Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
Now a SURVEY would be fine, where multiple answers are allowed: Mode: motorbike Date: 2015-01-01 Rating: Easy User:fester Mode: car Date: 2015-02-01 Rating: Easy User:fsdfsfs Mode: motorbike Date: 2015-04-01 Rating: Impassable User:fester ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
On Sun, 2015-03-15 at 16:58 +, Kytömaa Lauri wrote: So far, nobody has proposed what I have come to think would be the most exact and most usable bit of information a _mapper_ can provide: Did you get through with transport mode x? Possible answers are: - no - just barely - with extra effort/concentration/some difficulty - yes That is most certainly the info people want and need but I'd suggest your approach may be a little too detailed. With (eg) four possible states and a plan to describe just about every vehicle on the road, too much data and too difficult to use. I do believe we, as mappers, need to make some decisions, its not too hard to divide our vehicles into, say, six or so categories and apply just a yes/no to each. Yes, its error prone but the error would be only one level and would still be infinitely more valuable than no info at all. David What constitutes some difficulty for each mode can be discussed more easily; i.e. for roller skates (never have) ruts, sett, tram tracks(?), but not curbs as such? These can be tabularized in the wiki later. If you're in a regular sedan, you can steer around the potholes and slow down (i.e. concentration), but if the wheels have to follow a very narrow path or the bottom of the vehicle would hit the ground, it's just barely for regular sedans. Or whatever local conditions the mapper comes across. Surely, if the track is just barely traversable in a highly modified off road vehicle of brand Y with extras from brands Z and W, the driver of any other vehicle can assume they won't be able to use the track. I haven't drafted the actual tags in detail, but I do have used - police:mondeo=yes (originally as here I saw a Mondeo use the footway, but later also I've seen other vehicles drive here or it's obvious a normal car could physically use this) - police:mondeo=no - police:transporter:conditional=no @ (winter 2wd) ( as in here I saw a VW Transporter fail to get up the incline on a footway) The keys for a more general suitable for use tagging would have a prefix, a separator character (probably ':'), the general vehicle category possibly followed by more details (either a model, or something like high clearance), and the optional accessories would use the :conditional syntax. known_suitable:motorcar = barely known_suitable:motorcar:911 = no known_suitable:motorcar:high_clearance = effort known_suitable:Range_Rover = yes The first driver can always add just the one tag that applies to their vehicle. This might seem like a lot of work, but we have time, and mappers; enough data will accumulate with patience. ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
2015-03-15 17:58 GMT+01:00 Kytömaa Lauri lauri.kyto...@aalto.fi: So far, nobody has proposed what I have come to think would be the most exact and most usable bit of information a _mapper_ can provide: Did you get through with transport mode x? Possible answers are: - no - just barely - with extra effort/concentration/some difficulty - yes while I believe this is a working approach, I think it should be (in some cases that come to mind) more granual spatially: often ways tend to be not uniform but have changing surface and other characteristics along the way, so I would split the way into smaller parts with common attributes / properties. Cheers, Martin ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
This is something worth considering IMO. We can't seem to come to an agreement on which system to use, numeric or descriptive, and perhaps part of the problem is the difficulty in deciding exactly which grade to pick. Maybe having fewer choices would result in more agreement and make the tag easier to use. On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 4:28 PM, Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdre...@gmail.com wrote: 2015-03-15 17:58 GMT+01:00 Kytömaa Lauri lauri.kyto...@aalto.fi: So far, nobody has proposed what I have come to think would be the most exact and most usable bit of information a _mapper_ can provide: Did you get through with transport mode x? Possible answers are: - no - just barely - with extra effort/concentration/some difficulty - yes while I believe this is a working approach, I think it should be (in some cases that come to mind) more granual spatially: often ways tend to be not uniform but have changing surface and other characteristics along the way, so I would split the way into smaller parts with common attributes / properties. Cheers, Martin ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging -- Dave Swarthout Homer, Alaska Chiang Mai, Thailand Travel Blog at http://dswarthout.blogspot.com ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
Jan van Bekkum wrote: There are two fundamental approaches to this and I believe that in this discussion the two are mixed: 1. The physical status of the road is described 2. The tagger determines how hard it will be to use Over the years, I've seen the different assessment ideas and tagging ideas on the wiki and on this list. I believe these try to integrate too many variables into a single grade; and measuring 30 different physical characteristics is also too slow and quite hard for the consumers trying to calculate if they should suggest using or avoiding that way for any given transport mode. So far, nobody has proposed what I have come to think would be the most exact and most usable bit of information a _mapper_ can provide: Did you get through with transport mode x? Possible answers are: - no - just barely - with extra effort/concentration/some difficulty - yes What constitutes some difficulty for each mode can be discussed more easily; i.e. for roller skates (never have) ruts, sett, tram tracks(?), but not curbs as such? These can be tabularized in the wiki later. If you're in a regular sedan, you can steer around the potholes and slow down (i.e. concentration), but if the wheels have to follow a very narrow path or the bottom of the vehicle would hit the ground, it's just barely for regular sedans. Or whatever local conditions the mapper comes across. Surely, if the track is just barely traversable in a highly modified off road vehicle of brand Y with extras from brands Z and W, the driver of any other vehicle can assume they won't be able to use the track. I haven't drafted the actual tags in detail, but I do have used - police:mondeo=yes (originally as here I saw a Mondeo use the footway, but later also I've seen other vehicles drive here or it's obvious a normal car could physically use this) - police:mondeo=no - police:transporter:conditional=no @ (winter 2wd) ( as in here I saw a VW Transporter fail to get up the incline on a footway) The keys for a more general suitable for use tagging would have a prefix, a separator character (probably ':'), the general vehicle category possibly followed by more details (either a model, or something like high clearance), and the optional accessories would use the :conditional syntax. known_suitable:motorcar = barely known_suitable:motorcar:911 = no known_suitable:motorcar:high_clearance = effort known_suitable:Range_Rover = yes The first driver can always add just the one tag that applies to their vehicle. This might seem like a lot of work, but we have time, and mappers; enough data will accumulate with patience. -- alv ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 4:59 AM, Felix Hartmann extremecar...@gmail.com wrote: (e.g. a road with some pottholes described as horrible). And with smoothness and other verbal gradings - 10-15% of all ratings seem to be way off because the mapper never read/understood that scale. This in turn makes it impossible to be used in a map because it is too unreliable. +1 on this. The tags are highly unreliable. In part because it's unclear if you are supposed to tag the *worst spot* (one pothole) or the *average experience* (potholes every 3 meters)? A road of sustained moderate sand might be far worse for some vehicles, compared to a road with one deep sand spot. Conversely a deep sand spot might stop certain vehicles that could readily pass over miles of moderate sand. --- I think a description is often far more useful to a map reader: *description*=Forest road well maintained in summer, but not graded during winter. Has two stream crossings with 10 inch high rocks, easily passed on a bicycle or motorbike, but difficult for low clearance vehicles. ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
Am 13.03.2015 um 18:42 schrieb Bryce Nesbitt bry...@obviously.com: A road of sustained moderate sand might be far worse for some vehicles, compared to a road with one deep sand spot. if the problem is the exception I would rather use the hazard tag for this and not downgrade the whole road, if parts of a way are like a and others like b, I'd split the way, if you'd have to split every 2 meters I'd go for the worse rating and not split cheers Martin ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
And description is utterly useless for any kind of automated processing - for example routing. 2015-03-13 18:42 GMT+01:00 Bryce Nesbitt bry...@obviously.com: On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 4:59 AM, Felix Hartmann extremecar...@gmail.com wrote: (e.g. a road with some pottholes described as horrible). And with smoothness and other verbal gradings - 10-15% of all ratings seem to be way off because the mapper never read/understood that scale. This in turn makes it impossible to be used in a map because it is too unreliable. +1 on this. The tags are highly unreliable. In part because it's unclear if you are supposed to tag the *worst spot* (one pothole) or the *average experience* (potholes every 3 meters)? A road of sustained moderate sand might be far worse for some vehicles, compared to a road with one deep sand spot. Conversely a deep sand spot might stop certain vehicles that could readily pass over miles of moderate sand. --- I think a description is often far more useful to a map reader: *description*=Forest road well maintained in summer, but not graded during winter. Has two stream crossings with 10 inch high rocks, easily passed on a bicycle or motorbike, but difficult for low clearance vehicles. ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
And please do not claim that everyone will look in the wiki what the values actually mean. Please stay realistic ;-) Hmm, mappers or end users ? Honestly, i don't consider either numeric or two or three word tags can be expected to convey enough info. So i would suggest most primary users do need to look at the wiki. Given that, numeric tags would be better at forcing people to look at the wiki ! Words easier to guess and perhaps get wrong ! But I'd not promote that as a model, rest assured. I don't feel strongly about numeric or word based values. Happy with either. So i will start a new thread to flush out who does. David . Martin Vonwald imagic@gmail.com wrote: Hi! 2015-03-13 2:06 GMT+01:00 David dban...@internode.on.net: No, numeric values are not a good choice - really not. I also don't like the values much, but at least it's clear that good is better than bad. But Martin, its not a good or bad situation, thats the point. Some people seek out extremely challenging roads to traverse. While dead smooth is good while getting there, why bother to go there if its going to be smooth all the way ? That's not what I meant. If someone has no idea about the meaning of the values and just look at the existing tags, one may guess correctly, that good means smoother than bad. But what is smoother? grade1 or grade5? And please do not claim that everyone will look in the wiki what the values actually mean. Please stay realistic ;-) And to answer the next argument: but if people don't know the exact meaning and also don't look in the wiki, we can not be sure that they use the values correctly. Yes. We can also not be sure that they use the values correctly IF the look in the wiki. But the chances that we get more appropriate values is much higher with smoothness=good than with smoothness=grade97, because a good smoothness will have a much wider common understanding than smoothness=31415whatever. Best regards, Martin P.S: I'm aware that we will not reach consensus about this on this mailing list ;-) ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
+1 On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 4:45 AM David dban...@internode.on.net wrote: I think this should be resolved with lots and lots of photos.. I think it would be a mistake to put too much emphasis on photos. In my experience, photos very rarely show the true usability of a road or track. It does really need to be looked at in context, the issues averaged out by eye. One, or even a set of snapshots just does not cut it ! And talking of issues, last time this discussion came up, from memory, we identified about 20 separate issues that might need to be considered. So lets not talk about trying to identify measurables. The smoothness tag, as described, already takes the right direction, it tries to judge the usability of the road. And, honestly, thats what people want to know ! Lets improve it with better values, sure a heap of photos if thats what people want. But clear words that describe just what sort of vehicle could traverse the road. So, questions, for better values, numerical or verbal ? Is it acceptable for a tag to have two, parallel sets of values, why not ? If we can get past there, we can then look for more descriptive sets of words David . Janko Mihelić jan...@gmail.com wrote: I think this should be resolved with lots and lots of photos, which the community then segregates into classes. Smoothness on asphalt is something entirely different than smoothness on sand, or smoothness on ground. When a mapper is in doubt, just look at 10 photos which are determined to be grade3, and then you can be sure that's the right value. Janko ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
Hi! 2015-03-13 2:06 GMT+01:00 David dban...@internode.on.net: No, numeric values are not a good choice - really not. I also don't like the values much, but at least it's clear that good is better than bad. But Martin, its not a good or bad situation, thats the point. Some people seek out extremely challenging roads to traverse. While dead smooth is good while getting there, why bother to go there if its going to be smooth all the way ? That's not what I meant. If someone has no idea about the meaning of the values and just look at the existing tags, one may guess correctly, that good means smoother than bad. But what is smoother? grade1 or grade5? And please do not claim that everyone will look in the wiki what the values actually mean. Please stay realistic ;-) And to answer the next argument: but if people don't know the exact meaning and also don't look in the wiki, we can not be sure that they use the values correctly. Yes. We can also not be sure that they use the values correctly IF the look in the wiki. But the chances that we get more appropriate values is much higher with smoothness=good than with smoothness=grade97, because a good smoothness will have a much wider common understanding than smoothness=31415whatever. Best regards, Martin P.S: I'm aware that we will not reach consensus about this on this mailing list ;-) ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
On 13/03/2015 7:00 PM, Martin Vonwald wrote: Hi! 2015-03-13 2:06 GMT+01:00 David dban...@internode.on.net mailto:dban...@internode.on.net: No, numeric values are not a good choice - really not. I also don't like the values much, but at least it's clear that good is better than bad. But Martin, its not a good or bad situation, thats the point. Some people seek out extremely challenging roads to traverse. While dead smooth is good while getting there, why bother to go there if its going to be smooth all the way ? That's not what I meant. If someone has no idea about the meaning of the values and just look at the existing tags, one may guess correctly, that good means smoother than bad. But what is smoother? grade1 or grade5? And please do not claim that everyone will look in the wiki what the values actually mean. Please stay realistic ;-) And to answer the next argument: but if people don't know the exact meaning and also don't look in the wiki, we can not be sure that they use the values correctly. Yes. We can also not be sure that they use the values correctly IF the look in the wiki. But the chances that we get more appropriate values is much higher with smoothness=good than with smoothness=grade97, because a good smoothness will have a much wider common understanding than smoothness=31415whatever. Best regards, Martin P.S: I'm aware that we will not reach consensus about this on this mailing list ;-) I'm for verbal description rather than a number - easier to understand. If I come across a road marked 'smoothness=medium' and later come across a road with worse smoothness I can see which way to go with the verbal value, if the value was a simple number I'd nave no idea..and may skip the data entry due to time limits, laziness and added complexity. Some decades ago I looked at road classifications .. for 'off road' vehicles, I was after erosion problems at the time ... I think there may be some classification system for smoothness .. certainly there was for the load bearing of a terrain. Some US military publication had some tech data in it .. amonst some 40 odd publications I skimmed through at the time. Might try to look that up? Depends on how easy it is to find it in the library catalogue ... it is better than google .. but they have a different system of course. Photos help ... but I'd like some word guidance too. ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
Yes it's easier to understand. But the praxis clearly showed that if we have verbal grading - then the quality is much much worse. I love the intention of smoothness - but in real life the verbal descriptors make it very hard to argue to use it in a map. Not because it is off by +-1 but because in 10-15% of cases I've seen the worse values used, they were plain wrong. (e.g. a road with some pottholes described as horrible). On the other hand tracktype seems to be used pretty consistently. It may be off bei +-1, but usually no more. And with smoothness and other verbal gradings - 10-15% of all ratings seem to be way off because the mapper never read/understood that scale. This in turn makes it impossible to be used in a map because it is too unreliable. On 13 March 2015 at 11:09, Warin 61sundow...@gmail.com wrote: On 13/03/2015 7:00 PM, Martin Vonwald wrote: Hi! 2015-03-13 2:06 GMT+01:00 David dban...@internode.on.net: No, numeric values are not a good choice - really not. I also don't like the values much, but at least it's clear that good is better than bad. But Martin, its not a good or bad situation, thats the point. Some people seek out extremely challenging roads to traverse. While dead smooth is good while getting there, why bother to go there if its going to be smooth all the way ? That's not what I meant. If someone has no idea about the meaning of the values and just look at the existing tags, one may guess correctly, that good means smoother than bad. But what is smoother? grade1 or grade5? And please do not claim that everyone will look in the wiki what the values actually mean. Please stay realistic ;-) And to answer the next argument: but if people don't know the exact meaning and also don't look in the wiki, we can not be sure that they use the values correctly. Yes. We can also not be sure that they use the values correctly IF the look in the wiki. But the chances that we get more appropriate values is much higher with smoothness=good than with smoothness=grade97, because a good smoothness will have a much wider common understanding than smoothness=31415whatever. Best regards, Martin P.S: I'm aware that we will not reach consensus about this on this mailing list ;-) I'm for verbal description rather than a number - easier to understand. If I come across a road marked 'smoothness=medium' and later come across a road with worse smoothness I can see which way to go with the verbal value, if the value was a simple number I'd nave no idea..and may skip the data entry due to time limits, laziness and added complexity. Some decades ago I looked at road classifications .. for 'off road' vehicles, I was after erosion problems at the time ... I think there may be some classification system for smoothness .. certainly there was for the load bearing of a terrain. Some US military publication had some tech data in it .. amonst some 40 odd publications I skimmed through at the time. Might try to look that up? Depends on how easy it is to find it in the library catalogue ... it is better than google .. but they have a different system of course. Photos help ... but I'd like some word guidance too. ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging -- Felix Hartman - Openmtbmap.org VeloMap.org Floragasse 9/11 1040 Wien Austria - Österreich ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
2015-03-13 11:09 GMT+01:00 Warin 61sundow...@gmail.com: I'm for verbal description rather than a number - easier to understand. If I come across a road marked 'smoothness=medium' and later come across a road with worse smoothness I can see which way to go with the verbal value, if the value was a simple number I'd nave no idea..and may skip the data entry due to time limits, laziness and added complexity. Problem with verbal descriptions is, that you don't know how much worse it is, e.g. grade1 vs. grade3 tells you there must also be a grade2, while bad vs. medium doesn't give you any such information. Cheers, Martin ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
2015-03-11 13:53 GMT+01:00 Pieren pier...@gmail.com: I search an adjective about this tag and I hesitate between very_bad and horrible ;-) In my opinion this tag is pretty bad. Btw, what's different today about its verifiability ? I think most of the people rejecting this tag simply ignore the discussions around it. Which is another problem: ignorance never leads to a solution. Especially if those people don't come up with any other - practical and feasible - suggestion. And this brings us back to the tag smoothness. It is completely subjective if the tag is good or bad, excellent or horrible. But it is 100% objective that this is the best tag, simply because it is the only one (please remember: practical and feasible). So I support the removal of the section Controversy. Maybe add some note about the limited verifiability. Best regards, Martin ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
2015-03-11 23:15 GMT+01:00 David dban...@internode.on.net: I consider the definitions quite reasonable for this tag. Yes,there is a degree of subjectiveness there,there has to be given what it is trying to do. Honestly, we really need to got over this dread fear of being subjective. Not everything can be measured in integer numbers, great when it can be but accept it when what is being described is, by its nature, difficult. +1, I believe that the main problem are the value names. If these were called grade1 to grade8 many more people would likely use these values and I guess there would be much fewer objections. The property of smoothness is really quite important to many users of a road, in the more extreme cases likely important to all. The thing is, that these verbal descriptions of a smoothness hierarchy are mostly not easier to apply than any numeric scale. Excellent, good and impassable are exceptions, but you can't tell the dfifference between bad, very_bad, horrible and very_horrible without looking this up in the wiki. I suggest to add another column to the definition which is about objective figures (without removing the use classes), e.g. the biggest grain size you can frequently find on the road (i.e. the biggest rocks / pebbles) and or the size of eventual cracks and holes, the steepness of steps, height of humps, etc. cheers, Martin ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
2015-03-12 7:24 GMT+01:00 Warin 61sundow...@gmail.com: That is a very complex question. You may add bicycle to the vehicles too. Animals and humans .. too? Soft surfaces may not support the vehicle weight (given a tyre size and number). Slippery surfaces may no provide enough traction. Rough surfaces may though a vehicle off the require path. Very rough surfaces may require lots of ground clearance. This might be combined with the above 'rough surface'? +1, an (almost) perfectly smooth surface will likely require low speed because it will be very slippery, a (theoretical) perfectly smooth surface will be unpassable (no traction). These conditions do not typically occur on roads though, save for ice roads ;-) Cheers, Martin ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
+1 But make it 1-8 note grade1-grade8 for simplicity IMHO. The grade1-grade5 for tracktype is an error in itself... It does not matter if it's easier or more difficult - the main thing is that people using it should know what they enter. With the current values like good some mappers just use it without knowing what is behind the value - therefore often rendering smoothness unusable - because the values are unrealiable. On 12.03.2015 10:36, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote: 2015-03-11 23:15 GMT+01:00 David dban...@internode.on.net mailto:dban...@internode.on.net: I consider the definitions quite reasonable for this tag. Yes,there is a degree of subjectiveness there,there has to be given what it is trying to do. Honestly, we really need to got over this dread fear of being subjective. Not everything can be measured in integer numbers, great when it can be but accept it when what is being described is, by its nature, difficult. +1, I believe that the main problem are the value names. If these were called grade1 to grade8 many more people would likely use these values and I guess there would be much fewer objections. The property of smoothness is really quite important to many users of a road, in the more extreme cases likely important to all. The thing is, that these verbal descriptions of a smoothness hierarchy are mostly not easier to apply than any numeric scale. Excellent, good and impassable are exceptions, but you can't tell the dfifference between bad, very_bad, horrible and very_horrible without looking this up in the wiki. I suggest to add another column to the definition which is about objective figures (without removing the use classes), e.g. the biggest grain size you can frequently find on the road (i.e. the biggest rocks / pebbles) and or the size of eventual cracks and holes, the steepness of steps, height of humps, etc. cheers, Martin ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging -- keep on biking and discovering new trails Felix openmtbmap.org www.velomap.org ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
2015-03-12 11:21 GMT+01:00 Martin Vonwald imagic@gmail.com: Is grade1 now excellent or horrible? No, numeric values are not a good choice - really not. I also don't like the values much, but at least it's clear that good is better than bad. it really doesn't help you a lot to know whether good is better than bad, you have to know if good or bad are sufficient for your current means of transport. I'd use grade1 etc. because this is an established scale from tracktype, and should be understandable therefor. To use these values you'll have to look them up, and this can be seen as an advantage: unlike good or bad (which do have precise meaning according to the wiki, but are often used by the expectation the user has of their meaning) it will improve consistency (hopefully). cheers, Martin ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
I think this should be resolved with lots and lots of photos.. I think it would be a mistake to put too much emphasis on photos. In my experience, photos very rarely show the true usability of a road or track. It does really need to be looked at in context, the issues averaged out by eye. One, or even a set of snapshots just does not cut it ! And talking of issues, last time this discussion came up, from memory, we identified about 20 separate issues that might need to be considered. So lets not talk about trying to identify measurables. The smoothness tag, as described, already takes the right direction, it tries to judge the usability of the road. And, honestly, thats what people want to know ! Lets improve it with better values, sure a heap of photos if thats what people want. But clear words that describe just what sort of vehicle could traverse the road. So, questions, for better values, numerical or verbal ? Is it acceptable for a tag to have two, parallel sets of values, why not ? If we can get past there, we can then look for more descriptive sets of words David . Janko Mihelić jan...@gmail.com wrote: I think this should be resolved with lots and lots of photos, which the community then segregates into classes. Smoothness on asphalt is something entirely different than smoothness on sand, or smoothness on ground. When a mapper is in doubt, just look at 10 photos which are determined to be grade3, and then you can be sure that's the right value. Janko ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
I think the judgement words should be taken out of the tags.
*For hiking a horrible trail may be nicer than a smooth one. Stepping
over roots for example is not always unpleasant.*
glassy -
smooth -
rough -
bumpy -
or an measurement
1-20cm
20-30cm
30-50cm
travel:motorcycle={easy:hard:very_hard:impossible}
travel:foot={easy:hard:very_hard:impossible}
travel:wheelchair={easy:hard:very_hard:impossible}
___
Tagging mailing list
Tagging@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
(I think of the roads we drove in Kenya), so any input is welcome even if it isn't perfect. We ran into some nasty surprises during our trip because the road quality wasn't tagged at all. +1. I also widely use smoothness=* in Madagascar. Indeed, I use it to describe practicability of roads or tracks for 4 wheels motor vehicles, in somehow to answer the question: what kind of vehicle do I need to use this road? Despite using it often, I still have to check the wiki time to time to be sure about values definition. I even more dislike tracktype=gradeN that is using numerical values. Maybe, it is time to define a new key/values. We already have mtb:scale and sac_scale. For instance, practicability for cars: practicability=* practicability=no (damaged road) practicability=tractor_only practicability=fourwheeldrive_only (and not 4WD_only to avoid abbreviation) practicability=highclearance_only practicability=normal (default value) practicability=lowclearance Subjectivity still remains. One may consider a road as usable with a high clearance car because it is used by 404 taxi-brousse when another one may not want to use his Porche Cayenne SUV on it. It doesn't really describe smoothness. A road usable with normal vehicles may be driven at 100 km/h or 20 km/h, depending on smoothness. One may define some side scales like: practicability:bicycle=mountainbike_only/trekkingbike_only/citybike/all(defaut) practicability:motorcycle=* My 0,02 . Eric ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
2015-03-12 10:36 GMT+01:00 Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdre...@gmail.com: I believe that the main problem are the value names. If these were called grade1 to grade8 many more people would likely use these values and I guess there would be much fewer objections. Is grade1 now excellent or horrible? No, numeric values are not a good choice - really not. I also don't like the values much, but at least it's clear that good is better than bad. ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
There are two fundamental approaches to this and I believe that in this discussion the two are mixed: 1. The physical status of the road is described as well as possible and it is left to the receiver of this information to judge if he/she can use the road. This is quite complex as many parameter play a role: on gravel and rock roads smoothness is important, on sand roads how soft the sand is, for fords how deep the water is, but also the bottom structure etc. Furthermore it is season dependent: a road may be perfectly OK in the dry season and hardly passable in the rainy season 2. The tagger determines how hard it will be to use the road, irrespective of the reasons why it is hard or easy: there can be different reasons why a road is horrible. This approach requires a distinction between different types of vehicles: I have driven the Turkana route in north Kenya in a small convoy with motorcycles and 4WD cars. Some parts of the road had boulders as big as children's heads and were relatively easy for the 4WD's, but very hard for the motorcycles. However, crossing a small stream with a very steep decline/incline was relatively easy for the motorcycles and very hard for the cars. I would favour the second approach as the judgement is made by someone who was there and has seen it; I admit this is subjective. The approach does require an attribute describing the road per type of vehicle, and sometimes also per season. I share the opinion that grading in words is better than in numbers: in case of hotels 5 stars is the best, for the tracks grade 5 is the worst. So in its most extensive form you would get something like road_quality:car:rainy_seasion=very_poor. On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 11:36 AM Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdre...@gmail.com wrote: 2015-03-12 11:21 GMT+01:00 Martin Vonwald imagic@gmail.com: Is grade1 now excellent or horrible? No, numeric values are not a good choice - really not. I also don't like the values much, but at least it's clear that good is better than bad. it really doesn't help you a lot to know whether good is better than bad, you have to know if good or bad are sufficient for your current means of transport. I'd use grade1 etc. because this is an established scale from tracktype, and should be understandable therefor. To use these values you'll have to look them up, and this can be seen as an advantage: unlike good or bad (which do have precise meaning according to the wiki, but are often used by the expectation the user has of their meaning) it will improve consistency (hopefully). cheers, Martin ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
I think this should be resolved with lots and lots of photos, which the community then segregates into classes. Smoothness on asphalt is something entirely different than smoothness on sand, or smoothness on ground. When a mapper is in doubt, just look at 10 photos which are determined to be grade3, and then you can be sure that's the right value. Janko ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
2015-03-12 12:29 GMT+01:00 Janko Mihelić jan...@gmail.com: I think this should be resolved with lots and lots of photos, which the community then segregates into classes. Smoothness on asphalt is something entirely different than smoothness on sand, or smoothness on ground. I believe the tag smoothness doesn't fit generally for sand surfaces, but asphalt and ground could easily use the same metrics / definitions. Cheers, Martin ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
No, numeric values are not a good choice - really not. I also don't like the values much, but at least it's clear that good is better than bad. But Martin, its not a good or bad situation, thats the point. Some people seek out extremely challenging roads to traverse. While dead smooth is good while getting there, why bother to go there if its going to be smooth all the way ? While i am not keen on numeric values, i think they are the best possible solution. Similarly, i think we need to concentrate on the word description and treat the photos as eye candy. That part is already pretty good. David . Martin Vonwald imagic@gmail.com wrote: 2015-03-12 10:36 GMT+01:00 Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdre...@gmail.com: I believe that the main problem are the value names. If these were called grade1 to grade8 many more people would likely use these values and I guess there would be much fewer objections. Is grade1 now excellent or horrible? No, numeric values are not a good choice - really not. I also don't like the values much, but at least it's clear that good is better than bad. ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
On 12/03/2015 5:39 PM, Friedrich Volkmann wrote: I think that we should explicitly include or exclude steepness in the smoothness definition. Opinions? Exclude. 'Steepness' is covered by the incline tag. There is no mention of width or surface in the smoothness tag.. nor should there be. The surface=concrete can be very smooth, rough or impassable. Still a concrete surface. Numbers? Something like? Very smooth = less than 1 mm bumps (rise/fall) in a 1 square metre area? Impassable = 0.3 m bumps in a 1 square metre area? I'm not suggesting measuring it objectively .. but subjectively it gives an idea? ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
I don't say that the pictures are wrong, but it would be helpful to have perhaps six representative pictures of every level. Related question: does the tag only cover uneven ground or also for example also deep soft sand that may be difficult to cross. The tag surface=sand in itself doesn't tell much how hard is is to pass. What I am looking for is a tag that tells me how much trouble I will have passing irrespective of the importance of the road (highway=*) or the surface. An extra complexity is that the ease of passing may be season dependent (wet sand is easier to drive than dry sand), what about seasonal river crossings (seasonal=yes and ford=yes by itself don't tell the whole story). Smoothness may not be the perfect phrase, but the bottom line question is: how hard is it to pass with a 2WD, 4WD, motorcycle etc. On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 11:25 PM David dban...@internode.on.net wrote: I am a little unsure what the problem is with the pictures. Could you be a bit more specific please Friedrich ? It would be very hard to have a set of pictures that cover every case but, as Jan said, if we are only one level out, thats still very useful information. Honestly, while not very clear, the pictures look about right to me. David . Friedrich Volkmann b...@volki.at wrote: On 11.03.2015 17:29, Jan van Bekkum wrote: Perhaps we can extend the library of pictures in the wiki to give people a better feeling which rating means what. I agree that work on the pictures is needed. The values and their verbal descriptions are approved, and they look sound, while the bogus pictures are not approved and they do not match the definitions. We should either replace those pictures or just delete them. It seems to me that these pictures are the root of most of the controversy and the reason why these tags are ignored by most mappers and data consumers. -- Friedrich K. Volkmann http://www.volki.at/ Adr.: Davidgasse 76-80/14/10, 1100 Wien, Austria ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
On 12/03/2015 5:05 PM, Jan van Bekkum wrote: but the bottom line question is: how hard is it to pass with a 2WD, 4WD, motorcycle etc. That is a very complex question. You may add bicycle to the vehicles too. Animals and humans .. too? Soft surfaces may not support the vehicle weight (given a tyre size and number). Slippery surfaces may no provide enough traction. Rough surfaces may though a vehicle off the require path. Very rough surfaces may require lots of ground clearance. This might be combined with the above 'rough surface'? So that would be 3 measures .. they all have objective measures that give numbers.. very few people would be able to measure and map them though. And, as you say, they all change with weather and traffic. The first vehicle to cross sand has a hard crust .. the next has a softer surface.. after quite a few vehicles you get to a compacted surface... with a covering of soft sand that has fallen back in to the grove. Quantifying it is very difficult. ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
On 11.03.2015 23:23, David wrote: I am a little unsure what the problem is with the pictures. Could you be a bit more specific please Friedrich ? It would be very hard to have a set of pictures that cover every case but, as Jan said, if we are only one level out, thats still very useful information. Honestly, while not very clear, the pictures look about right to me. Ok, let's see... Now that I look at it in detail, I realize that the verbal descriptions might be flawed too. When there's a category /excellect/ usable by roller blade, skate board and all below, there should also be one even better category like /perfect/ desirable for roller blade and skate board. Raugh asphalt is usable by roller blade, but fine asphalt is desireable. Similarly, fine gravel roads are usable by racing bikes, but not desirable. surface=ground may be usable by racing bikes when dry, but certainly not when wet. All of this should be pointed out in the text. BTW: Rollerblade is a trade mark. Better change that to roller skates and/or inline skates. One more text issue: the term city bike should be replaced by something like standard/normal/conventional bicycle, because a city bike is a mountain bike plus lights and reflectors, thus more robust than a trecking bike. I'll be numbering the pictures from #1 (excellent line) to #8 (impassable line). #1 is a scanned paper photo or diapositive. You see dirt and scratches, and the picture is not quite sharp. But the content of the picture seems alright. It's intermediate quality asphalt with patches. Not optimal, but easily usable for all. #2 What part of the road do they mean? The carriageway looks similar to #1. (No patches, but on the other hand there's a gully grid.) Or do they mean the bus stop? Or the footway? The footway surface seems well suited for roller skates and skateboard too, although some grass creeps in, and you need to beware the seams and poles. I suggest a photo depicting sand surface or very coarse-grained and uneven asphalt or concrete. #3 This looks like a ford or a temporarily flooded area. The photo should probably go to the highway=ford wiki page. If you leave away the water, the road is perfectly suitable for racing bikes, although the dirt indicates that it may be even more dirty at seasons, making it less usable then. I suggest a photo of a road with fine gravel or compacted gravel surface instead. #4 is a big step from #3. This is indeed unusable for racing bikes, but usable for trecking bikes and normal cars (although vegetation is near to the limit). This photo seems to match the description, but I am not shure about rikshaws. #5 This track looks like the same as #4 or even better because there's less vegetation and the surface looks harder and less prone to waterlogging. You do not need a high-clearance vehicle for that track. I suggest to move the #5 photo to #4, and to use a photo of a track with 10-20 cm deep ruts (but otherwise similar to #4) for #5. #6 This shows a track you can use with a normal car. The grass will make some noise, but it will not damage the car. You can add this photo to the smoothness=bad examples, i.e. 2 rows up. The photo for smoothness=horribly should show a very uneven and either muddy or densely vegetated road. #7 This photo looks like a clip, you don't see the whole way. Just throw that photo away. #8 This looks smooth enough for MTB. It might be to steep to drive uphill, but experienced MTBers drive this downhill no matter how steep it is. Steepness (see incline=*) is an important factor we should consider. A track may be smooth enough for a sports car, but so steep that only a tractor can make it. I think that we should explicitly include or exclude steepness in the smoothness definition. Opinions? -- Friedrich K. Volkmann http://www.volki.at/ Adr.: Davidgasse 76-80/14/10, 1100 Wien, Austria ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
There is clearly problem with verifiability of this tag, as in my case I am frequently unsure which value should be used. And it is not even starting to cover problems with multiple people having different opinions. It is not changing fact that there is no better tag to describe surface that is made of asphalt but of terrible quality. 2015-03-11 12:56 GMT+01:00 jgpacker john.pack...@gmail.com: Hi, I saw in the wiki page Key:smoothness http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:smoothness#Controversy that there is a section about the controversy over it's verifiability. As far as I remember, this tag was throughly discussed here until a consensus was achieved (which was that it should be classified according to how usable the road is/which kinds of modes of transportation can use it). Is this claim over it's verifiability still current? I think it's not, and that this claim should be removed from the page (though it may be useful to write a section with a brief history of this key). Cheers, John -- View this message in context: http://gis.19327.n5.nabble.com/Current-status-of-the-key-smoothness-tp5836692.html Sent from the Tagging mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
I fully agree with Martin. Availability of a tag like this is very important. I have to be able to enter a value while I am driving without sophisticated measuring equipment. I rather have a rating that is one step off on the scale than no rating at all. Many of these roads are in areas where few mappers do site surveys (I think of the roads we drove in Kenya), so any input is welcome even if it isn't perfect. We ran into some nasty surprises during our trip because the road quality wasn't tagged at all. Perhaps we can extend the library of pictures in the wiki to give people a better feeling which rating means what. Again: better an imperfect tag than no tag at all. On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 5:05 PM Mateusz Konieczny matkoni...@gmail.com wrote: There is clearly problem with verifiability of this tag, as in my case I am frequently unsure which value should be used. And it is not even starting to cover problems with multiple people having different opinions. It is not changing fact that there is no better tag to describe surface that is made of asphalt but of terrible quality. 2015-03-11 12:56 GMT+01:00 jgpacker john.pack...@gmail.com: Hi, I saw in the wiki page Key:smoothness http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:smoothness#Controversy that there is a section about the controversy over it's verifiability. As far as I remember, this tag was throughly discussed here until a consensus was achieved (which was that it should be classified according to how usable the road is/which kinds of modes of transportation can use it). Is this claim over it's verifiability still current? I think it's not, and that this claim should be removed from the page (though it may be useful to write a section with a brief history of this key). Cheers, John -- View this message in context: http://gis.19327.n5.nabble.com/Current-status-of-the-key-smoothness-tp5836692.html Sent from the Tagging mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
On 11.03.2015 17:29, Jan van Bekkum wrote: Perhaps we can extend the library of pictures in the wiki to give people a better feeling which rating means what. I agree that work on the pictures is needed. The values and their verbal descriptions are approved, and they look sound, while the bogus pictures are not approved and they do not match the definitions. We should either replace those pictures or just delete them. It seems to me that these pictures are the root of most of the controversy and the reason why these tags are ignored by most mappers and data consumers. -- Friedrich K. Volkmann http://www.volki.at/ Adr.: Davidgasse 76-80/14/10, 1100 Wien, Austria ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
I consider the definitions quite reasonable for this tag. Yes,there is a degree of subjectiveness there,there has to be given what it is trying to do. Honestly, we really need to got over this dread fear of being subjective. Not everything can be measured in integer numbers, great when it can be but accept it when what is being described is, by its nature, difficult. So I'd vote to remove the controversy section, but perhaps to move it to discussion for historical purposes. Dave S, I think the suggestion of measuring such things using accelerometers was someones sarcastic attempt to show the tag is about as good as it can get. Now, having said that, i don't use the tag because the names used are horrible. Firstly, smoothness itself is not the only issue and the values ?? I live on a road I'd have to call very bad ? No way ! David jgpacker john.pack...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I saw in the wiki page Key:smoothness http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:smoothness#Controversy that there is a section about the controversy over it's verifiability. As far as I remember, this tag was throughly discussed here until a consensus was achieved (which was that it should be classified according to how usable the road is/which kinds of modes of transportation can use it). Is this claim over it's verifiability still current? I think it's not, and that this claim should be removed from the page (though it may be useful to write a section with a brief history of this key). Cheers, John -- View this message in context: http://gis.19327.n5.nabble.com/Current-status-of-the-key-smoothness-tp5836692.html Sent from the Tagging mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
I search an adjective about this tag and I hesitate between very_bad and horrible ;-) Btw, what's different today about its verifiability ? I think most of the people rejecting this tag simply ignore the discussions around it. This gives a different perspective about your consensus. Removing the controversy section will just give the false impression that there is no controversy at all. Pieren ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
On 11.03.2015 12:56, jgpacker wrote: Is this claim over it's verifiability still current? Yes, it is, because the photos contradict the verbal value definitions. -- Friedrich K. Volkmann http://www.volki.at/ Adr.: Davidgasse 76-80/14/10, 1100 Wien, Austria ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
I'm not sure much can be done about the situation. Verifiability depends on one person's subjective assessment of the smoothness of a road. The illustration in the Wiki of a road that is impassable can be negotiated by a skilled rider on a mountain bike. During the discussion of this topic someone suggested trying to make a quantitative measurement of smoothness by attaching some sort of gyroscope or accelerometer to a vehicle's bumper in order to produce a number. On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 6:56 PM, jgpacker john.pack...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I saw in the wiki page Key:smoothness http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:smoothness#Controversy that there is a section about the controversy over it's verifiability. As far as I remember, this tag was throughly discussed here until a consensus was achieved (which was that it should be classified according to how usable the road is/which kinds of modes of transportation can use it). Is this claim over it's verifiability still current? I think it's not, and that this claim should be removed from the page (though it may be useful to write a section with a brief history of this key). Cheers, John -- View this message in context: http://gis.19327.n5.nabble.com/Current-status-of-the-key-smoothness-tp5836692.html Sent from the Tagging mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging -- Dave Swarthout Homer, Alaska Chiang Mai, Thailand Travel Blog at http://dswarthout.blogspot.com ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*
I am a little unsure what the problem is with the pictures. Could you be a bit more specific please Friedrich ? It would be very hard to have a set of pictures that cover every case but, as Jan said, if we are only one level out, thats still very useful information. Honestly, while not very clear, the pictures look about right to me. David . Friedrich Volkmann b...@volki.at wrote: On 11.03.2015 17:29, Jan van Bekkum wrote: Perhaps we can extend the library of pictures in the wiki to give people a better feeling which rating means what. I agree that work on the pictures is needed. The values and their verbal descriptions are approved, and they look sound, while the bogus pictures are not approved and they do not match the definitions. We should either replace those pictures or just delete them. It seems to me that these pictures are the root of most of the controversy and the reason why these tags are ignored by most mappers and data consumers. -- Friedrich K. Volkmann http://www.volki.at/ Adr.: Davidgasse 76-80/14/10, 1100 Wien, Austria ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
