Universal world map

Started by michaelbechtold, January 17, 2018, 00:13:48

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michaelbechtold

Quote from: john_percy on January 15, 2018, 23:06:18
@Michael: thanks - are your latest versions available elsewhere?

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Hello John and all interested parties,
once the new release is complete, it will be hosted on Christian's site, like the old overview maps.

But here is a link to the ZL 8 map, which is mostly stable (only some rogue elevations in OSM in Alaska and the Philippines (in feet, without notice) keep changing the most isolated peaks there, while I correct the elevations round by round based on Max' SRTM-OSM comparison):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/04uma6jr2l1t2kb/W1-8-MBt.mbtiles?dl=0

And below is the draft of the text for the overview page (google translate, not yet redacted).

Enjoy and I'm interested in your feedback.

Cheers
Michael


January 2018:

Overview maps with more information
What is common in comparison to the 2016 edition: different zoom levels are different
Data sources used, and the file size remained in the same order of magnitude.
And also the basic format: these maps are NOT vector maps because they react too slow in low zoom levels, conventional bitmap maps
Here are much faster - the undisputed domain of vector maps is now the detailed resolution higher
zoom-levels. However, now only one format, MBTiles, is offered, which can be displayed equally by the essential apps.
As is usual with all cards here, there is a button for the quick installation directly on the smartphone for Locus and Oruxmaps.
What has changed? The more or less random presentation of OSM data (e.g., locations) in the rendering and map generation tools
is simply a nuisance. Therefore, I have explicitly included the selection and control of the objects to be displayed and highlighted in the generation process of the overview maps.
But for a better end result, this presupposes a (mostly manual) editing of the OSM raw material.

So far, the following information has been prepared:
- The main places of countries, provinces and sub-states of many countries are highlighted in 3 different colors, in English and the national language (if that name is significantly different.
- The display size of city names increases in steps with the number of inhabitants (if specified in OSM, hopefully correct, otherwise an assumption is made by location category (city, town, village)). These location size categories are now also included as a "PopCat" tag in Christians OAM maps and can be used by theme for interactive selection. An adapted Elevate theme is on my list for 2018 - maybe Tobias is faster too: -)
- Islands or groups of islands, especially the remote ones, are often hard to find, and there is also a remedy here.
- Inspired by a discussion on the appearance or visibility of mountain peaks operated by Christian and Tobias, and with helpful data tables from Max, I have highlighted some 100 important mountain peaks
- The deepest sea trenches have also been around for a few days.

The idea behind all this is to have selected information available at a glance, OFFLINE. A supplement to Wikipedia, so to speak, which also exists offline: Kiwix and Aard2, both of which I highly recommend.
In the case of settlements, information maximization here means: it is not simply selected by size, but a certain amount of settlement names is packed into a surface. For Alaska or Siberia then show up with less than 100 inhabitants - and they are important because they are the only ones - while in Japan at the same zoom level some 50,000-inhabitant city finds no place. In general, overlaps are NOT avoided, but names of places of larger category always cover smaller places. If it gets tight, this too is an indication, and 1 or 2 zoom levels further, the names of the places are completely legible.
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john_percy

Thanks for the link and for the hard work that has gone into the maps.
Feedback on this version: ZL8 in the UK looks great. Not so good in countries with two versions of place names, and I'm not keen on the coloured outlines.
The low zooms (1, 2, 3) look good, too, but some of the intermediate levels look far too crowded for my taste.
Also, some of the Arabic place names are using an incorrect font.


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michaelbechtold

Quote from: john_percy on January 17, 2018, 00:46:19
Thanks for the link and for the hard work that has gone into the maps.
Feedback on this version: ZL8 in the UK looks great. Not so good in countries with two versions of place names, and I'm not keen on the coloured outlines.
The low zooms (1, 2, 3) look good, too, but some of the intermediate levels look far too crowded for my taste.
Also, some of the Arabic place names are using an incorrect font.
Thank you for your feedback, John.
Indeed a question of taste - but also of purpose. Highlighting capitals can be helpful for travelers and other interested people. And I have been working to validate them (and it will be massive work to feed back into OSM finally, where there is quite some chaos).
Dual language areas will definitely not win a beauty contest, but again, having both languages in front of the eyes when abroad I consider benefitial, from apractical, not aesthetical point of view, though.

I am very concerned however, about your finding of a wrong arabic font. Can you pls. point to some examples ? Because I have no idea which part of the processing chain I must not trust here ... and what I need to fix.

TXs and cheers
Michael
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john_percy

#3
@Michael: Firstly, I must apologise over the Arabic comment. Some areas in North Africa are trilingual and I didn't recognise the Berber(?) character set.
Nonetheless, I do think some areas are hopelessly overcrowded (see below).
Picture 1: Roman, Berber, Arabic character sets
Picture 2: Overcrowded texts.
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michaelbechtold

@John: yes, this font is Berber (who constitute aboout 70% of the population in Morocco - ethnically, buit less language-wise).
Algeria is an extreme, only matched by Thailand and Lebanon, even beating Japan, when it comes to density of province capitals. But ZL 8 is only a split second away :-)
Maybe I should produce a version where the province level capitals only start at ZL 8 ?
Cheers
Michael
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john_percy

@Michael: It may be that a world map for low zooms in Locus has different requirements from the use you this map for. I mainly use the world map for overall orientation and quickly moving to a different location.
Certainly for me, I dislike the strong over-emphasized outlines and crowded regional capitals. But I've already said that and it would be good to see if anyone else who has tried your world map on Locus wants to comment.



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michaelbechtold

I understand, John. Then Piotr's may do.
And it takes me near to nothing to create a map that has no informational overlays at all.
I appreciate that "one size does not fit all" :-)
Cheers
Michael

PS: I expect I have things readyto publish in the next couple of weeks
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