[Tagging] Reviving the path discussion - the increasing importance of trails in OSM

Warin 61sundowner at gmail.com
Sun May 24 00:01:58 UTC 2020


As it is the minimum width that will limit passage, I would prefer to 
see the minimum with tagged not the average width.

On 23/5/20 3:23 am, Daniel Westergren wrote:
>
>     In the short term, it's okay to tag an estimated, average width.
>     If it's 1 to 0.3 meters, use 0.5 - this still shows a difference
>     from a path which is 1.5 to 4 meters wide (which you might
>     estimate as 2.5 meters?).
>
>
> Perhaps it could be added to the 
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dpath that width is 
> for the tread on the ground and that for sections that vary in width, 
> break them down or estimate an average width? Then it will be more 
> clear for mappers who are reading about how to use width for 
> highway=path particularly.
>
> I would also suggest that smoothness is added in the Tagging section 
> of that page, as it's very helpful when smoothness for a path is 
> added. For now, it's only in the "Useful combination" section and may 
> be missed by many. And by the way, for StreetComplete it's now being 
> discussed to filter for only highway=path|track that either has a 
> smoothness tag with a value of bad or worse, or surface=ground or 
> equivalent, when asking for MTB difficulty.
>
> And lastly, what if something is also added for surface, to describe 
> why it's an important tag to distinguish different kinds of paths from 
> each other?
>
> /Daniel
>
>
>     -- Joseph Eisenberg
>
>     On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 9:22 AM Jake Edmonds via Tagging
>     <tagging at openstreetmap.org <mailto:tagging at openstreetmap.org>> wrote:
>
>         I’m going to throw this in rather randomly but the reason i
>         don’t tag width and surface is that the footpaths I’m mapping
>         vary widely. Getting wider and thinner and going from gravel
>         to dirt to sections with many trees roots. Plus the surface
>         tag is rather subjective.
>
>         Sent from Jake Edmonds' iPhone
>
>>         On 22 May 2020, at 17:48, Daniel Westergren <westis at gmail.com
>>         <mailto:westis at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>         
>>         Yeah, I think in terms of tagging we don't get further in
>>         this discussion. But it has been very valuable to me. I've
>>         done a couple of video tutorials about the basics of mapping
>>         trails in OSM and the next one will be about what tags to use
>>         and why.
>>
>>         They are in Swedish, but I'm planning to do English versions
>>         later as well. It's probably been done before, but I guess we
>>         need to use different ways in this widespread community to
>>         reach mappers to get more useful data to work with.
>>
>>         And regarding rendering of surface... Yeah, both an advantage
>>         and disadvantage of OSM is its diversity. What for many
>>         sounds like the only logical way may conflict with the views
>>         of others.
>>
>>         Great work with your rendering btw! I'd love to discuss more
>>         about that outside of this mailing list, as I'm also helping
>>         out with creating a custom rendering for trail running
>>         purposes. OpenStreetMap is indeed very urban-centred still,
>>         which brings me back to my opening lines of this thread, that
>>         OSM hasn't caught up with how lots of people actually are
>>         using it now, like routing and rendering for hiking, cycling
>>         and running, areas where Google Maps etc. are and will
>>         continue to be way behind.
>>
>>         Thanks for valuable input!!
>>
>>         /Daniel
>>
>>         Den fre 22 maj 2020 kl 17:26 skrev Andy Townsend
>>         <ajt1047 at gmail.com <mailto:ajt1047 at gmail.com>>:
>>
>>             On 22/05/2020 15:55, Daniel Westergren wrote:
>>             > And there actually seems to be a pull request finally
>>             solving the
>>             > paved/unpaved rendering that was opened 7 years ago?!?
>>             >
>>             https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/4137
>>             >
>>             > If that makes it to the default map it will certainly
>>             help people to
>>             > tag surface, because they will see that it makes sense.
>>             >
>>             >
>>             I'm sure you didn't mean it to sound like it, but this
>>             does read
>>             somewhat as if rendering "surface" on paths is somehow
>>             "obvious" and
>>             "easy", and it's an "oversight" that the OSM Carto folks
>>             haven't been
>>             doing it since basically forever.
>>
>>             It's not - I think that pnorman's comment of
>>             https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/3399#issuecomment-596656115
>>
>>             still applies:
>>
>>              > I'm of the opinion that the only way we can get the
>>             cartographic
>>             "space" to render unpaved surfaces is to drop something
>>             else, like
>>             access restriction rendering.
>>
>>             I think that there's another problem with the standard
>>             style as well -
>>             aside from surface rendering it's hugely biased towards
>>             urban centres.
>>             Looking at
>>             https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/53.9023/-0.8856 you
>>             can't see any paths at all at that zoom level due to the
>>             "Central
>>             European Graveyard problem" - compare with
>>             https://map.atownsend.org.uk/maps/map/map.html#zoom=13&lat=53.9006&lon=-0.8795
>>
>>             to see what you're missing.
>>
>>             What we need are concrete suggestions of how to get there
>>             from here,
>>             (and Ture Pålsson's mail of
>>             https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2020-May/052747.html
>>
>>             is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for).
>>
>>             Adding a sane surface rendering in addition to everything
>>             else is hard -
>>             I've not managed it across the board at
>>             https://map.atownsend.org.uk
>>             although that is influenced by sac_scale,
>>             trail_visibility and width.
>>             All suggestions gratefully received, but what's needed
>>             some code that
>>             people can play with and see what the effect is on
>>             various areas and
>>             different zoom levels - not just emails to the tagging list*.
>>
>>             Best Regards,
>>
>>             Andy
>>
>>             * yes, I do realise the irony of "yet another email to
>>             the tagging list"!
>>
>>                   75  Tag:amenity=motorcycle_taxi not approved
>>                   58  Remove non-prefixed versions of 'contact:' scheme
>>                   49  RFC ele:regional
>>                   42  relations & paths
>>                   35  Doorzone bicycle lanes
>>                   34  Permanent ID/URI --- off topic email
>>                   28  Feature Proposal - RFC - Recreational route
>>             relation roles
>>                   27  Reviving the path discussion - the increasing
>>             importance of
>>             trails in OSM
>>
>>
>>

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