Make railways lighter, minor highways less prominent at z8-10 #3538
Comments
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I would change the title to be more clear that it's about lines.
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During my work on the admin boundaries in issue #3526, I also noticed that on z8 and z9 county borders were too thin and railways too prominent. Therefore I made country borders on these zoom levels thicker in #3526. I also tested making railways lighter gray on z8 and z9 and I found it looked better. I didn't show these lighter railways in #3526 because I didn't want to change too many things at the same time. |
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I dont think protected areas borders should be thicker or brighter where the they join/overlap. It makes the map look really scrued up. For instance, in northern California it looks horrible and inconsistant. |
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The question is how to fix it... |
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Protected area borders have shading on the inside. So borders between adjacent areas become twice as thick (shading on both sides). That could be fixed by shading that is centered on the border instead of inside. |
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That's also what I was suspecting. Could you prepare a PR fixing that? |
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Whats the reason for the borders being shaded in the first place? Is there a special reason why protected areas need to have places where they meet more visible compared to other landuse areas that just have a normal line where they meet? |
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These are typically so big, that once you zoom in, it might be hard to know which part is inside and outside the area. Shading gives you a slight hint when the border label is not visible:
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That makes sense. It makes things convoluted at higher zoom levels though. Like these places in northern California at z10 and z11. |
Can you mark this places? |
I tested making them narrower/lighter and it resulted in many people being completely unable to distinguish them from minor roads (I was still able to do that, a small minority was also able but others not). I considered either keeping them in current state or outright removing them as I had no idea for styling other than "narrow black/gray line". |
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Looking at it again - it seems that railway tracks at z8 may be considered for removal or for making them lighter, gray roads are not present at z8. |
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@matkoniecz, here's links to a couple of the places where it does it. https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/39.4740/-122.7755 I don't know if "glowing" is the right word, but there's definitely places where the borders are a lot darker green then others. There doesn't seem to be a difference between the darker and lighter places tagging or distance wise. It just looks bad and inconsistent. |
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I am pretty sure that it is caused by two green lines merging together - so it ends as a single strongly green line. Merging may happen in at least two ways
A similar effect is visible for railway lines with one track (fainter) or multiple tracks (stronger) on low zoom levels. |
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Hhhhmmm makes sense. Something should still be done to tone it down though. |
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@matkoniecz, what about somewhere like this where its a single line but still darker? If its because of the weird nature reserve/national park co tagging, wouldn't it just prioritize one over the other, instead of rendering them both on top of each other since its the same way? |
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On z8-z9 it can be changed, since the area is rendered with green overlay. On z10+ I would leave it until we find something better. |
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@Adamant36 Linked location has two lines close to each other - zoom in (say at https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/40.54189/-121.27477 ) to see names - there are at least two protected areas here sharing borders. |
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Hhhhmmm weird. If you go to edit it looks like only one line and you can't separate it. So....Must be an optical illusion or something. |
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Note that https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/417600197 is a member of three relations:
All three are rendered. (and on top of that has |
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Old 'thinner nature reserve borders' PR to compare -> #2978 |
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Here are some tests with lighter railways on z8 and z9. The idea is to fade in railways while zooming in,
z8 current: z8 with lighter railways: z8 with lighter railways and thicker gray borders: z9 current: z9 with lighter railways: z9 with lighter railways and thicker gray borders: |
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@vholten Looks very promising. I would also consider dropping rendering of smaller cities on z9. |
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I don't feel it helps. Maybe there should be no small grey roads to make lighter railways visible. |
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Dropping placenames at z9? Yet now there are too few of them at places like https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=9/-22.4694/20.2670 |
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Id be in favor of dropping grey roads at some zoom levels. Even in more rural areas they can be distracting and hinder viewing of other more important things. For me at z9 its about viewing major roads like freeways, major water bodies/ways, and landuse. You could even almost get rid of them at z10 and id still probably be perfectly fine with it. |
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Showing gray roads at a later zoom level could help. Currently, secondary roads appear as gray roads on z9 and tertiary roads on z10. I have now changed these to appear one level later, i.e., secondary roads at z10 and tertiary ones at z11. In addition, I have slightly reduced the thickness of the colored roads. z9 current: z9 new: |
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I crop images because a 600x400pixel png is 70 to 90kb, while the
1863x839 image you just shared was 588kb, and I pay per megabyte.
Also, I do not usually look at OSM at full screen size (limited to
1280 pixels in my case, at any rate), but usually at about 800x600.
This is also closer to the size of the map shown on
standard-resolution smart phones.
In the USA, only US highways are clearly tagged as primary, and State
highways are often tagged as secondary, with county roads as tertiary.
See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States_Road_Classification
This proposed change will lead to very few roads rendered in the rural
parts of California, Oregon and Washington at z9 and z10. I suspect
the same is true in Canada and Russia, an I've shown this to be the
case in rural Australia as well.
…On 12/5/18, Adamant36 ***@***.***> wrote:
I say keep them on z10 but get rid of them on z9. You can hardly tell they
are there anyway. Especially next to rivers. That or make them more visible
at least.
I still think though that z9 is too zoomed out for village to village route
planning yet. Especially if they are close together. The cropped images of
Bokondini and Kobakma are a little misleading because it gives the
impression that's all the person would be looking at. With a full map though
view of the area at z9 though its a couple hundred miles (probably more)
that impasses 14 villages, several large mountain ranges/nature reserves,
and an ocean on the bottom right side. That's just the zoom level for trying
to figure out which road I want to take from point A to point B. Even the
visible yellow roads are insignificant at that level. Its good enough to
know that "Oh look, Mula is a little east of Karubaga." There's no reason
people can't zoom into z10 to found out how exactly they are connected by
the road network and in my opinion they should.
Otherwise, start a meta issue and decide what the purpose of each zoom
level is once and for all. There's no online map though that I can think of,
Google maps included, that starts rendering those types of roads that far
out and its usually highly dependent on the place.
Personally, I think its much better to forgo map clutter and bad rendering
in a bunch of places at the expensive of a few places, then it is to keep
rendering something based on the example of a small number of places that
would be negatively effected when people can easily just zoom in one more
level to see what they need to.
(Karubaga at z9 un-cropped to show how the cropped images are misleading)
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#3538 (comment)
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I wasnt trying to insenuate that you were cropping the photos to make them look missleading. So I apologize if it sounded that way. I just think seeing the surrounding area gives it needed context. Plus, its how it would look to a mapper on a computer. One of the main audiences for the style. It might be benificial to keep the roads for the viewing of people on mobile, but I am constantly reminded by people with more clout then me on the various OSM related projects and sites that the main page is not meant to be for mobile users and therefore will never be mobile friendly. So it shouldnt be a factor in this decisions. Although personally, I wish it could be. As I have said, yes a lot of roads in rural areas would disapear on z9, but its just not the zoom level for it. Its not a good zoom level for finding a routing path between towns and renderings roads in grey at that level causes problems with viewing other things like rivers. I have no issue with keeping them at z10. There's no reason people cant zoom in one more level. Its a small price for better rendering. Its a balance. Otherwise, your saying z9 should look bad because its unfair to expect people to use z10 instead. When you have no proof z9 is even being used for routing purposes (it definently doesnt serve a purpose to mappers to show the grey roads at z9). The roads arent "disapearing" either. They are just going down a zoom level where its easier to view them and they dont conflict other things. |
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Am Mi., 5. Dez. 2018 um 07:55 Uhr schrieb Adamant36 <
[email protected]>:
. That or make them more visible at least.
+1, according to the background they are not very visible or hardly visible
at all currently.
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I've tested some renderings in Hawaii, Wales, Northern Ireland,and Delaware. It looks like we have a problem with different standards for the different highway classifications. In Hawaii, Indonesia, parts of the West Coast of the USA and in many developing countries it is common to reserve highway=primary for roads between cities or at least between major towns, while in northern Europe it seems common that most towns are connected by highway=trunk, and even many villages are on a highway=primary. Most villages have at least a highway=secondary. But in Indonesia and Hawaii, many towns (>10,000 people) have only a secondary or tertiary highway under the current system. I'm willing to talk about this with the US Tagging list (unfortunately there is no active list for Indonesia), but I don't know if USA mappers are interested in using highway=trunk instead of highway=primary for most US highways and major state highways, so that highway=primary can be used for frequently. Oahu to Maui, current z9: z9 without secondary highways:
Maui z10, current z10, no tertiary
Oahu z10, current
Hawaii (Island), current z9: z9 without secondary:
Hawaii, z10 z10 without tertiary
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Wales, z8 - this will not change Northern Wales, z9 Before Without secondary highways
Pwllheli z10 current z12 - yes, there are roads and villages here Southern Wales, z9 current Without secondary highways Swansea z10 current Without tertiary z12 - to show villages and tertiary roads clearly |
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Northern Ireland has a large number of trunk roads, which connect most of the towns. There are a couple of places where removing secondary roads at z9 might be a problem, but removing tertiary from z10 will not be harmful in this area. Northern Ireland, z8
z9 Current Without secondary Derry z10 Current Enniskillen z10 Current |
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Delaware has many roads tagged at highway=trunk connecting the main towns. It looks like a few places are tagged as villages that might actually qualify as towns in the southwest corner? But there is certainly no problem with removing secondary roads here, and hiding tertiary roads on z10 will look nice in Delaware: z10 before z10 without tertiary |
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@jeisenbe, there's a page on the wiki about USA road tagging and it seems like there was any agreement reached as to how it should be. So I'm not sure your statement about them using highway=trunk instead of highway=primary for most US highways and major state highways necessarily holds true. There's wide variance here depending on the state and the whims of the mappers. A lot of it probably has to do with lack of education about road classifications (most people I've talked to about the subject don't even know they exist or that something like urban planning is a thing). Plus, people have a major tendency to re-tagged things that are already tagged correctly based on their whim anyway. Also, the TIGER import screwed most of the roads up here a while ago and largely hasn't been fixed. It made a lot of roads more minor then they should have been and wrongly tagged a large amount of track/service roads as residential. So I don't think we should use America or reading into it as an example of why to go through with idea. It should be based on if things look better or not in those areas, but not on the theoretical preferences of the mappers here. Although, its still worth bringing up in the USA talk list anyway. |
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@jeisenbe, also just for clarification are you against this road change completely, just with certain road types, or? Further, have put any thought or done any tests on the suggesting made by and Dieterdreist just to make the roads more visible instead? I'm not that up on how road rendering works, but I might be into just making them easier to see instead of getting rid of them. I'd like to see test renderings of both to compare the options though. So if you want to forgo disappearing roads for now, since we all essentially get what it entitles, and work making them more visible instead that would be good. Its pretty obvious at this point that some places would benefit from them being removed and some wouldn't. |
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Anybody interested in fixing protected area borders on z8-z9? |
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I think we should focus on original propositions of this ticket and eventually come back to dropping tertiary roads on z10 at the end (examples above shown that dropping secondary roads on z9 is a bad idea).
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I've experimented more with making railways less prominent. On z8 this can be done easily: there are no gray roads, so there is no possible confusion between railways and roads. On z9, secondary roads are shown in gray. If railways are made lighter, it becomes harder to distinguish secondary roads from railways. A possible solution is to remove secondary roads from z9, but this is controversial. Another solution is to make secondary roads a bit lighter as well. Here I show the result of the following changes on z9:
z9 before: z9 after: |
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Surely it's an improvement, but I have some remarks to consider:
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My intention was to avoid user thinking that gray lines on z8 are roads (maybe costs of this make it not worth doing, I just wanted to explain reasons for that). |
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We could also solve this problem by changing the road spectrum, with
motorways in violet/purple. Then secondary roads would be yellow-orange and
could be displayed in this color instead of gray at z9, and railways could
be lighter at z8 and z9 without confusion.
(Secondary can’t be shown as the current yellow at z9 and z10 because the
yellow has poor contrast with land-color and farmland)
…On Sat, Dec 15, 2018 at 5:27 AM Mateusz Konieczny ***@***.***> wrote:
On z8 this can be done easily: there are no gray roads, so there is no
possible confusion between railways and roads.
My intention was to avoid user thinking that gray lines on z8 are roads
(maybe costs of this make it not worth doing, I just wanted to explain
reasons for that).
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@jeisenbe I'm sure that adding more colours will rather make this mess bigger instead of reduce it. |
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I'd like to see minor unclassified roads rendered differently then residential. So if adding more colors would help with that I'm for it. Otherwise, not so much and I agree with @Tomasz-W omasz-W that it would just be over complicating things. The only other viable solution I see is not rendering minor roads at higher zoom levels. Otherwise, you'll have to reinvent the whole wheel just to patch a small hole in the outer tube (in this case changing the rendering of all or most of the roads, just to make railroads look better. To me it seems a way better option would be the road rendering deprioritizion option, which would resolve other issues also, but that's already been shot down due to the few examples where it would be a problem (which is really debatable anyway), at the expense of the many places that would benefit from it. Implementing some of @Tomasz-W suggestions in #3538 (comment) might work also (including a railway pattern). I'd like to see them tried out first before the wheel reinvention commences. |
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A railway pattern would be a way to distinguish railways from roads, but the pattern that we currently use would make railways even more prominent at low zooms instead of less. The TileMill documentation has an example with a more subtle railway pattern:
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@vholten, to me its 50/50 between making it less prominent versus making it clearly distinguishable from roads. A patter might make it stand out more, but at least its clear its a railroad that way. I'm not sure if it balances out though. |
jeisenbe
changed the title
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Updated title to match 2 remaining suggestions: lighter railways, less prominent minor highways at z8-10. |
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-1 to lighter railways, the dark color is required to distinguish them from
roads. Current railway color is quite intuitive.
Minor highways aren't shown at all at z8, and are unobtrusive in z9 and 10,
if they would be even less prominent they would be hard to see at all.
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Agreed. I'm inclined to close this issue, since the test images above did not seem to be a clear improvement in all areas. The current use of highway tags is quite different in places like England vs developing countries and North America, so it's difficult to get an ideal rendering for all countries with a global stylesheet. Rendering tertiary or secondary roads at a later zoom level would be an improvement in places like England, but not in western Australia or eastern Indonesia. And currently roads and railways keep mostly the same colors at different zoom levels - changing railways to a lighter color would make it more difficult to distinguish them from minor roads. |
Zoom levels 8, 9 and 10 looks like a unreadable colorful spagetti in some places at the moment:
Examples:
https://www.openstreetmap.org//#map=8/49.246/15.430
https://www.openstreetmap.org//#map=9/51.0811/5.8173
https://www.openstreetmap.org//#map=10/50.2498/19.2906
https://www.openstreetmap.org//#map=10/53.5550/-2.0627
Problems to solve:
I believe it could be cleaned similar as z13-14 was in #3467.
What do you think about it? Do you see a problem there, too?
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