Openstreetmap-carto: Parking too prominent

[matthijsmelissen]

Parking is currently rendered too prominent. Compare for example the following renderings.

Before:

After (possible):

In the 'before' rendering, the parking is rendered more prominently than the buildings (including the supermarket). Can we tone down the rendering? Light gray like in the possible 'after' might be going too far, but do we have any other options?

[matthijsmelissen]

Lighter yellow might work:

The color is still not very intuitive to me, it doesn't immediately scream 'parking'.

[kocio-pl]

Thanks, looks to me like a real issue worth taking care of. Lighter yellow might be similar to social amenities however. Another possibility would be something based on garages area.

[kocio-pl]

it doesn't immediately scream 'parking'.

Well, that's very good IMO. I don't like any objects to "scream" if they are not of special importance by design (like military area or health related features). Parkings are currently too prominent because of two properties:

• very intensive color for area (second to reds probably), especially if this area is big,
• quite big letter with a color which is also intensive (strong blue is very visible on land features).

My initial idea was to push the letters down a bit (#2171), but maybe we could do the other way around and left the "P" markers as they are, but instead make area color neutral, just to see the shape.

I feel that gray is good: if you're looking for a parking, you can still easily spot them, and the real shape and size is perfectly visible once you choose which one you're interested in. "Transportation gray" would make things unified (as in #2763).

Dropping yellow would also work for visibility of secondary roads ("After" rendering shows it clearly) and probably social amenities too.

[kocio-pl]

Examples of parking area colored like aerodrome:

Parking near LaGuardia airport (New York):
Before

After

Parking on LaGuardia airport (New York):
Before

After

[kocio-pl]

Examples of parking area colored like garages:

Warsaw:
Before

After

Parking near LaGuardia airport (New York):

Parking on LaGuardia airport (New York):

[printmaps]

Some hints for rendering parking space:

• parking area, no restriction (e.g. public) = yellow
• parking space, access permission (e.g. customers) = yellow with hatch
• parking space, private or no access = pale (same as garages)

[Tomasz-W]

I don't see any problem with current parkings colour. Current yellow with "P" letter is intuitive, and parking borders are visible good. Parkings with restricted access are rendered with lighter "P", and for me, it's enough to distinguish them.
Changing it to almost unvisible kind of pale brown colour, will make parkings hard to see.

[kocio-pl]

Changing it to almost unvisible kind of pale brown colour, will make parkings hard to see.

"Too prominent" means "too easy to see (=at the expense of other elements)", but making them less prominent does not mean they will be "hard to see". The letter "P" is still easily visible, so it's still easy to see the parking location, just not the shape.

[matkoniecz]

Gray parking areas would become invisible on landuse=residential and other gray areas.

[kocio-pl]

Well, it depends on the size - the bigger it is the more visible it became, which is very good. I like the original proposition (#eeeeee), because it's bright enough, yet parkings stop being more important than buildings, roads and societal areas as it is currently (which I find to be just ridiculous).

No landuse:
Before

After

Residential with buildings - good contrast for big parking, at the same time small parking don't "scream":
Before

After

Before

After

Big and small parking on commercial with buildings:
Before

After

Near secondary roads:
Before

After

[kocio-pl]

Another example illustrating that it's a real problem and that big parkings are still visible with gray area - east side of Chicago:

Before

After

Before

After

[lakedistrictOSM]

Will you change amenity=bicycle_parking areas too for consistency?
eg http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/419572766 @ z19

[kocio-pl]

The same color is used for all the parking types:

https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/blob/68131b453b3dff99ae9f9746448ed489f5a17221/landcover.mss#L537-L547

[kocio-pl]

Another case when parking is too visible - big underground facilities in yellow make park look like a beach probably:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/230629285#map=18/41.88262/-87.62070

UPDATE: This is how it looks after the color change - I still think if we should change the rendering for underground parkings (hide the landcover, hide the P or show it with a ^ above?):

https://tile.iosb.fraunhofer.de//#map=17/41.8827/-87.6214/3

In the end the most important thing to show in such cases is the parking entrance: #2875.

[kocio-pl]

@Tomasz-W Maybe P combined with the down arrow on the bottom could work for underground parking? It could be simple and readable, I hope. What do you think?

[Tomasz-W]

What about "P" under horizontal line? "P" with arrow is planned for https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/2875

[kocio-pl]

Could you check both? I meant lower part of the letter to be an arrow, not two elements with smaller P, like in parking entry.

[Tomasz-W]

Ok, I'll try.

Btw. I think underground parking areas should be hidden the same as we hid underground platforms, I don't see a reason for showing them as they are covered by another elements (see the example above), so parking shape is invisible or hard readable anyway.

Edit: Or maybe some dashed outline without filling simillar to 3rd test rendering there: https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/2475#issuecomment-371912685

[kocio-pl]

Yes, my current idea is to hide all the areas (better than yellow, but still strange and misleading), but leave the mark on lower zoom level and show entries on higher zoom. I guess this would be enough and we don't have to remove the mark.

[Tomasz-W]

1. 
2. 
3. 

Gist link: https://gist.github.com/Tomasz-W/b9655543be00a01d51c975b03009c654

[kocio-pl]

Comparison of example with 3 underground parkings in Chicago on z17:

Before (well, the icon is v3...)

After (3 versions)

[kocio-pl]

What about bigger triangle on v3, like the whole width and probably P letter cut a bit on the bottom to make it fit?

[Tomasz-W]

1. 
2. 

Gist link: https://gist.github.com/Tomasz-W/b9655543be00a01d51c975b03009c654

[Tomasz-W]

@kocio-pl Is possible to use dashed parking outline there (without filling)? Can you try it?

PS. At this point I think it would be better if you will open new issue for underground parkings, because working on something in closed ticker which was about something different always makes discussion more complitated.

[kocio-pl]

I don't think the outline is good, it will be hard to know what is it. I will open new ticket once I get some time, I have too many things currently.

[jragusa]

My 2 cents: why not a roof over the "P" like this one

[Tomasz-W]

Because it would fit rather parkings under bulding=roof(eg. https://ecofriend.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/vanguard-1_DRCPI_7071.jpg) than underground ones ;)

[polarbearing]

Not just in building=roof but also parking=multi_storey; but indeed not underground.

[kocio-pl]

I've made v6 simply by making v5 wide for the whole matrix:

v4

v5

v6

[Tomasz-W]

I vote for v5.

[Tomasz-W]

Please continue further discussion about underground parkings in https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/3506.