Hello everyone.
What options do I have to reduce the number of airports displayed? They completely dominate almost every area of the map. I suppose the map is still somewhat usable, but it seems a little out of control in my opinion. Am I the only one who thinks this?
Is generating and serving my own tiles the only way to “fix” this issue? Thank you.
You’re certainly not the only one who thinks this is a little out of control in some areas of the world in the standard openstreetmap.org map-style, and the issue has been under discussion for quite some time now, but unfortunately it is non-trivial to fix (because it’s not trivial to distinguish between “tiny airfield that sees 10 planes a year” and say “London Heathrow Airport” which you most probably would want to show on the map).
Jojo4u, thank you for the link to the german style. From that page I wanted to do some routing and I selected the OpenRouteService page. I discovered that their maps look the best of all! Thanks so much for helping me find these great maps.
poempelfox_forum, thanks for letting me know there is active discussion on the topic. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like it will be resolved anytime soon. Let’s hope I am wrong.
Just compare OpenStreetMap to the FAA VFR Aeronautical Charts, a product specifically designed to cater to the aviation community. If you look in the exact same area, there are more than three times as many airports displayed on OSM than the charts pilots use for planning and and navigation while flying. While it is fine to have this information on OSM, it puzzling that they are displayed in such a prominent fashion and at such a high zoom level while providing so little utility for most people. Hopefully senior leadership on the OSM team will weigh in and come up with a compromise.
Thanks for the help everyone.
You do need to remember that the rendered OSM maps are not intended for use by most people; they are intended for use by mappers. As such, they may not reflect the priorities of the average motorist or rambler.