[OSM-talk] map icons - OSM Mapnik

sergio sevillano sergio at tumbao.ws
Mon Aug 18 15:23:17 BST 2008



-------- Mensaje original --------
Asunto: 	Re: OSM map icons help
Fecha: 	Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:42:23 +0200
De: 	Ulf Lamping <ulf.lamping at web.de>
Para: 	Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org>
CC: 	sergio sevillano <sergio at tumbao.ws>
Referencias: 
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Frederik Ramm schrieb:
> Hi Sergio,
> 
>> just hapens that i´ve been working on a set of icons specifically 
>> intended for OSM, basically POIs.
>> that i´ll be happy to release them as public domain if the community 
>> acepts them.
> 
> That sounds good!

ACK :-)

> 
>> before i start i need some questions to be solved:
>> · what .svg format is used (2.0 1.0 tinny....)
> 
> I have no idea.

Basically what inkscape uses. The files don't seem to indicate any svg 
format, and I'm really not an expert on this ...

> 
> We use symbols in - at least - three different places. We have two map 
> renderers - Osmarender and Mapnik - that use symbols, and we have an 
> Editor - JOSM - that can display symbols. There are other editors as 
> well using their own symbols, plus myriad map display apps (GPSDrive, 
> Navit and so on).
> 
> Of these, only Osmarender uses SVG symbols. Osmarender uses SVG version 
> 1.1. JOSM only works with bitmap images. Mapnik currently only works 
> with bitmap images but they are working on SVG support I think.
> 
>> · which is the color palette (or constraints of display so i can find 
>> the best color palette)
> 
> This is hard do answer in a general fashion. Both Mapnik and Osmarender 
> generate map tiles for the web. I guess that as long as your symbols 
> don't use too many colours, anything goes. But currently due to the mix 
> of styles, the symbols probably together use 100 colors or so, which 
> leaves too little for the maps.
> 
>>     i believe most of the icons come from 
>> http://www.gpsdrive.de/development/map-icons/overview.en.shtml
>>     is their color and sizes the ones OSM wants to use?
> 
> These icons are not generally used in the renderers, but by the GPSDrive 
> program which uses OSM data.

The size JOSM elemstyle (mappaint) uses is 16*16 pixels max, which is 
probably a good rule of thumb for other rendering related stuff, but 
this is only my personal opinion.

There wasn't any discussion about the number of colors used. To be 
honest, I don't feel that this is a real problem today (giving todays 
true color displays) but I may be wrong here.
> 
>> · wich are the categories that are used in order to classify and 
>> select a color squeme for each. are they this?:
>>     
>> http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/share/map-icons/README.icons
> 
> This also relates to the GPSDrive icons. I believe they have been 
> proposed as a general-use set of icons for OSM, and may also be used in 
> the JOSM editor, but not on the map renderers. The icons are rather 
> colourful and IMHO not very well suited for displaying them on a map 
> that uses colors to distinguish map features; such icons tend to be 
> monochrome.

Well, first of all, the current set of icons used in JOSM is colorful 
and this is mostly my fault :-) My primary goal for the JOSM icons I 
"painted" was simply to have *any* icons that makes at least a little 
sense for mappers and are recognizable.

Anyway, I don't know if I agree with Frederik that map icons need to be 
monochrome ;-)

> 
>> · i found this page as the closest 
>> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Map_Icons
>>     created by Ulfl but basically abandoned since then. are this the 
>> accepted rules?
> 
> OpenStreetMap has no body that could accept or reject rules. I don't 
> know if Ulf Lamping is still working on the icon stuff or not. 
>From time to time.

I believe
> that the goal has been (and still is) to get the renderers to work with 
> a standard set of icons as well. This not only involves selecting the 
> icon style but also deciding on which zoom level which objects will be 
> visible. It is a very complex job and cannot be done in one go.

Unfortunately (IMHO, but Frederik will probably have a different 
opinion), every renderer is keeping it's own set of icons, rules, ...
> 
>> · how can i present the icons i´ve done so far.?

simplest idea might be to have a screenshot with lot's of icons, so 
people get an idea ...

> 
> If you are willing and able to work with SVG and XML, then you could 
> install Osmarender on your system and download a well mapped region, say 
> Munich or London, and render it locally. This will result in an SVG file 
> showing a map of the area. You can then change the Osmarender rules file 
> to use your icons and re-render the map. This would be something people 
> would look at ("look here I have drawn London with my new symbols"). But 
> you could also just create a new icon category on Ulf's wiki page and 
> upload them there.
> 
> Note that, as Ulf has written on the page, typical icon categories don't 
> always fit OSM and vice versa. For example. a restaurant is tagged 
> amenity=restaurant and a hotel is tourism=hotel, but in an icon 
> collection you would usually have the icons for hotel and restaurant 
> side by side.

To be honest, I'm no longer convinced that "my idea" of using the 
gpsdrive schema to keep the icons is a pretty good idea at all. I mean 
the only applications I know using these icon schemas are gpsdrive and 
JOSM, and this scheme might be the reason why others are not using it at 
all ...

> 
> I have Cc'ed Ulf on this email but you don't have to be shy, just post 
> on the "talk" mailing list about your icons and see what responses you 
> get ;)

ACK

Regards, ULFL








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