OpenStreetMap
I live near a large national park which has many “faint” trails, many of which are overgrown, notional only, and require “bushwhacking” to traverse. These are not numbered or even acknowledged by the park authority so they are not suitable for display on any public maps. We don’t want people expecting to find passable routes and getting lost! But my local hiking clubs have been exploring these historic trails for some 25 years. They have very good records and, in fact, they’ve recently printed off some 30 highly detailed maps using a base scale of 1:20,000! So, my question is; is there any way to have some kind of a private plugin, or other method of controlling and limiting access, that would only allow club members and other experienced hikers with the usual caveats to access our maps of these “faint” trails?
Discussion
Comment from Sanderd17 on 15 December 2015 at 18:35
OSM data is public, if you want private data, you should use your own database (which can be combined with OSM data when you follow the license clausules closely).
But it’s also possible to add those paths to the public database. There are certain tags you can use to mark paths as nearly invisible, or nearly impassable.
See * osm.wiki/Key:trail_visibility * osm.wiki/Key:sac_scale * osm.wiki/Key:smoothness * osm.wiki/Key:surface * osm.wiki/Key:tracktype
When tagged correctly, dedicated maps will render it in a style so it’s obvious for users.
Comment from Sanderd17 on 15 December 2015 at 18:41
This tag too: osm.wiki/Key:informal
Comment from Alan Trick on 15 December 2015 at 19:23
We don’t neglect to add difficult mountain-biking routes just because not everyone is a good mountain biker.
In fact, I strongly suspect that neglecting to put faint trails on maps may cause people to misread their maps when they come upon these trails. As Sanderd17 said, just tag appropriately (I think trail_visibility is the most relevant here).
Comment from laridae on 16 December 2015 at 00:59
OK thanks. I tried reducing the “visibility” on a trail but that didn’t change the display below “pink dots”, same as other, more visible, trails, so that wouldn’t provide a cue to an unwary hiker. (The sad truth is that most day hikers/showshoers/skiers do not come prepared for the possibility of spending the night outdoors lost in a Canadian forest!)
The tracks could be traced-in to OSM but then we’d be giving away the tracks belonging to individual members, and also losing a potential “benefit of membership” to the hiking club. The club does have a database in Global Mapper I believe but I’m not one the running it so I don’t want to get in over my head here.
Comment from Omnific on 16 December 2015 at 01:31
As the premise of OpenStreetMap is about making location information free to access for all, your club’s goals with their trail data runs directly counter to the purpose of OSM. Therefore, that information doesn’t make sense to include in OSM unless your club decides to be more open with its data.
Comment from Sanderd17 on 16 December 2015 at 14:25
@laridae, yes, the default renderer is not a specific renderer. When I mean a specialised renderer, I mean something like this: http://www.wanderreitkarte.de/index.php?lon=8.3677&lat=47.4782&zoom=16&lang=en (see osm.wiki/Hiking#Mapping_Projects for alternatives)
Though that one also doesn’t render the trail_visibility key, but does render the surface and sac_scale (it’s limited to Europe because of server resources though).
The main map is not specialised at hiking, and users of the main map style should never expect something that renders as a path to be passable with sandals (though trail_visibility says nothing about the needed footwear, a path through a big grass field can also be more or less invisible, you should use sac_scale to show users what footwear they need to ware).
And it’s true you would be giving the path data away. The whole point of OSM is about giving data away. I’ve worked many hours and days, just to give away the data I collected. According to recent stats, we’ve worked 61 labour years on the data, in a small country like Belgium: osm.org/user/joost%20schouppe/diary/37481
But you can change your business model to be a “service” based one. As you see, there’s a lack of good renderers for the data (and most of the good ones are limited to Europe), and even then, it’s not handy to take your computer on a hiking course.
So you can contribute your data to OSM for free, and offer members a good rendering style to view the map (OSM data must be free, rendering styles can be protected by copyright separately and thus can be private). Or you could go even further and offer high-quality printouts to the members.
Comment from SomeoneElse on 16 December 2015 at 16:52
I’m sure that there are map styles (if not public map tiles) that take trail_visibility into account. For my own use I maintain a map style designed for hiking in England and Wales, and that drops non-designated(1) low-visibility highways:
https://github.com/SomeoneElseOSM/SomeoneElse-style/blob/master/style.lua#L115
I personally wouldn’t use OpenStreetMap’s “standard style” as a hiking map. We have in the past had complaints such as https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/20339/gordale-scar-malham-yorkshire-footpath . The mapping of osm.org/way/43323982 was actually excellent, but the standard style couldn’t convey the likely problems to users.
(1) That’s an England-and-Wales thing - don’t worry about it elsewhere.
Comment from Rovastar on 16 December 2015 at 18:39
There is a opinion that maybe you shouldn’t put them in as footpath, etc at all. If after 11 years no data consumer has ever used some of these lesser known sub tags. Sometimes we have to look at our data rather than always blaming the data consumers.
Comment from laridae on 16 December 2015 at 19:26
Actually, it’s not My club; I’m just a member, not an officer. So, I can’t commit the club to anything but I do make updates to the OSM maps using tracks from hikes that I’ve done personally (exported from Endomondo, my exercise tracking app)
I don’t know how to get a different display, or rendering. My favourite display for these offroad trails is using Open Cycle Map, as served up by Atlogis in their Canada Maps app. Is there a better way I could be displaying these tracks?
I’m especially interested in 2 things; 1) Clearly distinguishing faint trails that are not maintained and may be grown-in. As outlined above, the intent here is to manage the expectation of the user, and not get him lost. 2) And also, winter-only trails that traverse surface water (ponds, swamps, creeks, etc) Obviously what is clear sailing in the winter may require long bushwhacking detours in the summer. The park neatly handles this by publishing 2 completely separate maps for Summer and Winter trails.
Comment from Sanderd17 on 24 December 2015 at 13:53
@Rovastar: visibility is of low importance when you have a map, and of even lower importance when you have a GPS device. As you can use the map or GPS device to locate you. That’s the reason why not many maps render it. Contrary to sac_scale though, since that determines whether you’ll be able to use the path at all.
@laridae, ok, but now you have some comments to convince your club ;)
As to finding a better renderer, if the area isn’t too big, maybe you can display the tracks using Overpass API and the Overpass turbo styling ( osm.wiki/Overpass_turbo/MapCSS ). See http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/dpx for an example (shows the paths mapped with surface=asphalt in black), you can use color codes, widths, dash patterns and opacity. Though it’s currently not possible to stack different renderings with Overpass Turbo (which would be useful to get an outline color).
For the winter roads, see osm.wiki/Key:winter_road (or ice_road=*), these tags should also apply for paths, but I really doubt if any current renderer displays it.
Comment from laridae on 24 December 2015 at 14:47
As for size, Gatineau Park is a narrow triangle 360 sq km, 140 sq mi and has several hundred km of various hiking, skiing and cycling trails. All-season access is provided by public roads around the perimeter and a few internally. There is a seasonal paved parkway serving the lower portion of the park which is groomed for skiing in the winter months.
I have a new Locus Map Pro app which I am now experimenting with as an alternative way of displaying the OSM maps. I will also try some of the tags suggested above, starting with “informal” which sounds the most promising.