5 ms·

This is cool, but the shorelines are very low detail. A few towns in the UK are off in the sea, meanwhile Greenland and Northern Canada are hogging all the vert

by rozab 2y ago

This is cool, but the shorelines are very low detail. A few towns in the UK are off in the sea, meanwhile Greenland and Northern Canada are hogging all the vertices. It looks as though the Mercator projection is already being accounted for in the detail level, but it would be good to deprioritize unpopulated areas.

nolok 2y ago
This notably lead to making it not very usable at all in islands or achipelago area. Even the philippines, with a lots of islands sure but several ones of them being rather large, is not usable. French polynesia doesn't even exists on the map.
- dorfsmay 2y ago
  Neither is Saint Pierre et Miquelon. There is the island of la Réunion but no name, and the name for Ibiza but no island... I hope those can be fixed, I love the concept.
zimpenfish 2y ago
> A few towns in the UK are off in the sea And some, notably Manchester, are entirely absent.
- noizejoy 2y ago
  > And some, notably Manchester, are entirely absent. But Wrexham is shown - so the priorities seem correct. ;-) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrexham_A.F.C.#2020%E2%80%93present:_New_owners,_return_to_EFL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrexham_A.F.C.#2020%E2%80%93pr...
- ta1243 2y ago
  Developer is clearly from Liverpool :D It's odd - they've got places like Stockport, Salford, Oldham etc, just not Manchester. Manchester has the highest population of the boroughs in Greater Manchester
- DonaldFisk 2y ago
  Manchester's there, ESE of Salford, if you zoom in enough.
  - zimpenfish 2y ago
    Wasn't there yesterday! [edit: also still kinda broken though because Southport, Blackpool, Burnley, Grimsby etc. all appear before Manchester which makes no sense.]
- bopjesvla 2y ago
  This has been fixed.
dansky 2y ago
Nice project! It may be useful to select the included places also by QRank of Wikidata [1] so notable islands will appear, despite low populations. An SQLite DB of QRank [2] was also posted here in HN a while ago. [1] https://qrank.wmcloud.org/ https://qrank.wmcloud.org/ [2] https://github.com/hikeratlas/qrank https://github.com/hikeratlas/qrank
- Aachen 2y ago
  (Saving people a click for link#1: qrank sorts Wikidata entries by their pageviews across Wikipedia, Wikiquotes, Wikibooks, etc.) I'm not sure that an online popularity contest should be the input for a base map. I understand the reasoning that they're more likely to be viewed by someone, but it's also a bubble: is Wikipedia / are Wikimedia projects as popular in Asia as this base map will be? Is that used for the same purpose as this base map? Should something be shown on a map when there's a lot of drama about it rather than because a lot of people live there? I see the advantages also, like if literally nobody lives there but it's an interesting or large landmass then there's cause for it to be included. I just don't think this is the right (objective, fairest) importance measure to use
  - tuukkah 2y ago
    qrank is not a mere popularity contest and definitely not a more arbitrary measure of importance than the count of population within city boundaries (boundaries can be arbitrary; population vs commuters vs tourists; regional capitals etc.) > I just don't think this is the right (objective, fairest) importance measure to use What's "right" can depend on the purpose of the map.
perrygeo 2y ago
The simplification was sloppy all around. Entire nations are missing in the Caribbean. These are basic quality control checks.
- pastage 2y ago
  The step from simple simplification to automatic generalizations is not trivial, the map agency in Sweden just recently began publishing map updates for different scales using their own automatic generalization rules. I'm guessing they will save a lot of man hours by doing that, but they have taken their sweet time doing it. The zoom needs to be locked this map should not be used/critiqued beyond a certain level and that needs to be more apparent. You can see the same the map that Ache posted bellow, as long as you keep zoomed out it is mostly good enough. My point is that this is not a sloppy job, but you are right that neither managed to solve the hardest problem.
s0rce 2y ago
Same with the Alaska Panhandle, lots of uninhabited complex shoreline.
FinnKuhn 2y ago
There also seem to be some bugs in this, just look at Hamburg, Germany...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- non-chalad 2y ago
  And Berlin is missing it's famous landmark TheBerg.
Aachen 2y ago
The ratio/prioritisation of detail in cities to shorelines seems oddly skewed towards including more cities over having accurate borders or shorelines It's showing an entire province in the Netherlands as disconnected from the rest of the country, like it's an island (it's not), but knows to name five cities inside of that province, several of which basically on top of each other. (The inclusion of the afsluitdijk, on the other hand, is unnecessary detail imo but I get that it's hard to programmatically select those tweaks about what's considered land which it needs to draw and just some sea infrastructure) I should open a ticket on the issue tracker but am not logged in on mobile so the best I can do atm is an HN comment. If someone else has a moment and feels the same way, feel free to cite this comment towards shifting the ratio a little! Or introducing a minimum separation distance between cities, or getting a smaller overall file, whatever the ideal solution may be but the current ratio is a tad unnecessary
bopjesvla 2y ago
I've published a nightly version [1] that removes fjords and adds more detail elsewhere. It also generally has a higher resolution. The reason I originally didn't do the latter is because old phones, especially those running Firefox for Android, can crash while drawing large amounts of polygons. I have since optimized the drawing procedure, but beware! [1] https://tinyworldmap.com/beta.html https://tinyworldmap.com/beta.html
jlv2 2y ago
I noticed that all of the New York City metropolitan area was replaced with a single angled line, cutting off several large islands supporting a few million in population.
- jlv2 2y ago
  I see this is improved in today's Nightly Demo link, but I still find the result too low fidelity.

by rozab 2y ago

nolok 2y ago

This notably lead to making it not very usable at all in islands or achipelago area. Even the philippines, with a lots of islands sure but several ones of them being rather large, is not usable. French polynesia doesn't even exists on the map.

dorfsmay 2y ago
Neither is Saint Pierre et Miquelon. There is the island of la Réunion but no name, and the name for Ibiza but no island... I hope those can be fixed, I love the concept.

zimpenfish 2y ago

> A few towns in the UK are off in the sea And some, notably Manchester, are entirely absent.

noizejoy 2y ago
> And some, notably Manchester, are entirely absent. But Wrexham is shown - so the priorities seem correct. ;-) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrexham_A.F.C.#2020%E2%80%93present:_New_owners,_return_to_EFL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrexham_A.F.C.#2020%E2%80%93pr...
ta1243 2y ago
Developer is clearly from Liverpool :D It's odd - they've got places like Stockport, Salford, Oldham etc, just not Manchester. Manchester has the highest population of the boroughs in Greater Manchester
DonaldFisk 2y ago
Manchester's there, ESE of Salford, if you zoom in enough.
- zimpenfish 2y ago
  Wasn't there yesterday! [edit: also still kinda broken though because Southport, Blackpool, Burnley, Grimsby etc. all appear before Manchester which makes no sense.]
bopjesvla 2y ago
This has been fixed.

dansky 2y ago

Nice project! It may be useful to select the included places also by QRank of Wikidata [1] so notable islands will appear, despite low populations. An SQLite DB of QRank [2] was also posted here in HN a while ago. [1] https://qrank.wmcloud.org/ https://qrank.wmcloud.org/ [2] https://github.com/hikeratlas/qrank https://github.com/hikeratlas/qrank

Aachen 2y ago
(Saving people a click for link#1: qrank sorts Wikidata entries by their pageviews across Wikipedia, Wikiquotes, Wikibooks, etc.) I'm not sure that an online popularity contest should be the input for a base map. I understand the reasoning that they're more likely to be viewed by someone, but it's also a bubble: is Wikipedia / are Wikimedia projects as popular in Asia as this base map will be? Is that used for the same purpose as this base map? Should something be shown on a map when there's a lot of drama about it rather than because a lot of people live there? I see the advantages also, like if literally nobody lives there but it's an interesting or large landmass then there's cause for it to be included. I just don't think this is the right (objective, fairest) importance measure to use
- tuukkah 2y ago
  qrank is not a mere popularity contest and definitely not a more arbitrary measure of importance than the count of population within city boundaries (boundaries can be arbitrary; population vs commuters vs tourists; regional capitals etc.) > I just don't think this is the right (objective, fairest) importance measure to use What's "right" can depend on the purpose of the map.

perrygeo 2y ago

The simplification was sloppy all around. Entire nations are missing in the Caribbean. These are basic quality control checks.

pastage 2y ago
The step from simple simplification to automatic generalizations is not trivial, the map agency in Sweden just recently began publishing map updates for different scales using their own automatic generalization rules. I'm guessing they will save a lot of man hours by doing that, but they have taken their sweet time doing it. The zoom needs to be locked this map should not be used/critiqued beyond a certain level and that needs to be more apparent. You can see the same the map that Ache posted bellow, as long as you keep zoomed out it is mostly good enough. My point is that this is not a sloppy job, but you are right that neither managed to solve the hardest problem.

s0rce 2y ago

Same with the Alaska Panhandle, lots of uninhabited complex shoreline.

FinnKuhn 2y ago

There also seem to be some bugs in this, just look at Hamburg, Germany...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
non-chalad 2y ago
And Berlin is missing it's famous landmark TheBerg.

Aachen 2y ago

The ratio/prioritisation of detail in cities to shorelines seems oddly skewed towards including more cities over having accurate borders or shorelines It's showing an entire province in the Netherlands as disconnected from the rest of the country, like it's an island (it's not), but knows to name five cities inside of that province, several of which basically on top of each other. (The inclusion of the afsluitdijk, on the other hand, is unnecessary detail imo but I get that it's hard to programmatically select those tweaks about what's considered land which it needs to draw and just some sea infrastructure) I should open a ticket on the issue tracker but am not logged in on mobile so the best I can do atm is an HN comment. If someone else has a moment and feels the same way, feel free to cite this comment towards shifting the ratio a little! Or introducing a minimum separation distance between cities, or getting a smaller overall file, whatever the ideal solution may be but the current ratio is a tad unnecessary

bopjesvla 2y ago

I've published a nightly version [1] that removes fjords and adds more detail elsewhere. It also generally has a higher resolution. The reason I originally didn't do the latter is because old phones, especially those running Firefox for Android, can crash while drawing large amounts of polygons. I have since optimized the drawing procedure, but beware! [1] https://tinyworldmap.com/beta.html https://tinyworldmap.com/beta.html

jlv2 2y ago

I noticed that all of the New York City metropolitan area was replaced with a single angled line, cutting off several large islands supporting a few million in population.

jlv2 2y ago
I see this is improved in today's Nightly Demo link, but I still find the result too low fidelity.