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OpenStreetMap's New Vector Tiles

(tech.marksblogg.com)
479 points marklit | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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Someone ◴[] No.42183666[source]
> Imagery should appear much sharper and switching the language of the labels should become possible.

I expect that to work sub-optimally. Label dimensions are far from guaranteed to stay the same if you change language, and label dimensions interact with map layout, even influencing what to show.

If your labels grow larger, they may end up covering too much of the map or even overlapping. If they grow smaller, users may wonder why a city that was omitted before because of space constraints doesn’t show in the empty space created.

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dheera ◴[] No.42183722[source]
I hate it when city and street names disappear on Google Maps as you zoom in and out. Sometimes a street or business name only appears at one particular zoom level and not higher or lower. Just show the name of every street damnit. I don't care about crowding. Standing at an intersection staring at an unlabelled map is a useless map.
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1. bityard ◴[] No.42189066[source]
Yes. Google Maps is getting to be just as useless as their search engine. These are just some of the ways in which it fails me nowadays:

* Open the app. Instead of getting a map you get, "What's happening nearby" or somesuch. And how to close this changes with every release. I have NEVER in life life EVEN ONCE opened a mapping program because I was simply bored and wanted some other place to go.

* Search for "$name_of_place_or_business in $specific_city". Instead, it gives you all the locations with a similar name near your current location until you massage the query in some way. (It doesn't do this all the time but more than enough to be annoying.)

* Search for the name of a road or intersection in a city. It will instead give you a list of businesses with similar names, or in some cases, having nothing to do with the name you searched for.

* Search for the name of a particular business. Get results for their competitors instead. (Feels illegal.)

* The traffic overlay changed months back so that only interstate traffic is visible at normal zoom levels. Now you have to zoom in WAY too far for the feature to be actually useful on all other roads. Someone is asleep at the wheel at Google. (Pun intended.)