Author Topic: color codes  (Read 24912 times)

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

Offline yakra

  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4234
  • Last Login:February 13, 2024, 07:19:36 pm
  • I like C++
color codes
« on: August 14, 2017, 02:18:39 am »
The following colors were used by CHM:
  blue
  brown
  green
  magenta
  red
  teal
The following colors are new to TM:
  lightsalmon
  yellow

What are the color codes, both clinched & unclinched, for each?

(Or, Is there a place on GitHub where I can conveniently look this up, keeping in mind that I don't speak PHP or Python, may not grok CSS, and understand JavaScript on sort of an 8th-grade-French level?)
Sri Syadasti Syadavaktavya Syadasti Syannasti Syadasti Cavaktavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavatavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavaktavyasca

Offline yakra

  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4234
  • Last Login:February 13, 2024, 07:19:36 pm
  • I like C++
Re: color codes
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2017, 02:26:40 am »
Since I can't delete my own topics on this board...
(Or, Is there a place on GitHub where I can conveniently look this up, keeping in mind that I don't speak PHP or Python, may not grok CSS, and understand JavaScript on sort of an 8th-grade-French level?)

https://github.com/TravelMapping/Web/blob/master/lib/tmjsfuncs.js
Sri Syadasti Syadavaktavya Syadasti Syannasti Syadasti Cavaktavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavatavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavaktavyasca

Offline si404

  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1941
  • Last Login:Yesterday at 07:12:02 pm
Re: color codes
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2017, 06:38:42 am »
And if anyone wants Hex codes:

blue #6464FF #0000FF
brown #999866 #996600
red #FF6464 #FF0000
yellow #FFFF80 #FFFF00
teal #64C8C8 #00C8C8
green #64FF64 #00FF00
magenta #FF64FF #FF00FF
lightsalmon #FFC8C8 #FFA07A

Yellow was the CHM color for usaif.

Offline oscar

  • TM Collaborator
  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1523
  • Last Login:Yesterday at 07:38:46 pm
    • Hot Springs and Highways pages
Re: color codes
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2017, 10:21:17 am »
si404's post confirms what I suspected: yellow and lightsalmon are pretty much invisible for me.

This raises an accessibility issue. Keep in mind that many of our users are old farts like me, whose vision is less than perfect. Do we really need to have so many colors, that we go deep into the pastels, rather than stick with the six darker and more contrasty colors on our palette?

As for what CHM used for the usaif system, it wasn't yellow. It was more orange-y. I didn't like that color, but at least I could see it.

Offline michih

  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4554
  • Last Login:Yesterday at 02:35:49 pm
Re: color codes
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2017, 10:40:46 am »
blue #6464FF #0000FF is currently in use for 56 systems.
brown #999866 #996600 is currently in use for 73 systems.
red #FF6464 #FF0000 is currently in use for 11 systems.
yellow #FFFF80 #FFFF00 is currently in use for 22 systems.
teal #64C8C8 #00C8C8 is currently in use for 18 systems.
green #64FF64 #00FF00 is currently in use for 2 systems (usaib + eure).
magenta #FF64FF #FF00FF is currently in use for 1 system (usausb).
lightsalmon #FFC8C8 #FFA07A is currently in use for 72 systems.

I have some problem to see #FFC8C8 on maps but #FFFF80 is perfect!

Offline oscar

  • TM Collaborator
  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1523
  • Last Login:Yesterday at 07:38:46 pm
    • Hot Springs and Highways pages
Re: color codes
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2017, 11:00:50 am »
Keep in mind that our colors will usually be viewed not on a white background, but overlaid on online maps with their own color schemes. Yellow is likely to get lost on Google Maps, which has a palette tending to yelllows (which I don't like). OSM/Mapnik's tiles have their own color scheme, which we should also try not to overlap so users can tell the difference between the lines TMs draws and those on the underlying map.

Either way, dark colors are best, and the six darker ones (perhaps punching up green, to make it a little darker) should be plenty for our purposes.

Offline michih

  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4554
  • Last Login:Yesterday at 02:35:49 pm
Re: color codes
« Reply #6 on: August 14, 2017, 12:17:36 pm »
I only talk about Mapnik and Google Maps and low zoom level, e.g.:

http://tmtest.teresco.org/user/mapview.php?units=km&u=michih&rg=deu-bb,deu-be,deu-bw,deu-by,deu-hb,deu-he,deu-hh,deu-mv,deu-ni,deu-nw,deu-rp,deu-sh,deu-sl,deu-sn,deu-st,deu-th&dbname=TravelMappingTest

"untraveled" yellow is perfect to me on Mapnik. "untraveled" lightsalmon sucks. I have a different monitor than when we introduced the latter. Maybe my new graphics card or the monitor settings are just bad...

I found the following issues:
- map customization options
- user-specific data
- brown untraveled with many points looks like traveled
- teal+green untraveled looks like teal traveled

Offline yakra

  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4234
  • Last Login:February 13, 2024, 07:19:36 pm
  • I like C++
Re: color codes
« Reply #7 on: August 14, 2017, 05:29:37 pm »
si404's post confirms what I suspected: yellow and lightsalmon are pretty much invisible for me.
I have some problem to see #FFC8C8 on maps but #FFFF80 is perfect!
It's the other way around for me; I have a harder time picking out the yellow. Just looking at the text in Si & michih's posts, I have to strain to read the yellow. For lightsalmon, clinched is fine, with unclinched  a bit tougher but not as bad as yellow. Sure, we don't *read* the maps, but same principle. I'm just using this for a quick gauge of visibility.
(Heh. And here against the darker background of the quotation box, lightsalmon *is* less readable, and yellow more. :P )

This raises an accessibility issue. Keep in mind that many of our users are old farts like me, whose vision is less than perfect. Do we really need to have so many colors, that we go deep into the pastels, rather than stick with the six darker and more contrasty colors on our palette?
I suppose that magenta (usausb only) could be freed up. No big need to show the bannered routes in a separate color from mainline US highways IMO. Compare/contrast all the state systems, with bannered routes all lumped in with their parents, shown in the same color.
I'll pass over any discussion of usaib for the moment, and note that green is probably worth keeping, even if it's just eure at the moment. Eure was originally red coming from CHM; I think Si's decision to change it to green was appropriate for the context of Europe, doubtless well-considered. (I'm sure there was some discussion of it somewhere, that I'm not bothering to look up ATM.)

Keep in mind that our colors will usually be viewed not on a white background, but overlaid on online maps with their own color schemes. Yellow is likely to get lost on Google Maps, which has a palette tending to yelllows (which I don't like). OSM/Mapnik's tiles have their own color scheme, which we should also try not to overlap so users can tell the difference between the lines TMs draws and those on the underlying map.

Either way, dark colors are best, and the six darker ones (perhaps punching up green, to make it a little darker) should be plenty for our purposes.
From the perspective of maintaining good contrast from the various map & even blank grounds, I agree that darker is better.
Incidentally, since CHM, clinched colors have gotten lighter, and clinched/unclinched contrast has reduced. Here's what I've got for CHM:
  blue #32FFFF #0000DC
  brown #FFDCBE #643200 (unclinched is difficult for me to read)
  red #FFB4B4 #C80000
  teal #96FAC8 #009696 (unclinched is difficult for me to read)
  green #64C864 #00B400
  magenta #FF96FF #B400B4
  usaif #FFF064 #FF9600 (unclinched is difficult for me to read)
OTOH, I wouldn't want to move completely to a darker color-coded-only approach; having a bit of a dark-to-light spectrum as we move from higher to lower tiers gives a good, intuitive, visual indication of the routes' relative importance (though we really don't have this in the USA).
Was this the reason for the switch to lightsalmon in Europe? Don't know; I tried searching for lightsalmon (here, AARoads, GitHub) without much luck. Maybe si or michih could enlighten me. ISTR there being some discussion, that it got some thought and consideration, and I wouldn't want to tell si & michih to dial back on that change in favor of brown again.

Just to give a little more thought to the idea of reducing the number of colors, even though it's still one I'm not keen on...
Brown is very lightly used outside of the North American mainland, used only for brbh, gbrtr, and jama.
Red is used only for usaus, cantch, and 6 Asian systems (1 active, 3 preview, 2 devel).
Blue, teal, green, lightsalmon, and yellow all look pretty extensive & significant in Europe.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2017, 05:43:05 pm by yakra »
Sri Syadasti Syadavaktavya Syadasti Syannasti Syadasti Cavaktavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavatavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavaktavyasca

Offline yakra

  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4234
  • Last Login:February 13, 2024, 07:19:36 pm
  • I like C++
Re: color codes
« Reply #8 on: August 14, 2017, 05:58:29 pm »
Punching up the green: how's this for revisiting the classic CHM colors?

blue #6464FF #0000DC (unclinched from TM, clinched from CHM)
brown #999866 #996600 (TM, TM)
red #FF6464 #C80000 (TM, CHM)
teal #64C8C8 #009696 (TM, CHM)
green #64C864 #00A000 (CHM, slightly darker than CHM)
magenta #FF96FF #B400B4 (CHM, CHM)

...and having a go at the new TM colors, a work in progress...
lightsalmon #E0AFAF #E08C6B
yellow #FFD864 #E8B000 (unclinched is still a bit tough to read, but it's an improvement on the existing canary yellow...)
« Last Edit: August 14, 2017, 06:25:05 pm by yakra »
Sri Syadasti Syadavaktavya Syadasti Syannasti Syadasti Cavaktavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavatavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavaktavyasca

Offline si404

  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1941
  • Last Login:Yesterday at 07:12:02 pm
Re: color codes
« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2017, 06:41:09 pm »
leaving yellow & lightsalmon out for the moment, to be sorted in the future.
With the less strong colours, lightsalmon isn't as necessary. The main reason I went with that sort of colour (michih suggested it on hearing my description of what sort of thing might work and added it, though I tweaked the uncliched colour to try and make it less grey and also more visible, with little success) was a dislike of tourist/historic brown for systems that weren't, and many of the systems had red cartouches, so a reddy colour was good, but I tested the red and it was too strong a colour for the sometimes dense systems - ditto magenta.

I would like the darker green - both usaib, and eure, are signed with a darker green than the #00FF00 we currently have.

Thinking about it we have the 3 primary colours (red, blue, green) and darker versions of the 3 secondary colours (teal being a darker cyan, brown being a darker (and more orangey) yellow, our 'magenta' (ie purple) being a darker magenta*).

would orange #FFAA44, #FF8800 work as a viable colour (feel free to tweak, I tend to treat each hex pair as one number repeated, and then only even numbers), should we decide to have another (replace yellow and perhaps use for most of the systems currently using brown?)

*I think this is a En-UK vs En-US thing - I'd have the following: magenta purple.

Offline yakra

  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4234
  • Last Login:February 13, 2024, 07:19:36 pm
  • I like C++
Re: color codes
« Reply #10 on: August 14, 2017, 11:47:12 pm »
Si, I edited my post some more after you quoted it, and added in some attempts at lightsalmon and yellow. What do you think of those?

My thinking is along the lines of tweaking the existing colors, making them more visible and less jarring. I wouldn't want to eliminate yellow, though...
There's an important distinction between lightsalmon & yellow if the map of Germany is any indication. (Other countries in Europe, I haven't looked at very closely.)
In North America, I wouldn't want to lose the brown/yellow divide we have now -- and lose the cannst/cannsc / usamt/usamts distinction. ...Unless we were to go with lightsalmon* for these systems instead.
There will be more yellow (or, Tier 5 of whatever color at least) in Canada eventually, as my long-range place include adding canabs & canmbs.
Heck, Texas Farm-to-Market roads may even be a thing some day...

Quote
I tweaked the uncliched colour to try and make it less grey and also more visible, with little success
Giving it another go, touching up the example from my last post... How's F0B2B2 look?

*Speaking of which -- the only reason for this post was to find Hex codes, to plug into my CHM-style map generator and create some mockups for my proposal to split cannb into 3 systems. Some of the discussion from that thread spilled over into this one; see my response to Oscar that I linked above. I didn't really expect this thread to blow up so fast. Anyway -- give that thread a look-over too if you'd like. Got an opinion on that one?
« Last Edit: August 15, 2017, 12:12:35 am by yakra »
Sri Syadasti Syadavaktavya Syadasti Syannasti Syadasti Cavaktavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavatavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavaktavyasca

Offline michih

  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4554
  • Last Login:Yesterday at 02:35:49 pm
Re: color codes
« Reply #11 on: August 15, 2017, 03:01:20 am »
si404's post confirms what I suspected: yellow and lightsalmon are pretty much invisible for me.
I have some problem to see #FFC8C8 on maps but #FFFF80 is perfect!
It's the other way around for me; I have a harder time picking out the yellow. Just looking at the text in Si & michih's posts, I have to strain to read the yellow. For lightsalmon, clinched is fine, with unclinched  a bit tougher but not as bad as yellow. Sure, we don't *read* the maps, but same principle. I'm just using this for a quick gauge of visibility.
(Heh. And here against the darker background of the quotation box, lightsalmon *is* less readable, and yellow more. :P )

Please, don't look at text and don't rate how it looks with forum background. Check the lines drawn on map background, especially with low zoom.

Was this the reason for the switch to lightsalmon in Europe? Don't know; I tried searching for lightsalmon (here, AARoads, GitHub) without much luck. Maybe si or michih could enlighten me. ISTR there being some discussion, that it got some thought and consideration, and I wouldn't want to tell si & michih to dial back on that change in favor of brown again.

The discussion begins here: http://tm.teresco.org/forum/index.php?topic=131.msg2276#msg2276

Lightsalmon was introduced because red and magenta are too strong.

I'm happy with yellow but don't like untraveled lightsalmon. The contrast between untraveled lightsalmon to the typical map colors is really bad and should be darker (I guess I was happy with the color because the graphics card or settings of my old notebook were better).

I would like the darker green - both usaib, and eure, are signed with a darker green than the #00FF00 we currently have.

Seconded! Traveled green should be darker, untraveled green is fine.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2017, 03:03:42 am by michih »

Offline yakra

  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4234
  • Last Login:February 13, 2024, 07:19:36 pm
  • I like C++
Re: color codes
« Reply #12 on: August 15, 2017, 09:00:37 pm »
Please, don't look at text and don't rate how it looks with forum background. Check the lines drawn on map background, especially with low zoom.
As I noted in my post, I'm aware that text is no substitute for looking over the maps. My only intent was to get a very quick & dirty impression of contrast against light backgrounds.
I've made some custom mapviews to test tweaked color schemes...
More on this below...

The discussion begins here: http://tm.teresco.org/forum/index.php?topic=131.msg2276#msg2276

Lightsalmon was introduced because red and magenta are too strong.
...as noted in michih's Reply #47.
Quote
1. Yellow (looks a little bit over the top, maybe "gold" is more restrained?)
2. Magenta (sticks a little out like red though)
Yeah man, that magenta is yecchy.
A more restrained gold might be better than the over-the-top canary yellow. My attempt at toning it down some is here.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, it's a good time for some
Custom mapviews
using the alternate colors I posted...
oscar in NS
michih in DEU
si404 in ENG

Keep in mind that our colors will usually be viewed not on a white background, but overlaid on online maps with their own color schemes. Yellow is likely to get lost on Google Maps, which has a palette tending to yelllows (which I don't like). OSM/Mapnik's tiles have their own color scheme, which we should also try not to overlap so users can tell the difference between the lines TMs draws and those on the underlying map.
When first looking at the DEU mapviews, it took me a second to pick out the Tier 4 / lightsalmon routes; they're well camouflaged against OSM's red/pink/magenta/purple/salmon palette. (Look next door at the Netherlands, with its dense road network.) Then, I realized I was looking at TravelMapping's overlays on a background of Germany that was mostly blank space. Hey, not bad... :D
Roads that are themselves darker on the underlying map are likely to overlaid with a darker, E.G. blue or teal polyline.
So, while important to keep in mind, this may not be as bad is it sounds at first blush.
The roads Google is likely to show as yellow in North America would largely be Tier 4 roads, and thus get a brown polyline. Yellow, for Tier 5, would be mostly roads that start out as white on Google, at least in the US. In NS and AB, I see some Tier 5 roads marked yellow by Google to start with, but I don't think this is a problem -- what we'd really want to avoid IMO is a light polyline against a dark-colored road on the background. I have yet to find an instance of this.
Oscar: I've darkened the yellow a bit, making it into more of a gold. How does it look in your mapview of NS?

I'm happy with yellow but don't like untraveled lightsalmon. The contrast between untraveled lightsalmon to the typical map colors is really bad and should be darker
I've tweaked the untraveled lightsalmon, making it a bit darker and more saturated. It still matches the OSM color scheme (inevitable for a lightsalmon, I suppose), but contrasts with the light background a little better. How does it look in your mapview of DEU?
What do you think of the changes I made to the yellow?

I would like the darker green - both usaib, and eure, are signed with a darker green than the #00FF00 we currently have.
Seconded! Traveled green should be darker, untraveled green is fine.
I've darkened the green (though perhaps a bit too much?); what I used in the mapview link is a bit darker than on CHM.

As for clinched lightsalmon, maybe I should take that back closer to the current TM default...

All in all, it's a bit of a balancing act.
On the one hand, as michih & si have noted, the combination of dense systems and low zoom levels can present blobs of color that are jarring and overwhelming if too bright. For this reason, I think lighter and less saturated colors are good for the lower (higher-numbered) tiers. (Back to the ugly magenta again -- I'll attach some mockups of canabs at the end of the post to help illustrate.)
OTOH, as oscar & michih have noted, we want to avoid lighter colors with too little contrast, that are difficult to see against lighter backgrounds and maps.

I'm trying to find a good compromise between these two (somewhat opposed) goals.
Play around with the mapview links above; add in your own username and your preferred region and have a look around. (The NS example is better for North America; the DEU & ENG examples are better for Europe.) Just keep in mind that these mockups won't be a 1:1 representation of how things would really look with these as the default colors, as colors are only specified on a tier-by-tier, not system-by-system, basis. Many regions have different-colored systems of the same tier, such as usausb & usasf.
How do things look?
« Last Edit: August 15, 2017, 09:39:45 pm by yakra »
Sri Syadasti Syadavaktavya Syadasti Syannasti Syadasti Cavaktavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavatavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavaktavyasca

Offline Jim

  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2727
  • Last Login:Today at 05:41:06 am
Re: color codes
« Reply #13 on: August 15, 2017, 09:32:45 pm »
I wonder if a motivated TM contributor might be able to figure out how to make our own tiles from OSM data.

Offline michih

  • TM Collaborator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4554
  • Last Login:Yesterday at 02:35:49 pm
Re: color codes
« Reply #14 on: August 16, 2017, 10:47:38 am »
@yakra: Thanks, this is almost perfect to me! (I've added DNK and POL to get more unclinched green and more teal)
  • Blue: Fine
  • Teal: Fine
  • Green traveled should be a little bit brighter (too close to teal)
  • Traveled lightsalmon is fine, untraveled lightsalmon is still too light
  • yellow/orange: Fine
« Last Edit: August 16, 2017, 10:49:58 am by michih »