Openstreetmap-carto: Render elevation with different tourism objects

[kocio-pl]

Currently we render elevation data only for tourism=alpine_hut and amenity=shelter:

https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/blob/0ba5691dd2c4075ed35bd3ce5884dd92f0e4b985/project.mml#L2105-L2106

but I've found that there can are other similar objects with ele=* tag, like this wilderness hut and for example 2 556 hotels.

[Tomasz-W]

I'm not sure if adding ele=* value to labels of elements different than peaks/ volcanoes is a good direction. As I was in mointains this summer, I can say that elevation of peaks was surely enough (for me), so I would even exclude alipine huts and shelters to avoid map cluttering.

[kocio-pl]

My take would be that in the outdoor we have a lot less objects (POIs) and the clutter is not a problem there in general. And I find it common to give the elevation information as one of the most important things for mountain accommodation places - for example: http://www.schronisko-ornak.pl/o-schronisku/informacje.html

We have also added it lately for guideposts, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/3198#issuecomment-385201427.

[dieterdreist]

sent from a phone

On 6. Sep 2018, at 10:54, Tomasz Wójcik [e-mail] wrote:

As I was in mointains this summer, I can say that elevation of peaks was surely enough (for me), so I would even exclude alipine huts and shelters to avoid map cluttering.

I am in favor of rendering ele for alpine huts. Besides the name it is quite an important information in the mountains to know the elevation. And it is therefore typical to show it on maps. These are also typically/often signed at the location (although general uncertainties about the reference system apply, like for all ele tags)

[jragusa]

I also support to add elevation for wilderness hut. It's an important information to estimate the required time to access it.

[matkoniecz]

2 556 hotels.

I see no reason to display elevation for hotels.

[kocio-pl]

Why not? They are just a different accommodation comfort class, but if they are located in the mountains, it's the same as other accommodation objects.

[matkoniecz]

Primarily, because (in overwhelming majority) hotels will be accessed not by mountainous hiking route but rather by car/bus/aerialway.

As result importance of elevation is much lower.

Also, hotels are less likely to be located near mountaintops compared to alpine huts.

Second problem is that there is no good way to distinguish "hotel in mountains" and "hotel not in mountains" and would encourage tagging for rendering (removing elevation data in cases where people dislike rendering it)

[kocio-pl]

Do you have opinion on rendering elevation for other accommodation objects?

[matkoniecz]

In general - I think that alpine huts are exception, with location in mountains and access primarily by mountainous hiking routes (and even then I am unsure about rendering elevation data).

Wilderness huts may be a candidate, but based on my (limited) experience and knowledge this type of object tends to not occur in high mountains where elevation info is very important.

So overall I think that current situation is OK.

[Adamant36]

According to the wiki wilderness huts don't explicitly exclude mountainous huts. The example picture of one looks likes a mountainous hut also. According to Wikipedia "usually located in wilderness areas, national parks and along backpacking and hiking routes." All those scenarios could either potentially qualify as mountainous, or at least have enough elevation change between wilderness huts that it would be useful to know if the difference in elevation between them would be worth the hike to another one or not.

In general, I doubt out of 6 million uses of elevation that alpine huts and shelters are the only useful combinations worth displaying. There's also plenty of situations where elevation is useful outside of just mountainous areas. Any wilderness thing could potentially benefit from elevation. Otherwise why are there so many instances of it?

Id like see it rendered on lakes/ponds. Since I visit and map them a lot. And it would be good to know their elevation before trekking my bike out to them. So I'll have a good idea of the intensity of the ride before hand and can plan accordingly. Not having it rendered makes me less inclined to add it once I get out there also. I'm not requesting it be rendered, but I think it should be for wilderness huts for the reasons given by me and others above.

[HolgerJeromin]

Numbers attached to names collides with housenumbers.
So tagging for the renderer or be confused (osmand adds housenumber behind) are both two problems to avoid.

[kocio-pl]

I'm not sure if I understand you, could you show the example where it could lead to problems?

[geowOSM]

Wilderness huts may be a candidate, but based on my (limited) experience and knowledge this type of object tends to not occur in high mountains where elevation info is very important.

In central Europe wilderness huts are prevalent in the Alps and Apennines with elevations for the most part above 1000 m: http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/C9D

[Adamant36]

Would it be possible to render elevation based on an elevation check so things below a certain elevation just wouldn't get rendered with it?

[sommerluk]

Technically: Yes (In the SQL query. For waterfalls, for example, we are yet filtering values lower than 0 because these values doesn’t make sense and are tagging errors. The same would work with different thresholds.)

However it is doubtful that we manage to have a reasonable threshold. In some higher regions, you might have a plateau with towns on it and don’t want the elevations (almost all of Spain is a plateau, for example, and there are not so many mountains). Other regions might have lower elevation, but nevertheless mountains that are difficult to access and which are typical hiking regions.

Having the elevation value sometimes rendered and sometimes not, based on an arbitrary threshold, would probably be surprising and therefore confusing for the mappers. As feedback for mappers is one of our primary goals, I wouldn’t do this.

[kocio-pl]

Given lack of approval, I will close this ticket. If somebody will find suitable kind of object where it would make sense, we can discuss it further.

[jragusa]

I guess that an approval can be reached about tourism=wilderness_hut. We can admit that some of them occurred in mountain locations as indicated by the comment of @geowOSM. Concerning low elevated locations, I would like to raised that amenity=shelter is also concerned since they are even mapped in cities and it is not necessary to render elevation in this case.

So if we want to be consistent, I think we have two possibilities:
1/ adding rending of elevation to tourism=wilderness_hut to support mountain huts or,
2/ removing elevation to shelter if we consider that's not recommended for low elevated location (both shelter and wilderness_hut)