Road names are too small and disappearing too soon when zoomed out

[matthijsmelissen]

The following issue has been moved over from trac. It needs more discussion as it is not clear whether a fix is needed or not.

I am looking at the sparse forest roads, see attached screenshots. Road names on zoomed out image disappeared even though they could still be displayed either on the side of the road or along the road like Google maps does. This way map becomes much more identifiable and viewable.

Roads on the screenshot are in the Tahoe National Forest in California.

https://trac.openstreetmap.org/attachment/ticket/4612/openstreetmaps-zoomed-in.png
https://trac.openstreetmap.org/attachment/ticket/4612/openstreetmaps-zoomed-out.png

[matkoniecz]

Again, problem with different feature density in various places - the same as with footways (#211).

Quote from @gravitystorm at #211 (comment)

I would love to have differential rendering based on "prominence" - so that when there's one footpath across a mountain at z13 it shows up, and at the same time, it doesn't show lots of paths all clustered together in a graveyard. Similar considerations apply for roads too.

I don't have any idea of a working approach - whether based on density, network analysis or something else. So while I'm closing this ticket it doesn't mean that it's not valid, it just means that there's no feasible solution. When someone makes their own experiments and find something that works, or new features are added to the tools, then lets look at it then.

Probably the best solution is to put it on list of hard and unsolved problems.

[matthijsmelissen]

Not solvable without density-based rendering, so I will close this.