A few things happened since Christmas. The server had some issues when updating the pistes daily: the (small) disks were full. I took the opportunity to change the server and hosting. All is runnning normally now, and the new server is big enough to handle the relief and contour lines data on the same machine than ski pistes. This means that Opensnowmap now runs with two servers able to serve the same content from two distinct hosting companies. The second one is cheap and slow, but make a descent job as a fallback server.
But that’s behind the scene, what’s really new ? Here it is :
* Single overlay
The pistes, Modis 8-days snow-cover, hillshading and contour lines are now rendered as a single layer: 3x less tiles to download for a map view. I am sure your browser will like it.
Piste-only layer is still available for third-party websites (be kind enough to ask me before using tiles).
* Search-results – Elevation profile
There is now a feedback on the map when you place the mouse pointer over a piste name in the search-result box.
On the pistes list, a small icon also allows you to get the elevation profile for a single way or single route. This will also show you the route on the map, with an arrow at the beginning to show the followed direction.
Future improvment will be made to improve the interaction between the map and the ski pistes list on the left.
* Sleigh pistes
Long time overdue, sleigh pistes are rendered violet with a sleigh icon. Actually this is not clear if piste:type=sleigh means dogs, horses or camels or whatever, so I choose a sleigh as an icon.
* Czech translation has been updated.
Other languages would benefit from your help, too !
Antti:
Hi Elias,
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Thanks, this has been fixed.
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The link for translation is\n[http://blog.opensnowmap.org/post/2012/01/26/Pistes-nordiques.org-in-your-own-language|http://blog.opensnowmap.org/post/2012/01/26/Pistes-nordiques.org-in-your-own-language]
Yves:
Hi Antti,
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Everything is normal, but how does it works?
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The alpine pistes are colored according to piste:type=difficulty tag, that’s\neasy. However the cross-country pistes are colored thanks to the color=x tag\npresent on the relation. In the mapkey, I just put a blue line, because I\ncannot just put all the colors used in OSM for ski pistes: there is way too\nmany !
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In detail: a crosscountry piste is mapped as ways, which are tagged:
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\n- piste:type = nordic
- piste:grooming = …
- piste:difficulty = novice/easy/intermediate/advanced/…
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On Opensnowmap, if piste:difficulty is ‘intermediate’, there is a small\nblack danger sign on the relevant section. Beyond ‘advanced’, the sign is red.\nDifficulties are not colors.
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More than that, all the ways composing a particular cross-country trail can\nbe joined into a relation with tags:
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\n- type=route
- route=piste
- piste:type=nordic
- piste:name= xyz
- color = blue / #00FF00/ …
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These are the colors you see on the map. Should no color is given in OSM,\nthen the default is light blue.
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What is great with relations, is that some sections belongs to the blue\npiste and the yellow piste. This means you can play with the following tool,\nand send me the result that will be incorporated in the rendering: \npiste-offseter.
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This gives this kind of thing : \nLes Charbonnières – Le Poteau
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Yves
Antti:
Ok, so the color doesn’t tell grooming type (classic/skating) nor the\ndirection (one-ways), just the relation (if any)?
Yves:
You’re right: just the color of the relation.Grooming is just shown as a\nthiner line if not classic, skating or classic+skating, and oneways are not\nshown at all.
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There is two reason about that:
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\n- I try to make the map as nice and simple as possible to attract more people\nnot aware of OSM into mapping ski pistes.
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I hope I’m not completely missing the point here, but I’m glad at least I\nhit the osm wiki front page this week, even if not alone on the picture ! It’s\nhard to find a way to display all of the completeness AND un-completeness of\npiste tagging while keeping a good-looking map.
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\n- I try to promote relation color mapping to avoid that people use the\npiste:difficulty tag just to see the XC piste rendered blue or red. Instead we\nshould map the difficulty on the relevant section only.
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I should nevertheless gives those information when a user clicks on a\nparticular piste. I put that on my todo list.
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That being said, there is certainly room on Opensnowmap for a more detailed\nalternate rendering, though. Do you want to give a try at Mapnik ?
Antti:
Wow! The site has taken enormous steps since last winter. Keep up the good\nwork!
Yves:
Thank you Antti,
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Cheers