome project has the ability to truly shine in there.

From LudwigBr...@gmail.com on May 25, 2014 21:47:08

With customizable renderthemes and customizable map creation, the suggested changes do not require a change in the mapsforge code base.
There will always be special requests, mapsforge offers a toolkit for implementing these, not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Status: WontFix