Vector Map Details (Town names, street names etc)

[eldron]

Hi,
As the loading speed of vector maps is increasing with every update, I am now more and more tempted to use them. So far i was using mainly tile maps, as they load so much quicker. But the other thing that was and still is stopping me from using vector maps is the lack of details. They never seem to show the name of towns (often just the name of districts) and also the names of streets are often only shown at very high zoom levels.
Whenever i want to know the name of a town i find myself zooming in and out until i find a zoomlevel where the name is shown, but i have come across several towns now where it´s never shown.
I have tried the hiking and cycling theme as well as the openandromaps theme, but none of them is any good. I always go back to my tile maps, as they show much more details, even the name of hiking paths.
Am I the only one with this problem? Maybe there is some theme out there that gets it right and i have missed it?
From my understanding it´s the themes that control what is shown at which level and in what colour etc. or am i mistaken?
My preferred tile maps are OSM Hike and Bike and Outdooractive and I would love to have the same level of details on my Vector Maps.

[mambofive]

For navigation etc. I use the "classic map" theme, it shows the name in much more zoom levels than the internal themes.
For outdoor activities, the internal hiking or biking themes are better for me, but there I'm usually not interested in town names because I then know where I am...:smile:

[eldron]

@mambofive
What do you mean with "classic" theme? I can only choose between town, street, bike, hike and ski. Or is that a downloadable theme?
I think the point of a map is being able to look up where i am... And i think it´s nice to be able to look up what little village it is that i am looking at or what the name of the street is that i am standing in - without having to zoom in and out. And as that is already perfectly possible with tile maps i am just looking for a way to have the same comfort in vector map.

[tommi]

Hi eldron,
available here: viewtopic.php?f=40&t=1836 and in Locus Store

[eldron]

@ tommi  
Thanks for the link, i have just had a look at the classic theme and i must say that the city/town labeling is way better.
The street labeling is also better, although i´d prefer some more labels at lower zoom levels.
I also just realised that i had the text size set to 150% which led to some labels not being shown. I thought locus would just blow up the text without removing any labels.
I´ll have another look at this with 100% text size now and see if the detail level is ok or if i need to get into theme editing to get the result that i want.

[jusc]

hi eldron,

I´m not sure if I understand you correctly.
For me, the both raster maps you mentioned don´t have more informations as p. e. the OpenAndromaps  with my new V-Scale_Hike theme. (viewtopic.php?f=40&t=3187)
click on the screens for better view
[attachment=1:1oixwuef]VS3.jpg[/attachment:1oixwuef]

The outdooractive rastermap doesn´t have a zoom level 18.
[attachment=0:1oixwuef]VS4.jpg[/attachment:1oixwuef]

You are right, with the names of city and towns, they don´t appear in vectormaps in all zoom levels. I depends from how they are mapped in the OSM database. in some levels they seem to "near" to other objects, so they are overlayed from next object.
Sometimes you have to make compromises.  

[eldron]

Hi Jusc,
you are comparing high zoom levels, which is not what i meant. At zoom levels 17+ even vector maps start showing a higher level of detail.
I was talking about levels 13-16 where tile maps (like osm hike and bike) start showing names of paths and roads, whereas vectormaps (at least with all the themes i have tried so far) don´t.
If you look at the attached files you can see that when it comes to level of details the tile maps always win.
I don´t mind making compromises when there is no other way, but i don´t think that vector maps can´t achieve what i want. I also don´t think that the maps look too cluttered with street names at lower zoom levels, so for me there is no reason not to be able to see them...
[attachment=1:6rfd4nyp]Zoom13.jpg[/attachment:6rfd4nyp][attachment=0:6rfd4nyp]zoom14.jpg[/attachment:6rfd4nyp]
When looking at these two screenshots i don´t see any reason why the vector map doesn´t display the town name - there is plenty of space and the tile map shows how it´s done...

[eldron]

Couldn´t attach more than 2 files in one post so here are the other two.
[attachment=1:3su5lhx9]zoom15.jpg[/attachment:3su5lhx9][attachment=0:3su5lhx9]zoom16.jpg[/attachment:3su5lhx9]

[jusc]

You are right. I tested it with a few different themes and diferrent maps, changed themes up to 3 requests of "town lables" (at the start, in the middle and at the end) of the theme. No change in result. In most zoom levels betweeen 13 and 18 the town labels disapear. It´s depends a bit from the used theme and map but the result is most the same.
I asked chritian (kech61 from OpenAndroMaps) too for a solution, but it seems, that this is a mapsforge bug, not solved in next version 0.4 (of mapsforge) too.

So for your use it´s probably better to raster maps. Pity that there is no better answer yet.

[eldron]

@ Jusc
Thanks for your effort. Guess we will have to wait for improvements of town labelling.
Any idea on how to improve the visibility of street and path names in zoom levels 14-16? Can these be improved by editing the theme?

[jusc]

Oh, I didn´t look at it. Can you please make a screenshot comparsion of this problem, or can I find it in your posted screens?

[edit] ok  I see it [/edit]

[voldapet]

Hi,
Unfortunately we are struggling with limitation/bugs of Mapsforge library. Maybe I'm wrong but vector theme can not correct silly rendering of texts. Text is one of thing we'd like to improve in Mapsforge, but Sadly still without success. As I wrote in different topic, we're planning some news on field of vector maps. So I hope that better handling with text will be one of them.

[jusc]

@Peter
Thank you for efforts and all the improvements already added to the libray, like "using SVGs".
@eldron,
street names (text) should be rendererd up from zoom level 12 automaticly, but at the moment none of map/theme combination handles it.
So we have to wait for updates.

[blackrose]

There I'm usually not interested in town names because I then know where I am...:smile: