New path rendering

[sb12]

I've recently seen a lot of issues regarding cycleways, footways and stairs, so I thought what about a complete new rendering for paths similar to the German OSM Style.

This pull requests changes the following:

• Paths are not rendered as thin lines/dots any more, but similar to roads with a width.
• Footways and stairs are not rendered in "Salmon" anymore, but in the same color as pedestrian areas.
• Paved paths are rendered same as footways
• Paths that are shared by bicycles and footways (path with bicyle=designated and foot=designated, footway with bicycle=yes, cycleway with foot=yes) are rendered with a blue grey dashed outline

This solves the following issues:

• solves Rendering cycleway with pedestrians #1321 Rendering cycleway with pedestrians
• solves highway=steps are too prominent #1307 highway=steps color change
• solves Admin borders look like paths #1248 Admin borders look like paths
  ... and probably some more

Some possible issues with this style:

• Confusion between cycleways and water features
• Tracks should be adapted as well for consistency
• Service roads have the same width as paths

Example images:

Low zoom:

High zoom:

Bridges:

Tunnels:

Bridleway / path high zoom:

This is just a suggestion and there is still some room for improvement (especially for bridlway and unpaved paths).
I just first wanted to see what people think about such a change before putting more work into it.

As this is my first major pull request for OSM carto I'm also very happy about any suggestions for code improvement.

[RAytoun]

@sb12 I am in favour of paths and tracks rendered similar to roads at this zoom level and it allows for a number of different lines and fills to extend the classifications of use and leaves a lot more single line options open for the other features that require single line rendering.

[matkoniecz]

Failed — The Travis CI build failed

@sb12 See https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#editing-layers - it seems that you need to run ./scripts/yaml2mml.py < project.yaml > project.mml && touch project.mml

[sb12]

Failed — The Travis CI build failed

Fixed. Thanks @mkoniecz

[matkoniecz]

@sb12

As this is my first major pull request for OSM carto I'm also very happy about any suggestions for code improvement.

Wildcards (like in substr(surface, 0, 11) = 'cobblestone') are considered inferior to checking for explicit values (see implementation of rare shop types). Also, some known paved surface values are missing (I noticed lack of surface=wood and surface=metal).

Paved paths are rendered same as footways

It is important decision whatever highway values should directly correspond to render style. What about unpaved highway=footway? What about paved tracks? Is it necessary to make clear whatever way is tagged as highway=track/path like it is done now?

Personally I think it would be a good idea to use current highway=track style to render minor unpaved roads and highway=service for paved tracks.

[Rovastar]

This will need further discussion as it is a large effecting change.

I would like to see before and after pics.
pics showing multiple ways like pedestrian, path, etc

Not sure about fixing a style for paved for this one thing.

I would prefer a integrated solution for all paved./unpaved ways.
just doing one tiny aspect of this can led to confusion now or later.

Probably best doing separate pull requests for each issue.

[imagico]

I think this would need some more work - rendering foot/cycleways wider than tracks does not seem a good idea. Also make sure to test it in areas with very dense path mapping - like here.

[sb12]

Thanks for your feedback.

Wildcards (like in substr(surface, 0, 11) = 'cobblestone') are considered inferior to checking for explicit values (see implementation of rare shop types). Also, some known paved surface values are missing (I noticed lack of surface=wood and surface=metal).

For now I added all values that are mentioned in the wiki as paved (for some reason wood and metal are considered to be unpaved in the wiki?).
The aim of the wildcards was to also cover values like surface=paving_stones:20 and surface=cobblestone:10 etc. which are valid values according to the wiki.

But anyway:

I would prefer a integrated solution for all paved./unpaved ways.
just doing one tiny aspect of this can led to confusion now or later.

I added the surface value because I wanted to get rid of the path controversies. (What's the difference between a path and a footway etc.)
It's probably better to ignore the surface for now and just have three different styles of paths:

• path for pedestrians
• path for pedestrians and cyclists
• path only for cyclists

For low zoom levels (e.g. <= 16) it might be an option to have the same style for all paths. This also solves the issue of cycleways being confused with rivers.

The surface issue can be solved later then.

I think this would need some more work - rendering foot/cycleways wider than tracks does not seem a good idea.

I agree that it does need more work, especially regarding tracks. But this pull request wasn't meant to be merged like it is, it was mainly supposed to be a base for discussion whether such a major change in style could solve the footway and path problems.

If we agree that this might be a solution, the process would be probably like this:

• change track style, so that tracks are wider than footways.
• change the footway style similar to this pull request.
• optional: solve the paved/unpaved issue

I would like to see before and after pics.
pics showing multiple ways like pedestrian, path, etc

Some before and after pictures:

Also make sure to test it in areas with very dense path mapping - like here.

[kocio-pl]

These pictures are quite convincing for me, but I would also add a z=13 example - just for completeness.

[imagico]

Thanks for the additional examples - i think the contrast on urban landuses is not sufficient and i also don't really like the dashed casing which seems quite disturbing and not really that readable.

In general it seems to look quite reasonable in urban environments but much less so in for rural paths. Here the black dashed rendering currently used for highway=path seems to work quite well and it will be difficult to improve on that in a way that looks well readable on all kinds of background.

[matkoniecz]

Footways are significantly prettier and (for me) without readability lost. But cycleways are not recognizable (cycleway looks like footway with ditches). Rendering fill blue would make it river-like, so I see no obvious solution.

Is it possible to make some before/after in rural area with low road and footway density? For now only z16 is presented - and it is in forest what makes it easier to notice white lines.

Maybe it would be better to ignore highway=path and surface for now (it has many open questions, starting from "what should be considered as paved").

[matkoniecz]

And thanks for this proposal, it is a really promising idea.

[daganzdaanda]

Nice, I like the close-ups a lot already!

For the record, here is the last time footways and cycleways have been changed and discussed at length: #747
How would your style look in an area like https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/52.9232/-0.8588 ?

[sb12]

These pictures are quite convincing for me, but I would also add a z=13 example - just for completeness.

See first picture of "Schwetzingen" in my last post.

Is it possible to make some before/after in rural area with low road and footway density? For now only z16 is presented - and it is in forest what makes it easier to notice white lines.

Sorry I didn't really find a good rural area with paths and without forest in the area my database covers.
But here are some footways (actually mapped as cycleways) on agricultural area (see http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/49.3003/8.5597 for before pictures):

The contrast on farmland is not very good, yet, especially on level 13 and 15, so this needs a bit more tweaking. Maybe for levels 13 to 15 it is enough to have a grey or light salmon line without casing.

i think the contrast on urban landuses is not sufficient

Would it help to give footways and pedestrian roads a red (salmon) casing:

i also don't really like the dashed casing which seems quite disturbing and not really that readable.

What about smaller dashes:

But cycleways are not recognizable (cycleway looks like footway with ditches).

I'm also not that happy with the cycleways. See for example here they look like water features:

A possible solution might be to make the blue less strong with the drawback that it is harder to distinguish between footways and cycleways. This way also the dashes for mixed cycle/footways might be less disturbing. See e.g. the German OSM Style for a reference: http://openstreetmap.de/karte.html?zoom=15&lat=48.99818&lon=8.3766&layers=B000TT

[matkoniecz]

I'm also not that happy with the cycleways. See for example here they look like water features:

Random untested (for now) idea: what about solid fill like light orange/pink/green or strong green?

Would it help to give footways and pedestrian roads a red (salmon) casing:

Main result of this change is making map uglier.

[matthijsmelissen]

Thanks for the work so far. Some more comments:

• I'm not sure if with the wider rendering it's clear footways can't be used by cars.
• Footways look bad on forest backgrounds on z<14.
• It might be confusing for mappers that pedestrian and footway look so similar.

[matkoniecz]

It might be confusing for mappers that pedestrian and footway look so similar.

Maybe bigger difference would be good but it is way better than current situation with massive difference in rendering despite minor difference in meaning (compared to other features).

[kocio-pl]

@mkoniecz: +1

[RobJN]

I feel that we should focus most on the paved/unpaved tag, and bicyle routes. The bicycle=yes, foot=not combination seems a bit specialist for a general map. As does the segregated, non-segretad tag.

My suggestion:

• Up to zoom 16 render as lines (like highway=path for non-bicycle access, and like highway=cycleway for bicycle access)
• From zoom 17+ start rendering paved with a width. The red casing is not needed but perhaps keep blue casing for bicycle access. Unpaved continues as line.
• Change colour of highway=steps.

This drops the use of red (like highway=footway) entirely.

[scaidermern]

Actually I like the current red dashed rendering of footways. It makes it really obvious that these ways can't be used by motor vehicles. Changing the style like suggested above makes the map look nicer, but it becomes less useful as footways look too similar to residential ways.

[kocio-pl]

Highway=pedestrian already looks more like residential ways, but I heard no complaints about it.

[sb12]

I now updated the pull request:

• I dropped the changes regarding surfaces from the PR. This should be discussed separately
• This PR now only covers footways and cycleways
• I changed the style for low zoom levels
• Footways and Cycleways have the same style on level 16 and lower
• Shared Foot- and Cycleways are shown dashed only from level 17.

Unfortunetely something went wrong while updating the PR and I cannot reopen it. Please see #1359 for the update.