[Theme] OS Map

[Andrew Heard]

Certainly for the main categories of hiking, cycling, MTB, their associated color is a good reminder of the color to look out for on the map instead of needing the legend. Unlike @tapios icons, I don't find the other ones visually as useful.

[twoten]

Some of the footpaths that run alongside some minor roads are marked as a dotted line where they're not shown on the  Ordnance Survey maps. Is it possible to deselect these without affecting other public footpaths?

By dotted I suspect you mean thinner black dashes? These are footpaths that are classified as accessible to the public. But not defined (or assumed) as PROW.

In theory, according to the OSM tagging rules, you should be able to use these footpaths, but clearly you should observe local signage.

OS maps do show some of these as black dashes too, or very often as dashed tracks or indistinct dashed lines next to other boundary features.

It is possible to add a option "show non-PROW paths" if you wanted to untick it remove then. Not sure it's worth having... is there a particular reason to remove them? I'd hazard a guess at lots of urban pathways cluttering up the map?

One thing the consider is that quite a few paths exist but are not yet tagged with designation tag, and many paths in the UK are ancient rights of way that are not registered and may be lost. The UK government are trying to impose a deadline to get them registered or lost forever. Deadline was 2026, now moved to 2031. There is an online map of potential missing footpaths, can't find it at the moment..., but if a footpath is not registered but in regular use it could be registered as a PROW. Footpaths like this should/could exist in OSM as we are supposed to map what is visible on the ground... so rather than remove these from the map, how about checking if they are lost PROW and getting the registered?

These are footpaths alongside some minor roads, possibly tagged as Sidewalks. Other minor roads in the same area with comparable footpaths (sidewalks) are not shown so there's no consistency. OS maps don't show them at all so if replicating OS maps they would be hidden. The only issue I have with them is it starts to clutter the map unnecessarily.
They're not necessary as the roads themselves would be considered a PROW.
I guess one of the problems could be that if they are tagged the same as other PROWs, switching them off would mean losing other necessary footpaths.
It's not a problem if they can't be removed.

[john_percy]

I like the idea and I like the appearance. However the colours don't make sense for the Landranger style (foot=red, bike=green).
Also, I'm still seeing black lines under some footpath lines for all styles. I can't turn them off by unchecking any of the boxes.
Coordinates N 52.22993°, W 000.93296°

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[karlchick]

Thanks twoten, perhaps you can provide coord for an example that I can check?

@john, thanks, clearly I didn't do a thorough enough check and only fixed one example... I will check again, sorry.

The black dashes are always drawn and then overdrawn by the PROW. I changed the size of the dashes, bur must have some black dashes in the old size somewhere...

[karlchick]

John, the black line under the bridleway is not black dashes, but the outline of a park, see attached.

It's just that the bridleway is followed/sharing the same ways points as the boundary of the park.

I'll have a look at if I want to outline parks or not...

[twoten]

Thanks twoten, perhaps you can provide coord for an example that I can check?

Coordinates 51.571501332853295, -0.4018582349711148 show the dotted line
Coordinates 51.57726835385588, -0.40357733363102144 have not to the dotted line.

Again either side of this coordinate are different.

[john_percy]

1. Do you think your colour coded menus ought to reflect the colours of Explorer/Landranger? (See my previous post)
2. I don't know how OS marks the boundaries of parks but in general for woods,
Explorer: line if fence etc, nothing if unfenced
Landranger: line if fence etc, dashed if unfenced (but varies)
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OS-Style

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Explorer

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Landranger

3. Buildings appear to have rounded corners in your style
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OS-Style

 

[Lettm]

Dear Karlchick,

I am one of the many who became increasingly disenchanted with Ordnance Survey charging me multiple times to access their maps on replacement devices over the years (going back as far as Memory Maps).

Discovering your OS themes over OSM maps has probably been my favourite software discovery since downloading WYSISYG font drivers for the Canon BJ10ex (giving away my age now!)

So I just wanted to say thank you for all your efforts.  As a software developer I have an idea just how much work and attention to detail has gone into this.

I see in an earlier post you say you only recently downloaded ORUXMAPS.  I like it instead of Locus because they have a one-off payment model.   I almost feel embarrassed to say I've downloaded their beta version as well and note their experimental VTM display does not work with your theme.  It used to blue screen completely until their last update, now if it can't load a theme it reverts back to a default theme.  The viewer does work with John Campbell's Voluntary theme.  The viewer is very good - it keeps place names the right way up as you rotate the map. I can't see any error logs so have no idea what the problem is.

Anyway, I cannot ask you to look at it and only mention it in case you are unaware and interested.  So again, the purpose of this post was to thank you from someone who normally stays in the shadows.

 

 

[karlchick]

I've downloaded their beta version as well and note their experimental VTM display does not work with your theme.  It used to blue screen completely until their last update, now if it can't load a theme it reverts back to a default theme.  The viewer does work with John Campbell's Voluntary theme.   

Thanks for the Thanks, I'm glad you like the theme, I initially made it for my own purpose, same reasons as you. I too am a software developer although mostly work on system architectures and defining our company's MBSE approach these days.

Have you tried the draft versions posted in earlier posts? I found an issue with case sensitive file names that caused issues.

Another potential issue might be some the svg files used for icons are not necessarily 100% compatible tiny svg format. Locusmap copes well usually. I'm using Inkscape to create them but sometimes have to manually tidy them up or change the point types...

I noticed that LM4 now rotates builtin symbols, but not there symbols. Would be a co feature if LM could rotate text and symbols on maps.

[karlchick]

1. Do you think your colour coded menus ought to reflect the colours of Explorer/Landranger? (See my previous post)

2. I don't know how OS marks the boundaries of parks but in general for woods,
Explorer: line if fence etc, nothing if unfenced
Landranger: line if fence etc, dashed if unfenced (but varies)
OS-Style Explorer Landranger

3. Buildings appear to have rounded corners in your style OS-Style 

1. I did think of that and it's possible for 50k and 25k maps, but then what to do with the dynamic map which switches between them? Next I considered using different colour based on PROW waymarkers and cycle signs, so yellow for walkers, blue for cyclists, keep purple for mtb... not sure...

2. OS don't tend to mark park boundaries, but rather they use lines to indicate fences/barriers. This information is not present in the OSM data for woods and highways etc...

OS show dashes along the edge of unfenced roads, I guess this is useful to military personnel that might want to cross roads...

If OSM added fence attributes to woods, highways etc AND OAM/LoMap provided it then perhaps I could use it.... but I have  reused dashed highways to indicate unsealed highways, which would conflict then...

Very often woods and sealed highways are fenced, so this kinda makes sense...

3. Rounded corners will be due to the grow buildings option in 50k map. I added this to help merge buildings together in cities as 50k map doesn't show individual buildings in towns etc... if you untick it, it will revert to square buildings (I hope!)

[karlchick]

One thing the consider is that quite a few paths exist but are not yet tagged with designation tag, and many paths in the UK are ancient rights of way that are not registered and may be lost. The UK government are trying to impose a deadline to get them registered or lost forever. Deadline was 2026, now moved to 2031. There is an online map of potential missing footpath...

If you'd like to get involved in saving unregistered PROW in the UK, here is the website about the topic which also provides a link to an online map of potentially missing PROW.

https://www.ramblers.org.uk/support-us/dont-lose-your-way

[karlchick]

I've just uploaded the latest release of the OS Map theme (v20231218) which now includes fixes and updates for many issues you all reported to me. A very big thank you to all for reporting your findings, I hope this release will be OK enough to finally release into the Locus Map store, my next task.

Here is a list of the changes in this latest release:

• Removed residential roads from filled in residential areas at zoom level 12.
• Removed unused categories and tidied up style menu definitions
• Added colour icons to style menus to indicate options by colour groups, green=hiking, orange=cycling, purple=mtb, brown=urban, black=roads, white=non-OS.
• Added option "Show symbols earlier" so you can have less symbol intrusion at Z15 and lower, useful in urban/city areas.
• Added option "Building names earlier" so you can have more building namers appear earlier from Z16 onwards.
• Added option "emphasise all sealed roads too" so you can selectively also highlight ALL roads that are sealed, or disable (if you prefer a less distracting urban view).
• Added footpath names visible from Z16.
• Changed "surface textures" options to also include all steps, footpaths and bridleways.
• Changed option "road surface/grade textures" to "surface textures" to be shorter menu entry.
• Changed option "emphasise road surface/grade textures" to "emphasise surface textures" to be shorter menu entry.
• Changed size of covered reservoir symbol at Z13/Z14 to be smaller.
• Changed unclassified roads to appear from Z12 (was Z13).
• Changed smaller service roads to appear from Z13 (was Z12).
• Changed 50k pylons to be smaller at high zoom levels.
• Changed place name priorities to work better.
• Fixed missing bridges casings at Z13/Z14.
• Fixed symbol/pattern filenames to be have matching cases in both theme and filing system - enables theme to work correctly with OruxMaps.

[Andrew Heard]

thanks Karl - the Christmas edition!

[karlchick]

... ORUXMAPS... beta version ... experimental VTM display does not work with your theme.  It used to blue screen completely until their last update, now if it can't load a theme it reverts back to a default theme.  The viewer does work with John Campbell's Voluntary theme.  The viewer is very good - it keeps place names the right way up as you rotate the map. I can't see any error logs so have no idea what the problem is. 

I've downloaded the beta ORUXMAPS and tried VTM, as you say it doesn't work with my theme but does with John's Voluntary theme (which OS Map was originally based on).

I really like the VTM viewer and would like to see it working with my theme. Not sure where to start debugging this. I guess there might be some mapsforge tag attributes not supported by VTM?, or maybe some of my SVG files are not fully compatible tiny SVG...

May take a while to figure out...

Anyone know is there are any tag rules that are not compatible with VTM viewer?

[karlchick]

OK, managed to figure out what was causing my theme to crash in the VTM viewer, a couple of rules like this (no idea how they ended up like this):

    <rule e="any" k="*" v="*|~">

Fixing these rules fixed the crashing, but I also found many incompatibilities with the VTM viewer:

- area outlines have to be drawn separately using line command.
- dy offsets appear not to work on anything I've used in the theme.
- dash arrays on lines have a different scaling (4x smaller?) and do not seems to work very well as you zoom.
- dash arrays vary with line thickness
- lines are slighter thicker.
- no support for stroke-linecap round or square.
- line images are distorted/stretched.
- areas that overlap of the same tag sources are mutually exclusive and disappear where they overlap.
- priority seems to be ignored for symbols and text.

My theme uses dash arrays and dy offset a lot, making the VTM viewer not very acceptable. See attached screenshot comparing GB OAM map in ORUXMAPS using mapsforge viewer (left) vs VTM viewer (right).

In summary, I would say that VTM viewer for mapsforge themes is not really ready yet.