Hi Mathijs, In response I've combined some answers for readablilliity.
> Hi Henk, > > On 22 September 2015 at 12:43, henk van der laan <henk at mijneigen.net> > wrote: > > To aid the discussion, here you can compare the old and new rendering > (Netherlands/Belgium/Luxembourg only): > http://bl.ocks.org/tyrasd/raw/67a00dbb869456094373/#9.00/52.3535/5.0572 Another tool would be this: http://tools.geofabrik.de/mc/#16/52.3581/4.8658&num=2&mt0=mapnik&mt1=geofabrik Side by side view of the Vondelpark. At what zoomlevel somthing > What mobile device are you using? We received this complaint more > often, but I don't seem to have the same problems on my own device. All. Mobile devices are by nature difficult to read in bright light and allmost impossible to read in direct sunlight. But PC with calibrated monitor suffers as well. > > - the map lost it's contrast and colour-opposition. The total map is > > dimmed, and looks flat. This is not an improvement: with the current > > generation of mobile screens it is nearly impossible to read the map in > > bright conditions, let alone in direct sunlight. > > Could you be a bit more specific about which objects and zoomlevels > you are referring to? > Are there any specific landuse areas where the problem is most severe? In fact this is at all zoomlevels and against all landuse. The point here is that red and green are closely together in gray-value. Small red dots on a green background are more difficult to read than brown lines on a green background. For that reason red on green is a not a good choice. As you may know this colorscheme was discussed massively with the introduction of the new Dutch ANWB 'mushroom'. Many complaints from visually impaired and elderly people followed. As well as 'normal' cyclist who found that in twilight this turned out to be unreadable. Real bad is a path in red-dot rendering against landuse=farm or heath. Take a look here: http://tools.geofabrik.de/mc/#15/52.9294/6.2958&num=2&mt0=mapnik&mt1=geofabrik > > - dimmed colours seem to make the difference between highways less > > visible: secundary, tertiary and unclassified do not stand out as > > different as they used to. > > I agree. We are rolling out a chance soon that will make the highways > much brighter. In that case increasing the contrast for all ways would be better. So including cycleways and path. > > Apart from this the underlying thoughts for the changes are a point of > > concern: reading through the different threads I detect an alarming > > trend to favor roads for motorized traffic over pedestrians/cyclist etc. > > This is certainly not a deliberate choice by the team that maintains > the style. Interesting enough, I don't think any of the people who > have been working on the changes you mention even own a car... That surprizes me. Seeing the rendering does not give that impression. > > I even read one comment that suggests to get rid of bridleways in > > rendering because there are no bridleways in his aerea ... > > Others doubt the use of different colours for cycleways, because they > > do not form a special roadtype .. only a legal distinction. > > Following the last thought there would not be any reason to have a > > distinction between primary/secundary/trunk etc. either. > > Everyone is free to comment whatever they like, of course... I don't > think any of these arguments were considered as serious reasons to > change the style by the style maintainers. No, it's not in the style .. yet. But to me it's a warning sign. > > - Colourscheme does not adhere to even the basic cartographic rules. > > Could you expand on that? I'll expand on that in a general sense. Colour schemes should not be judged on colour alone. Every colour has a corresponding grayscale. When testing a map ( or any graphic for that matter ) you should also judge your work in grayscale. Consider the old mapping-problem of how many colours to use to have no adjecent colours the same: the colours used also give a good grayscale. The artist's way of judging this is by squinting your eyes. This mimics a grayscale view. Using this on the last linked examples clearly reveals the flaw in red dots. > > - Readabillity is rapidly becoming worse. In the past I directed many > > to OSM, praising it's very complete and readable map over Google/Bing. > > That is no longer true. > > You're always free to help us improving the style sheet at > https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto I've never felt the need to do so because I was totally satisfied with the exisitng rendering. As for my dedicated maps I'm using different rules alltogether. But they are cycle/hiking maps with an ancient look. ( since you're Dutch: Flakplan fietskaart oude stijl, met die dikke rode fietspaden ) > > - The new rendering omits the hard work of many contributers who > > walked/cycled miles to give OSM more than just highways. > > The stylesheet maintainers are amongst this group, so that's not > really fair criticism. > In that case I'm even more surprized by the coices made. Surely they will themselves experience that the new rendering has far less contrast, especially when using OSM as a map in the field. > > I wonder how many users would back me up on this. > > OSM is not a democracy. :) So I've noticed. But that's another discussion... And reverting is a concrete proposal. Whenever something is changed but the result is not as good as expected there is no shame in going back and trying again. Overall I maintain my view that the new rendering is not a good way to go forward with. Regards, Henk _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
