Themes: In low zoom, show name of big city not suburbs

I think there is a misunderstanding. In OAM with Elevate in mode City, "Lyon" is shown in zoom levels 7-14 so it makes at least the impression it is possible to show the city name when using vector maps – at least, France south OAM map is shown in Locus' top information bar, so I assume Locus did not automatically switch to OAM World Map, LoMap World or any other map "under the hood". I would simply like the same name display as OAM + Elevate in LoMaps 🙂 because switching back & forth map + theme is a bit cumbersome until switching map + theme is possible in one single go (idea).

OAM World Map at zoom level 8 is full of names and rivers – nice when one needs that, but bad if one just wants a overview of motorways (ways + numbers mostly hidden by the high amount of names).

LoMap "World" is over 6 years old and much more into direction of the overview use case, but a bit "too small" (just 14MB) as it does not contain any city name in the triangle Paris-Metz-Dijon of 26630km² – that's 1/3 of Czechia! – making orientation at road signs difficult.

OAM/Elevate do show those towns/cities differently from LoMaps, BECAUSE the popcat mechanics is used for this vector map / theme. I only mentioned the world maps, because they were the reason popcat has been "invented".

It is up to the Locus team to mimic this mechanism.

PS: I might try to create a version that massively reduces the number of settlements for ZL 8 in the OAM World Maps. Such can be used in the Maps/Advanced setting then without any switching. ZL 8 in vector mode is crap anyway - my view.

Ah, I understand now – you pointed to the solution used in OAM 🙂

@Vector at ZL8: While I understand and second your main argument "low ZL asks for regional optimizations", on low ZL, a regional optimized Vector has the huge potential advantage that a user can configure what is visble and thus can achieve a nearly perfect overview map (very clear) for the current use case / information need. For example, user could choose via render theme options between display of surface type (forest/sand/etc), elevation, administrative borders, cities, peaks, national parks, major car / train / water network, time zones, ... – in any combination, without names xor with local names xor latin chars names, all up to ZL 11-12 with a file of only roughly 100 MByte because ways can be strongly simplified.

Just an example for ZL 8- see attached.

At least at ZL 8-10 surface types are irrelevant, because you cannot really locate them and map to reality, I think. ZL 11-12 still questionable.

For cyrillic areas.

You can have that now - nobody knows if and when the system you describe (and I agree this would be nice, if properly curated) would be available.

At which ZL surface types become useful depends on the information need and the size of landscape type areas. In eastern France, ZL8 does only show loads of tiny fragments as your screenshot depitcs, which may already satisfy user's information neeed ("oh, no big homogenous surfaces here") – and if not, user simply zooms in where a smooth transition between "World" and detailed regional vector map would be great. In contrast. e.g. in Iceland already ZL8 shows large areas of vegatation, glacier, sand, tundra etc in OSM standard layer:

So from ZL8 you know you won't find a street suitable for cars across the glacier but only around, or you won't find many farms north of Vatnajökull but south of it. Likewise for Greenland, Tunesia, Australia etc.

While this discussion is interesting and maybe inspires someone to bring LoMaps' and OAM's "World" map to the next level "Vector for ZL1-11 with a bunch of rendering options", that is IMHO leading off-topic because it's IMHO an unlikely way the original post will be addressed – being about improving the built-in display of city names. I assume much more that only render theme "Road" will be reworked, because guideposts etc. about cities 200km away (requiring ZL8 or the like) are much more likely in a car setting than in a "Hike & bike" setting.

True. But at least for the smooth transition between OAM World Maps and vector maps, Locus already has all the functionality you need.

PS: OAM has a proper town/city selection (bigger ones dominate smaller ones): For LoMaps this would need an extension of their map generation process towards the way OAM does.

"because switching back & forth map + theme is a bit cumbersome until switching map + theme is possible in one single go" - 2 taps: Preset button > preset name, with setting for each theme?

@Andrew: I dont't yet use presets. Do I understand correctly that I'd need to add the preset button e.g. in right function bar and create one preset for each combination of maptype+theme+themeprofile? So in my case around 15 presets (3 map types LoMap3+4 and Mapsforge 5, each having 3-6 theme variations).

@Georg D - only a single Preset button is possible. Interesting future idea to allow 1:1 between button & preset, but would be different to the current button "model". A button can be assigned to any panel, so left/ right/ bottom. I have a preset for each of walk, run, bike, then 2 "planning" presets for each favorite theme, one with "all" settings checked, and one with "no" settings checked. Nothing will suit every use-case but you just make do with what is available. Was just a suggestion.

Hi,

thank you for the idea and discussion but let me comment only on the initial points:
1. The Villeurbanne is probably incorrectly mapped - because it's marked as place=city but I think it should be place=suburb. https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/647953515
The priority of the labels is influenced only by tag place: city > town > village > etc.. and for this reason, Villeurvanne accidentally replaced Lyon

2. You're right, there are probably too many city labels in your screenshot. We could at least move towns from Zl8 > ZL9 or consider whether it is possible to implement some kind of "text margin" for label.

Regards
Petr

OSM entries for settlement types are a synonym for chaos.

@Petr: 1st point is important aspect and I assume the root cause. concerning 2nd point, just to avoid misunderstanding, IMHO Locus raods style does not show too many lables but OAM World Maps does.