First part was about why dense (well mapped) areas should be treated better than outdoor/rural areas. Today I will discuss rendering objects according to their size.

There are many types of maps and one of the most important property is their preferred use. OSM Carto has no special goals of this kind, it is meant to be general style. Unfortunately, it’s harder to develop because of this.

Putting all the things on the map according to their “importance” is misleading, because without clear goal it’s hard to tell what system should we apply to show some items more prominently than the others. In practice it seems that people tend to think mostly like “I want to find x” or “it was always like this”. But finding is better done by apps and we show many object types, so sticking to the old solutions will just highlight lack of clear rules eventually.

So - what could be the universal property of objects that we could use on the map? I think this is their size.

In a matter of fact, it is used a lot already. We use initial zoom levels to not show benches at the world level, because then the map would look more or less like this:

… See full entry

This entry is a copy of my comment in a discussion on some of the OSM Carto rendering ideas. It’s so general, that I think it makes sense to show it for more people. I have some more thoughts on this subject and I hope I will write them down too.

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I believe the main obstacle for better coexistence of big cities and outdoor rendering is #1957 “equalizing” ticket being unresolved.

I think about “WMAs” (well-mapped areas), which are located in the big cities where mappers were active, that they make the biggest difference. They start to be very rich, because this is the reality, which was not well covered by mappers just a few years ago. We could rely on this incompleteness up to some point and render whatever was available without critically rethinking the whole system for years. But this is no longer true and the WMAs begin to be drastically more dense than outdoor areas. This is nobody’s fault, it’s just the unexpected consequence of the success of OSM in gathering all kind of data. Of course, we might stay with what we were showing before, but it’s just closing eyes to avoid noticing the constant change of OSM data. Something like taking the snapshot of some past moment and refusing to take more current ones, just because it’s more familiar for cartographers than trying to face these new challenges.

I like the outdoor rendering and when it doesn’t hurt, I’m happy to make it also rich. There are places where we outperform typical (if not all) outdoor maps with details, like for example here:

… See full entry

Dear all,

Yesterday, v4.14.0 of the OpenStreetMap Carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on the OSM website) has been released and rolled out to the openstreetmap.org servers. It might take a couple of days before all tiles show the new rendering.

Changes include

• Added text-repeat-distance for waterways
• Added text-repeat-distance for railways
• Added icon for leisure=bowling_alley
• Added icon for leisure=outdoor_seating
• Added icon for leisure=bird_hide
• Added icon for shop=video
• Added icon for shop=paint
• Added icon for shop=massage
• Increased casing width of tertiary road on z12
• Standard text halo for fitness_centre and fitness_station
• Updated Docker images definitions
• Small documentation updates

Thanks to all the contributors for this release.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.13.0…v4.14.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

I recently got worried about CartoCSS project, which we use as a Mapnik configuration parser in OSM Carto. There’s only one person available for a long time and I feel this is dangerous, because he has officially stepped down recently and if he looses any interest in it, there would be not even basic support, like merging code or making the release.

If there’s somebody ready to look at the code (JavaScript) and join the project even to just keep it alive in standby mode, I would be very glad. Here is nebulon42 story and what he expects to “share the keys” (or even pass the baton) in the project:

https://github.com/mapbox/carto/issues/495#issuecomment-412987738

Dear all,

Today, v4.13.0 of the OpenStreetMap Carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on the OSM website) has been released. Once changes are deployed on the openstreetmap.org it will take couple of days before all tiles show the new rendering.

Changes include:

• Increased shield distances on roads
• Added icon for shop=ticket
• Added icon for shop=houseware
• Added icon for shop=charity
• Added icon for shop=second_hand
• Added icon for shop=interior_decoration
• Added icon for amenity=bureau_de_change
• Added icon for amenity=casino
• Added icon for amenity=boat_rental
• Updated shop=department_store icon
• Small documentation and code fixes

Thanks to all the contributors for this release.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.12.0…v4.13.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

Dear all,

Today, v4.12.0 of the OpenStreetMap Carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on the OSM website) has been released. Once changes are deployed on the openstreetmap.org it will take couple of days before all tiles show the new rendering.

Changes include:

Major changes

• Dropped subpixel accuracy for areas, which includes tuning some database indexes. When deployed, it might speed up reading data.

Changes

• Added rendering “surface” tag on roads with a pattern
• More vertical objects rendering and tuning (man_made=tower types, man_made=chimney, man_made=communications_tower)
• tourism=information types rendering and tuning (information=audioguide, board, guidepost, map, office, tactile_map, tactile_model and terminal)
• Added rendering for place=quarter
• Added rendering of historic=city_gate
• Added rendering of lock_name
• Ditch and drain name labels are rendered with some offset
• Pixel aligned ford icon
• Made amenity=shelter icon brown
• Finer man_made=pier width rendering
• Rendering living street tunnels different from residential
• Added rendering of overground power=cable like power=line
• Small documentation and code fixes

Thanks to all the contributors for this release including Adamant36 and M1dgard, new contributors. I also like to thank nebulon42 who left our team due to a change of his priorities for all the work on this style and the tools we’re using!

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.11.0…v4.12.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

Dear all,

Today, v4.11.0 of the OpenStreetMap Carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on the OSM website) has been released. Once changes are deployed on the openstreetmap.org it will take couple of days before all tiles show the new rendering.

Changes include

• Fixed office/amenity conflict
• Brightened built-up areas on z12
• Refurbished natural=spring icon
• Added rendering for amenity=police and amenity=fire_station areas
• Added rendering of amenity=nursing_home
• Added rendering of amenity=childcare
• Added rendering of amenity=driving_school
• Added area rendering for amenity=bus_station
• Added area rendering of amenity=taxi
• Made highway=traffic_signals icon less obtrusive
• Moved barriers to higher zoom level
• Hiding railway=platform with location=underground, tunnels and covered=yes
• Small documentation and code fixes

Thanks to all the contributors for this release.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.10.0…v4.11.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

Dear all,

Today, v4.10.0 of the OpenStreetMap Carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on the OSM website) has been released. Once changes are deployed on the openstreetmap.org it will take couple of days before all tiles show the new rendering.

Changes include

• Adding rendering for historic=castle and historic=manor
• Adding rendering office=* as dots + names
• Adding rendering for waterway=waterfall
• Adding place=square name rendering for nodes
• Adding rendering for big natural=bay
• Adding rendering for leisure=beach_resort
• Adding rendering for amenity=parking_space
• Adding rendering of aerialway=zip_line
• Adding rendering for shop=bed
• Adding rendering for shop=video_games
• Adding halo to roads on z6 and z7
• Extending intermittent waterbody rendering to landuse=basin
• Moving highway=mini_roundabout rendering to higher zoom level
• Dropping waterway=derelict_canal rendering
• Small documentation and code fixes

Thanks to all the contributors for this release, including d3d9, doktorpixel14 and hikemaniac, new contributors.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.9.0…v4.10.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

Dear all,

Today, v4.9.0 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on the OSM website) has been released. Once changes are deployed on the openstreetmap.org it will take couple of days before all tiles show the new rendering.

Changes include

Major changes

• A bug where closed ways with natural=cliff or natural=tree_row were not rendering has been fixed. This required fixing a transform bug. The fix will apply to all objects when they are created in OSM, but there is no migration for existing databases. Deployments will have to decide if the effects are serious enough to require them to reload the database.

Changes

• Adding place=square name rendering
• Adding rendering for different types of towers and masts
• Making gardens to use grass color with plant nursery pattern
• Adding rendering for intermittent water bodies
• Give oceans outline and simplify shapefiles on z0-7
• Simplify (generalize) admin borders
• Move natural=grassland and landuse=meadow earlier
• Start rendering aerialway name
• Adding icons for amenity=bbq, amenity=shower, leisure=sauna and advertising=column
• Adding special icons for shop=dairy, shop=medical_supply and shop=music
• Move amenity=toilets to higher zoom levels
• Fixing some SVG icons artifacts
• Make military=danger_area font dark pink and slanted
• Changing rendering for construction=steps to distinguish it from roads
• Changing label colour of private parking
• Small documentation and code fixes

Thanks to all the contributors for this release, including james2432, Penegal and jragusa, new contributors.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.8.0…v4.9.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

Dear all,

Today, v4.8.0 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on the OSM website) has been released. Once changes are deployed on the openstreetmap.org it will take couple of days before all tiles show the new rendering.

Changes include

• Made military area rendering less prominent
• Adding rendering for historic=wayside_shrine
• Adding rendering for historic=fort
• Adding rendering for amenity=public_bath
• Adding rendering for shop=chocolate
• Adding rendering for barrier=toll_booth (nodes)
• Adding rendering barrier=log
• Adding rendering for amenity=waste_disposal
• Moving tourism-boundary under barrier layer
• Docker: run osm2pgsql in slim mode
• Fix operator precedence for hstore queries
• Small documentation fixes

Thanks to all the contributors for this release, including jbelien, MKuranowski, andrzej-r and Zverik, new contributors.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.7.0…v4.8.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

Dear all,

Today, v4.7.1 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the defaultstylesheet on the OSM website) has been released. Once changes are deployed on the openstreetmap.org it will take couple of days before all tiles show the new rendering.

This is a bugfix release, the only change is a code fixing this rendering problem: https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/3043

Thanks to all the contributors for this release.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.7.0…v4.7.1

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

Dear all,

Today, v4.7.0 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on the OSM website) has been released. Once changes are deployed on the openstreetmap.org it will take couple of days before all tiles show the new rendering.

Changes include

• Adding icon for tourism=apartment
• Adding icon for leisure=firepit
• Yellow background for amenity=arts_centre
• Start rendering natural=heath earlier
• Start rendering entrances
• Changing tourism=picnic_site icon colour to green
• Move emergency=phone to higher zoom level
• Rendering seasonal waterways as intermittent
• Update Noto fonts to Phase III
• Fine-tuning of bridge labels
• Documentation changes and updates

Thanks to all the contributors for this release.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.6.0…v4.7.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

I’d like to change the rendering of protected areas on osm-carto (the style which is used as a default map layer on the main OSM.org website). That proved to be a complex problem, however thanks to the comments from the community on the issue tracker and Talk list I see the general plan what to do. This entry is just a slightly edited message I sent to the list.

_Exhibit A: [Adirondack Park](osm.org/relation/1695394#map=8/43.975/-74.309) disaster..._

TL;DR summary: I think that for now we should render all the existing tags, but make some of them appear earlier to encourage smooth migration to a more precise scheme.

General findings

… See full entry

Dear all,

Today, v4.5.0 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on openstreetmap.org) has been released.

Changes include:

Major changes

• Cleaning up low zoom levels (z5-z7):
  • Rendering roads from z6 instead of z5
  • Rendering national parks from z8 instead of z7
  • Rendering railways from z8 instead of z7
• Changing parking color from yellow to gray

Changes

• Unified rendering of leisure=fitness_station and leisure=fitness_centre
• Rendering of military=bunker
• Rendering all station buildings as major buildings
• Text wrapping for station labels
• Changing windmill color from amenity brown to man_made gray
• Some other documentation and code changes

Thanks to all the contributors for this release.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.4.0…v4.5.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

Dear all,

Today, v4.4.0 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on openstreetmap.org) has been released.

Changes include:

Major changes

• Rendering inland water areas and labels from z0
• Rendering island and islet labels earlier

Changes

• Rendering of amenity=marketplace
• Rendering of landuse=religious
• Rendering shop=pastry like shop=confectionery
• Rendering of addr:unit
• Rendering natural=bare_rock earlier
• Rendering elevation also on polygon alpine_hut and shelter
• Introducing Noto Sans Arabic
• Rendering icon for slipway ways
• Better minimal distance between housenumbers
• Moving aeroways to their own layer
• Creating amenity POI categories
• Some other documentation and code cleaning

Thanks to all the contributors for this release, including tpikonen, a new contributor.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.3.0…v4.4.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

Dear all,

Today, v4.2.0 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on openstreetmap.org) has been released.

Changes include:

Major changes

• Water color and default water text color are changed to be more visible
• Medium zoom level (z8-z12) rework:
  • Landuses colors are faded and some of them are visible earlier
  • Most of the man related landuses are combined into one color and more visible
  • More important roads are better legible

Changes

• Leaf type rendering in woods and forests
• Cemetery symbols are not so dense now and Muslim cemetery has its own symbol
• Rendering of amenity=ferry_terminal
• Plaque rendering is now different and moved to z19
• Rendering railway labels
• Smaller line spaces in labels
• Junction names on areas
• Area color for railway=station is the same as for railways
• Database performance tuning available for Docker
• Different patterns and all remaining icons moved to SVG
• Some documentation and code cleaning

Thanks to all the contributors for this release, including littlebtc and giggls, new contributors. Special thanks for rrzefox for testing major changes on his server.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.1.0…v4.2.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues.

Dear all,

Today, v4.1.0 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on openstreetmap.org) has been released and rolled out to the openstreetmap.org servers. It might take a couple of days before all tiles show the new rendering.

Changes include

• Malls are no longer rendered as dots (bug fix)
• Special icon for shop=tyres
• Airports rendering changes: removing clutter on z10 and moving name labels under the icon
• Switching forest, scrub and quarry patterns to SVG

In this release we’re also introducing Docker-based development environment, which makes it much easier to preview rendering changes before they are deployed on the servers.

Be warned that there’s a change in our release plans: compatibility with v3.x series is no longer maintained from now on, so database reload is needed to keep up with current style changes. Some of them can be however backported, especially if you’re using hstore-enabled database already.

Thanks to all the contributors for this release. Special thanks go to MaestroGlanz and daganzdaanda for a new icon.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.0.0…v4.1.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues.

Dear all,

Today, v2.45.1 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on openstreetmap.org) has been released and rolled out to the openstreetmap.org servers. It might take a couple of days before all tiles show the new rendering.

This is a bugfix release restoring two icons:

• memorial
• tobacco shop

Thanks to all the contributors for this release.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v2.45.0…v2.45.1

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues.

Dear all,

Today, v2.45.0 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on openstreetmap.org) has been released.

Changes include:

• Rendering all shops without a specific icon as a dot, not just a whitelist
• Scrub pattern change to random
• Changing pitch and track color
• Railway stations rendering as major buildings
• Rendering the name of man_made=bridge inside the polygon
• Documentation updates (including cartography design goals and icon design guidelines)
• Icons general code cleaning
• Various bug fixes

Thanks to all the contributors for this release, including micahcochran, a new contributor.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v2.44.1…v2.45.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues.

You may also like to know that this release is the first with 3 new project maintainers on board. Please be aware that we’re going to drop some legacy dependencies soon (like Mapnik 2), so we’re approaching a big version change.

..but - why not? The walk from The Shire to Mordor :

osm.org/directions?engine=graphhopper_foot&route=51.485%2C-2.638%3B51.922%2C-8.396