Clinched Routes Highway Shields

[Jim]

There are a variety of fonts used throughout the shield templates.  Maybe the right one's in there somewhere.

[Jim]

I am wondering whether the way these Ontario SVGs store the code for the numbers is done to avoid the need for the font, storing the geometry of each character right in the file.

[andrepoiy]

So the 407 in Ontario has two sections, a privately-owned section and a government-owned section. The privately-owned section uses a different shield, which can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Highway_407#/media/File:407_Express_Toll_Route_Traffic_Sign.svg

Here is a Google Streetview of the shield: https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.7884043,-79.5127916,3a,15y,94.69h,89.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sbhEcgy75GjdaiFvBdpjMdw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

[rickmastfan67]

We know.  However, at this time, we can only have 1 shield.  Thus, the 'Ontario' version is the best option.

Had ETR built the new segments and used the same shield, we would have used that shield instead.

[mapcat]

We know.  However, at this time, we can only have 1 shield.  Thus, the 'Ontario' version is the best option.

Well, we certainly could have two shields if we had separate files for ON 407 and 407 ETR.

[yakra]

Tennessee, Vermont, Pennsylvania, IDK about Florida...

For cantch, CHM had animated gifs for Provinces where the route number changed, such as ON, QC or NS.
ISTR (rustier here) usapa was similar for routes that has "PA Turnpike ##"-shielded segments.

TM does SVG instead of GIF. Maybe add some JavaScript to shieldgen.php to continually swap out some innerHTML, SVG to SVG to SVG...?
https://github.com/TravelMapping/Web/issues/614

[rickmastfan67]

I am wondering whether the way these Ontario SVGs store the code for the numbers is done to avoid the need for the font, storing the geometry of each character right in the file.

Who knows Jim.  Anyways, I'm still progressing on cleaning up the shield from Wikipedia.  Found a few flaws with it, like it wasn't properly centered at all, meaning a good amount of time making sure each side was properly synced & centered.  Once I'm done cleaning it up, I'll create fixed 407, 412, 418, & QEW shields too.

Which also reminds me, do we have access to the 'Blue Highway' font for the shields on the site?  I remember back in the day when I created the original Ontario shields for CHM (sadly, not compatible with SVG), that was the font I used for the lettering/numbers (Century Schoolbook for the QEW, but that can be turned into a vector at least).

Also, how hard is it to do 'Superscript' text?  That would be needed for the 'A' & 'B' highways in Ontario.

[Jim]

Thanks.  If the 407/412/418 can be a template, that would be good.  QEW is unique so that can be any SVG as long as it has an appropriate viewBox.

I'm not sure on font availability or how to find them.  Many of the SVGs seem to use various Roadgeek fonts.  You can see font specifications in many of the .svg templates, most of which were part of the initial implementation of the shield generator, which I was not involved in.

Best I can tell for the superscript, we would make that a separate replaceable text element like the ***NUMBER*** in most of the templates.

[Duke87]

Tennessee, Vermont, Pennsylvania, IDK about Florida...

For cantch, CHM had animated gifs for Provinces where the route number changed, such as ON, QC or NS.
ISTR (rustier here) usapa was similar for routes that has "PA Turnpike ##"-shielded segments.

TM does SVG instead of GIF. Maybe add some JavaScript to shieldgen.php to continually swap out some innerHTML, SVG to SVG to SVG...?
https://github.com/TravelMapping/Web/issues/614

I would prefer two shields side by side to an animation, personally.

[yakra]

I would prefer two shields side by side to an animation, personally.

ON & QC TCH, though...

[Bickendan]

I have Blue Highway, Blue Highway Condensed, and Blue Highway D installed on my computer.
If you need them, I can make it available.

[vdeane]

I would prefer two shields side by side to an animation, personally.

ON & QC TCH, though...

Right now they only use the generic shield, which is what's actually posted in the field.  Adding numbers would be creating shields that don't exist in reality.  The chances of Québec changing to putting the number in the shield is probably zero; not only do they have a, let's shall we say, interesting relationship with the rest of Canada, the mainline TCH is soon to be entirely concurrent with the autoroute system, and I imagine they would want to keep those shields as primary (unlike ON, where they use the same shield as the rest of the provincial system, just with a 4xx number).  Regarding Ontario, even if they did start posting the shields with a number in there, the only TCH section in TM that has more than two is the Georgian Bay one - and that will change when they get ON 400 completed.

Regarding ON 407 specifically, it could be argued that it's not disimilar to things like CO 470/E470 or I-590/NY 590, especially given this sign.

[yakra]

I'll maintain that an animation would be the more future-proof solution, should there be anything using more than 2 shields in the future.

[vdeane]

I'm not really a fan of how the animation looked on CHM, though it might be better for things like the traveled routes/clinched routes pages as well.  I guess the question is, how often does this come up, and how much does it matter?  VT has a clear state route shield, with the other one being a way to show off which routes are maintained by towns.  It's a similar story for the PA Turnpike routes.  ON 407 arguably should be split.  And ON's TCH segments might need to be changed/split if they ever did switch, since the reason they're defined as they are is because they historically had shields with names in them.

And not everyone who's been on a route would have been on every shield... I imagine someone who's only been on PA 66 might be surprised with a PA Turnpike 66 shield blipping in and out on their pages.

[Duke87]

Yeah I don't see the TCH being an issue since ON and QC don't put numbers in it. Only one shield would be needed for each route there.

If there's a need for more than two shields in the future, I mean, if we can do two shields side by side, why not three? I don't see this as inherently less future proof. I do see it as more aesthetically appealing. It also matches existing practice on Wikipedia.


On another note... what is that font on the Ontario shields?