Place names and power lines

Beddhist · 2011-06-26T08:28:55.000Z

Hi Lambertus,

I have two requests:

Can you filter out power lines, as they clutter up the display and can easily be confused with roads?

Can we have names of cities and villages show up at lower zoom levels? It’s very hard to find my way around without them. One example, I’m staying in Bad Kreuznach at the moment and neither the name of the town nor any villages show up above 3 km in MS:

On the Zumo I have to zoom in to 800m to see any names and Bretzenheim is not a straight label, behaving as if it was a river name.

At 1.2 km and above there are no more place names, not even big cities.

Yes, map detail is set to highest, there are no other settings to play with.

ligfietser · 2011-06-26T11:00:47.000Z

About place names: this is definitely a short coming of the default mkgmap style file. Maybe Lambertus should send in a request to adapt this in the points style file:

place=city [0x0400 resolution 20]
place=hamlet [0x1100 resolution 23]
place=suburb [0x0a00 resolution 23]
place=town [0x0800 resolution 22]
place=village [0x0b00 resolution 24]
place=island [0x650c resolution 22]

Very strange that villages disappear earlier then hamlets (24 is the highest zoomlevel). Towns disappear already at 22, cities at 20. Resolution 16 or even lower is maybe better for cities.

Íf you are using the typ file, you can modify Garmin type 0x29 (powerlines) to a (invisible) transparent bitmap with the online typ file editor
http://ati.land.cz/gps/typdecomp/ (try Line style: Width=0 px)

Beddhist · 2011-06-27T07:42:26.000Z

Thanks for the tips.

I haven’t noticed the problem with the hamlets, but in MS labels for them have always been bigger than villages. I think that’s a Garmin ‘feature’.

I have now eliminated the power lines, but the labels remain… It would be nice if Lambertus could just filter them out, as they serve no purpose.

Regards,
Peter.

Lambertus · 2011-06-27T07:45:55.000Z

I’ll add power=line to the pre-filter stage.

Beddhist · 2011-06-27T08:59:28.000Z

Thanks, you are a star!

ligfietser · 2011-06-27T09:13:53.000Z

Beddhist, I’ve mailed your suggestion about the labels of place names to the mkgmap developers.

Lambertus · 2011-06-27T10:21:20.000Z

ligfietser:

Beddhist, I’ve mailed your suggestion about the labels of place names to the mkgmap developers.

Beddhist:

Thanks, you are a star!

ligfietser · 2011-06-29T09:20:40.000Z

Beddhist:

Thanks for the tips.

I haven’t noticed the problem with the hamlets, but in MS labels for them have always been bigger than villages. I think that’s a Garmin ‘feature’.

I have now eliminated the power lines, but the labels remain… It would be nice if Lambertus could just filter them out, as they serve no purpose.

Regards,
Peter.

The changes to the places have been committed in mkgmap. About hamlets vs villages, I think its another mkgmap issue.
If I look on http://ati.land.cz/gps/typdecomp/editor.cgi it shows that garmin type 0x1100 (used for hamlets) is shown as City name(Point, big) whereas type 0x0b (villages) is City name (Point, small). I’ll report this too.

Lambertus · 2011-06-29T09:36:10.000Z

Many thanks for taking care of this ligfietser!

Beddhist · 2011-06-30T08:54:34.000Z

ligfietser:

The changes to the places have been committed in mkgmap.

Thanks very much for that.

About hamlets vs villages, I think its another mkgmap issue.

Probably not: hamlets being bigger than villages also happens using GPSMapEdit and cgpsmaper.

If I look on http://ati.land.cz/gps/typdecomp/editor.cgi it shows that garmin type 0x1100 (used for hamlets) is shown as City name(Point, big) whereas type 0x0b (villages) is City name (Point, small). I’ll report this too.

I don’t know what this editor is supposed to show me, but I suspect that the mkgmap people are using the codes that they do use precisely to avoid the above issue. But I am guessing.

The real problem is that place names are not visible when you zoom out, making orientation on the map almost impossible.

Regards,
Peter.

Allroads · 2011-06-30T09:39:21.000Z

i have done this

(place=hamlet | place=suburb | place=village ){set place=town} in mkgmapstyle points.
now all places are shown up at town level zoom 3 km

because the font is bigger like town
the problem was, to search between all streetnames, what village is that!!!
because the font was smaller then the streetnames

i like to see place names and not the street names on first sight too.

ligfietser · 2011-06-30T11:23:46.000Z

Beddhist:

If I look on http://ati.land.cz/gps/typdecomp/editor.cgi it shows that garmin type 0x1100 (used for hamlets) is shown as City name(Point, big) whereas type 0x0b (villages) is City name (Point, small). I’ll report this too.

I don’t know what this editor is supposed to show me, but I suspect that the mkgmap people are using the codes that they do use precisely to avoid the above issue. But I am guessing.

The real problem is that place names are not visible when you zoom out, making orientation on the map almost impossible.

Regards,
Peter.

The editor shows that hamlets get a bigger font, same size like towns. Villages gets a smaller font. See a screenshot in Basecamp below.
Area is http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=52.2186&lon=5.4076&zoom=13&layers=M
Map is Lambertus’ world map without typ file. In Mapsource 6.16.3 it shows the same, although in MS the streetnames are too prominent.
The problem with garmin is that you aint see what you get when you look at the map on the GPS, it can be a totally different story

Hamlets are in bold fonts, like Doornsteeg, Achterhoek, De Veenhuizen and Palestina. Holk is a village, Nijkerk a town.

Lambertus · 2011-06-30T11:30:13.000Z

ligfietser:

The problem with garmin is that you aint see what you get when you look at the map on the GPS, it can be a totally different story

This is a real bummer indeed. I feel there is a constant tension between the rendering in the different pieces of software and hardware which makes it difficult to get a good generic map. Shame, really. Many thanks for looking into this stuff Ligfietser, it is really no my kind of thing.

ligfietser · 2011-06-30T12:05:23.000Z

You can imagine I sometimes feel the urge to throw my Garmin into a ravine and quit with this stuff

pberck · 2011-06-30T12:24:25.000Z

If only Garmin would be less frightened of, tja, what, and document their system a little. It would make Garmin more attractive to a lot of people, but those short term profit company people never understand the full picture.

Beddhist · 2011-07-01T08:56:49.000Z

It seems that this is a display problem in Garmin’s applications. It displayed correctly in Basecamp beta, which just auto-upgraded to 3.2.1.0. In this all places now display with the same font.

In MapSource the display is still with villages smaller and faint, but MS seems to have been abandoned by Garmin. That’s a shame, as track editing still seems easier there with keyboard shortcuts. I don’t expect Garmin to add features for that…

It seems strange that Garmin choose to display names of hamlets the same size as mega-cities.

Beddhist · 2011-07-01T09:40:26.000Z

Interesting: maps compiled by me with mkgmap v 1795 display cities up to a zoom of 50 km, villages up to 10 km. Dots for hamlets also appear at 10 km zoom, but names only appear at 3 km in MS and not at all in BC.

ligfietser · 2011-07-01T09:53:56.000Z

In mkgmap v1795 places were rendered earlier compared to the later versions: http://www.mkgmap.org.uk/svn/wsvn/mkgmap/resources/styles/default/points?rev=1775&peg=1968

Beddhist · 2011-07-01T09:58:17.000Z

So … it’s going backwards? Shelters are back to being rendered as camp grounds, too.

ligfietser · 2011-07-01T10:04:22.000Z

I have no idea, please share your thoughts at the mkgmap mailing list!
http://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=mkgmap-dev%40lists.mkgmap.org.uk&q=shelter