Travel Mapping
User Discussions => Other Discussion => Topic started by: yakra on February 07, 2021, 10:37:09 am
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I've kind of downplayed the idea of the tiers on the user point of view. Maybe others think differently, but I don't care of a route is a tier 2 or a tier 3, as they seem pretty arbitrarily assigned as CHM and then TM expanded highway coverage.
I agree with this. I've had the idea (forget whether ever posted about it) about getting rid of tiers entirely -- tiers as currently implemented still don't allow routes to always sort deterministically, e.g. usaus vs usaib -- and instead sorting by color. At the time I checked it out (2017, 2018?) there was a clear color hierarchy that held site-wide.
However, the recent addition of more colors (even if none of them are used in systems.csv yet) throws a wrench into this.
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Am I correct that the only place tiers are used in a meaningful way is in mapview to draw concurrent segments with the color of the lowest-tier/most-significant route?
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Is it still used as a sort criterion in the HB & userpages?
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Is it still used as a sort criterion in the HB & userpages?
I sometimes sort them manually by tiers because I want to "filter" them to see freeway systems only.
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Is it still used as a sort criterion in the HB & userpages?
I sometimes sort them manually by tiers because I want to "filter" them to see freeway systems only.
Right, this is what I was picturing. A user with extensive European travels who wanted to see/compare all clinched freeways in the list.
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how about the idea of sorting/filtering by color?
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how about the idea of sorting/filtering by color?
Blue and teal? And using both for freeways only? And don't allow using them by users who can currently modify the colors by themselves?
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how about the idea of sorting/filtering by color?
If that’s simpler, sure.
And per michih’s comment, the best solution would allow for selecting multiple colors for a single list.
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Tiers are useful for setting custom colors in Mapview. For example, when I put together some hypothetical scenarios, I just used tier 4 and tier 5 and then set exceptions for specific systems. Much easier than defining a color for 50 state systems!
At the time I checked it out (2017, 2018?) there was a clear color hierarchy that held site-wide.
That's no longer true. See: Australia and Europe. Light salmon is tier 4 in Europe and tier 5 in Australia, and the reverse is true for yellow.
Is it still used as a sort criterion in the HB & userpages?
Yep. The HB sorts by country/continent, then by tier, then by system. Region.php and the route list in Mapview are similar. The display of routes in usanyp and usasf within NY illustrates it.
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tiers as currently implemented still don't allow routes to always sort deterministically, e.g. usaus vs usaib
It looks like usaib stacks on top of usaus when routes between the two are concurrent - what makes this happen? Alphabetical order?
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Blue and teal? And using both for freeways only? And don't allow using them by users who can currently modify the colors by themselves?
None of this makes sense to me. Rephrase?
Tiers are useful for setting custom colors in Mapview. For example, when I put together some hypothetical scenarios, I just used tier 4 and tier 5 and then set exceptions for specific systems. Much easier than defining a color for 50 state systems!
The colors themselves can also be redefined, right? It could also be done that way, yes?
At the time I checked it out (2017, 2018?) there was a clear color hierarchy that held site-wide.
That's no longer true. See: Australia and Europe. Light salmon is tier 4 in Europe and tier 5 in Australia, and the reverse is true for yellow.
Indeed. Rather than questioning whether it's appropriate (Did AUS get its colors via the "color of the shield" concept?), I'll acknowledge this alone is enough to put the kibosh on the idea of ditching tiers in favor of sorting/filtering by colors. ...Mark solved?
tiers as currently implemented still don't allow routes to always sort deterministically, e.g. usaus vs usaib
It looks like usaib stacks on top of usaus when routes between the two are concurrent
Interesting. It was non-deterministic in the past, back before the big changes for scrollable mapview. Maybe things changed then.
what makes this happen? Alphabetical order?
Jim?
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This might be getting into more than we want right now, but instead of arbitrarily-numbered tiers, perhaps it makes more sense to have named categories that make sense in each part of the world along with a partial ordering that defines how they get prioritized on maps and in lists.
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A bit rich for my blood. I'm satisfied that the existence of tiers is justified now.
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Blue and teal? And using both for freeways only? And don't allow using them by users who can currently modify the colors by themselves?
None of this makes sense to me. Rephrase?
I wanted to say that I want to filter for freeways / motorways. There are two colors / tiers for them in Europe. And I wanted to point out that users can change the colors.
This might be getting into more than we want right now, but instead of arbitrarily-numbered tiers, perhaps it makes more sense to have named categories that make sense in each part of the world along with a partial ordering that defines how they get prioritized on maps and in lists.
Motorways/Freeways, International Routes and trunk roads?
Tier 1: Motorways
All official road networks which usually fulfill the Vienna convention (http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/conventn/crt1968e.pdf) for road standard. There can be some routes which do not fully fulfill the road standard, e.g. German A62 which has partially one carriageway only. Here, the dedication with A numbering is used and A62 is not excluded from the system.
Tier 2: International routes
All official international road networks
Tier 3: Trunk roads
Highest highway networks
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This might be getting into more than we want right now, but instead of arbitrarily-numbered tiers, perhaps it makes more sense to have named categories that make sense in each part of the world along with a partial ordering that defines how they get prioritized on maps and in lists.
That's what I've been thinking, but not come up with a fully fleshed proposal. Freeway, Continental, State, Local, Tourist with a <name>2 sublayer for each (might as well give them all one, even if only some are used) seems sensible, albeit with the names I've used being rather US-centric.
It also allows the hiding of certain types of routes (eg tourist routes) to be easier too.
At the time I checked it out (2017, 2018?) there was a clear color hierarchy that held site-wide.
That's no longer true.
I'm not sure that was ever true. At least not after E Roads were added as a tier 3 green system in 2009 or whatever.
Lightsalmon in Australia is mostly a place holder system - it's used on the NT Territorial Highways (which is being converted to alphanumeric) to separate them from the C roads (which are grey), and the Melbourne Metropolitan Routes (vs Victoria C roads) too. I can change the colour to grey, but I've just not bothered doing it - the lightsalmon meaning different things in different parts of the world is less of an issue, IMV, than grey meaning different things within the same region.
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At the time I checked it out (2017, 2018?) there was a clear color hierarchy that held site-wide.
That's no longer true.
I'm not sure that was ever true. At least not after E Roads were added as a tier 3 green system in 2009 or whatever.
Here's what I came up with at the time:
void SetSubTier()
{ if (Color == "b_water") { SubTier = 10; return; }
if (Color == "b_subdiv") { SubTier = 12; return; }
if (Color == "b_country") { SubTier = 11; return; }
if (Color == "yellow") { SubTier = 8; return; }
if (Color == "brown") { SubTier = 7; return; }
if (Color == "lightsalmon") { SubTier = 6; return; }
if (Color == "magenta") { SubTier = 5; return; }
if (Color == "red") { SubTier = 4; return; }
if (Color == "green") { SubTier = 3; return; }
if (Color == "teal") { SubTier = 2; return; }
if (Color == "blue") { SubTier = 1; return; }
/* default/unrecognized */ SubTier = 9;
}
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yellow should overlap brown.
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Yellow lower priority than brown came from North American usage; I believe yellow started out for cannsc only. Yellow had begun to come into use in Europe then (Spring 2018 or earlier); I don't think brown had.
That stuff no longer applies to the TravelMapping of 2021 anyway.
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Here's a preliminary idea of where my thinking is going on this, using the U.S. as an example. Note that I'm leaving out usaif because I hate it and think we should delete it and usansf because it will go away.
Replace the numbered tiers with:
- USInterstates
- USBanneredInterstates
- USHighways
- USBanneredHighways
- USFreeways
- USPrimaryRegional (most state sets)
- USSecondaryRegional (some state sets like usamts, usatxf)
- USOthers (usanp,usaush)
Then separately define a hierarchy of these for ordering in tables and on maps.
Named tiers could have a default color, so they wouldn't all need to be in systems.csv. Users could override colors by named tier or individual system.
We wouldn't need to worry about what does "Tier 2" mean in Europe or Australia to be consistent with what "Tier 2" means in the US. Continents or countries or whatever is appropriate can define their own.
I especially like to have the ability to specify "all state level primary systems" in a meaningful way that wouldn't wind up bringing in or excluding, depending what I'm trying to do, some other systems that were arbitrarily assigned the same tier number.
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Would the benefits of this scheme be worth the hassle of building & implementing it & switching over, as compared to no-build?
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I'm seeing it as part of the infrastructure that will enable future abilities to restrict maps and stats.
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A means of restricting or enabling multiple systems all at once. Fair enough.
The Unsigned Interstates Discussion has got me thinking about modifications to userpages.
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I'm seeing it as part of the infrastructure that will enable future abilities to restrict maps and stats.
Yeah, I was thinking that reading through this thread. Make it so people can turn off each tier to hide stuff they don't want to clinch. Possibly use such a system to resolve the "great unsigned highway debate". This is one of those developments that would likely save us a lot of hassle later in exchange for some work now.
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I'm not sure that was ever true. At least not after E Roads were added as a tier 3 green system in 2009 or whatever.
Lightsalmon in Australia is mostly a place holder system - it's used on the NT Territorial Highways (which is being converted to alphanumeric) to separate them from the C roads (which are grey), and the Melbourne Metropolitan Routes (vs Victoria C roads) too. I can change the colour to grey, but I've just not bothered doing it - the lightsalmon meaning different things in different parts of the world is less of an issue, IMV, than grey meaning different things within the same region.
Well, if we go really far back, everything used to use the same scheme. Then Europe changed to green for E roads. Later, Europe changed to lightsalmon for the tier 4 systems for whatever reason (were tourist routes around yet?) I'm not sure when the E roads were put as tier 3 rather than tier 2, though, and that's a detail that's actually easy to miss if one doesn't have travels in Europe. I wasn't aware the E routes were tier 3 until the subject came up somewhat recently in another thread (might have actually be the Australia thread, now that I think about it). I always assumed they were just like the US routes, except green (similar for Europe tier 4 systems and state routes).
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I'm not sure when the E roads were put as tier 3 rather than tier 2, though
pretty sure it was a day 1 thing for E roads as E Roads came after some tier 2 freeway systems in Europe had been done.
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Yup. Have expressways between Freeways and Natioal/Continental systems.
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Later, Europe changed to lightsalmon for the tier 4 systems for whatever reason
The reason was the contrast - especially of untraveled routes - on underlaying map tiles.
(were tourist routes around yet?)
I don't think so. If they were, it didn't the matter if memory serves (cannot find the discussion with the search feature of the forum).
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The reason was the contrast - especially of untraveled routes - on underlaying map tiles.
As opposed to brown?
edit (https://github.com/TravelMapping/HighwayData/commit/a586da554790ab47a2ac7c3e0998c22abe401192)
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The reason was the contrast - especially of untraveled routes - on underlaying map tiles.
As opposed to brown?
edit (https://github.com/TravelMapping/HighwayData/commit/a586da554790ab47a2ac7c3e0998c22abe401192)
Orange. Brown was used but Si assigned brown to tourist systems and introduced orange for the tier 4 systems.
btw: why have you changed the (default) color of YOUR European tier 4 systems from brown to orange?
To be honest, I think it looks worse compared to brown: http://tm.teresco.org/user/mapview.php?u=michih&rg=CZE&colors=tier4:rgb(255,165,0):rgb(255,165,0).
You are right it looks awful, but thankfully it's rendered as a (default?) pinkish red (http://tm.teresco.org/user/mapview.php?u=si404&rg=ENG) that works well. I went with orange as most systems I gave the colour to use red or yellow shields for them (green and blue having been taken for motorways and E roads, though obviously many European countries have motorways signed in green), but the pinkish red gives contrast, looks good, and isn't tourist-route brown, so I'd like to go for that.
Red (http://tm.teresco.org/user/mapview.php?u=si404&rg=ENG&colors=tier4:rgb(255,100,100):rgb(255,0,0)) is not (or rarly) used for signage in Europe and it sticks out too much for a tier 4 system compared to tier 1-3.
Brown is the typical color for tourist routes
There are 3 options left:
1. Yellow (http://tm.teresco.org/user/mapview.php?u=si404&rg=ENG&colors=tier4:rgb(255,255,128):rgb(225,225,0)) (looks a little bit over the top, maybe "gold" is more restrained?)
2. Magenta (http://tm.teresco.org/user/mapview.php?u=si404&rg=ENG&colors=tier4:rgb(255,100,255):rgb(255,0,255)) (sticks a little out like red though)
3. Jim would kindly add something like "pink (http://tm.teresco.org/user/mapview.php?u=si404&rg=ENG)" (well, I think it's pink or salmon for clinched and brown for unclinched segments)
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:D
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I'm not sure when the E roads were put as tier 3 rather than tier 2, though
pretty sure it was a day 1 thing for E roads as E Roads came after some tier 2 freeway systems in Europe had been done.
CHM treated the E roads as US routes on another continent, complete with the red color (which was changed early on after the switch to TM). It might be that they were assigned tier 3 when tiers were invented; I don't know how old the tier 2 freeway systems are as all my travels are in the US and Canada and CHM was never as transparent about development as TM.
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Day 1 in terms to tiers being invented, as E Roads date back to CHM. I wanna say they were green back then too, but less certain.
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Not sure if this has been brought-up before, or what it would take to implement here, but I like the concept of user-defined color systems...thinking in particular of what mob-rule does.
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Not sure if this has been brought-up before, or what it would take to implement here, but I like the concept of user-defined color systems...thinking in particular of what mob-rule does.
I would like this to be part of the control panel idea. (https://github.com/TravelMapping/Web/issues/351)
I could see this being very flexible, allowing fine-grained control like we have through the hard-to-use query string parameters now, but also convenient to choose from among pre-defined and contributed color schemes.