On 2 June 2014 10:15, David Clark <[1][email protected]> wrote: I've been mapping stuff on OSM for a while but I've recently started doing my own rendering for gps. From this I've gained a new insight into the highway=path tag so am posting here. Firstly my focus is on tracks and trails so that is where I'm coming from. For a long time I've been tagging for the renderer, using highway=footway for paved footways and highway=path for unpaved footways. I only just realised that this is wrong and I should use the surface tag for that. The basics of what I have noticed is that a lot ways are tagged highway=path with no other information. I have found this to be a difficult problem when it comes to rendering. The highway=path tag is a little different to the other highway tags. Firstly it covers quite a broad range of features for walking, cycling, horse riding. The modes of transport permitted is usually covered by the tags, foot=yes bicycle=yes motorcycle=yes horse=yes Secondly it has no default surface type. For example roads default is paved unless otherwise specified, highway=track defaults to unpaved. Highway=path doesn't have a default. It would be safe to assume that if there is no surface tag, then it is most likely unpaved, most of the time if it were paved it would have been tagged highway=footway or highway=cycleway. I tried this assumption and found it didn't work. Many paths with no other tags, some paved some unpaved with no consistency. I was hoping the above assumption would work but it didn't. There are lots of bushwalking tracks tagged highway=path and nothing else. Lots of paved paths tagged highway=path and nothing else. Before messing around with rendering I would tag as highway=path and not bother too much with the other assortment of tags. Partly this is because there are heaps of tags that can be used and there was no particular direction on their priority or importance of use. For rendering I really need a surface tag included to separate the paths into practical catagories. Having no surface tag results in such a large mix of data that it becomes impractial to define any further. However if the surface=paved,dirt.. whatever is used the usefulness of the data is massively increased. For rendering I (and other examples of rendering I have seen) use the highway=path, surface=paved,dirt..etc tag to split the data into paths that are paved and paths that are not paved. This results in a practical ability to split surfaced paths (butumen, cement, pavers etc) and trails (gravel, dirt etc). I'd like to see the difference between: walking trails, dirt trails, single track etc. highway=footway + surface=ground, highway=path + surface = ground, what do you mean by single track? and paved paths, bitumen paths, concrete paths etc. highway=footway + surface=paved,asphalt, concrete Secondly I think this is worth adding to the Australian Tagging Guidelines wiki in some form. ie "Please add the surface=paved,dirt,..,.. etc when tagging paths. Preferred minimum being paved or dirt." There are a lot of bushwalking tracks tagged as highway=path, I think that these should actually be highway=footway + surface=ground if they are signposted as walking tracks. Perhaps if they are just tracks with no sign postings then highway=path applies? I'm not sure either way this primary key highway=footway|path becomes less important when the way has a tags for foot,bicycle,width,surface,sac_scale,etc. The Australian Tagging Guidelines says to tag them highway=path, foot=yes. I think surface=unpaved or dirt or ground should be included too. _______________________________________________ Talk-au mailing list [2][email protected] [3]https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au References 1. mailto:[email protected] 2. mailto:[email protected] 3. https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
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