Rendering name with very close characters, hard to read

[jase88]

Hello,

The characters of natural=water are very close so that you can not differentiate between "rn" or "m".
example Kernersee

see live at http://osm.org/go/0MEnwKXYl

This seems to affect also other objects like streets, see
http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/51.54463/6.84936

This is of course also depending on the zoom level. Hopefully this can be improved.

Thanks in advance!

[polarbearing]

I assume you mean you can not differentiate between them?
The typographic term is kerning, is that adjustable in carto?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerning

[HolgerJeromin]

iirc kerning is about top-heavy chars with next char is bottom-heavy. This is the case between "Ke" but not between "rn".

[matthijsmelissen]

Is this an issue already present in the font (DejaVu Sans Oblique)? This is how it looks in OpenOffice:

Upstream reports can be done here: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/

[daganzdaanda]

The "rn" combination is actually used in textbooks to show that sans-serifs are a bit less "stable" than serifs when it comes to close spacing.
Kerning is usually coded into a font, and optimized for a normal reading size (e.g. 9 or 10pt). Smaller sizes may not work as well. Also, at a small size the hinting and anti-aliasing on a screen interfere with what you get. And some programs just ignore the kerning tables.

Here, the outline / halo fuses in some places, and makes the letters look even closer than they are.
I'd just increase the letter-spacing (tracking) for all the letters a bit, maybe 2px.

Optionally, we could space all the letters evenly over the whole lake (if that's possible).

[matthijsmelissen]

I'd just increase the letter-spacing (tracking) for all the letters a bit, maybe 2px.

This is possible, but would look bad for Arabic, see here.

[matthijsmelissen]

Other example in OpenOffice:

[matthijsmelissen]

Reported upstream, let's see what they think.

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89393

[fkv1]

Also, at a small size the hinting and anti-aliasing on a screen interfere with what you get.

Anti-aliasing should be turned off for every kind of text altogether. It makes the text blur without delivering any real benefit. Additional examples at #2028.

[matthijsmelissen]

This might be fixed in Mapnik3 as well.