[mkgmap-dev] Amenity=shelter

Fri Jul 1 22:24:22 BST 2011

Hello Peter,

On Fri, Jul 01, 2011 at 12:09:09PM +0200, Peter Hendricks wrote:
>Shelters have been changed to buildings in v 1765 or thereabouts. Now 
>they are back to being camp sites.

Yes. The reason for this back-and-forth was that it turned out that the 
building POI code is likely reserved for landmark buildings 
(skyscrapers), because the shelters would show up much earlier than more 
many shops, for example. Having shelters show up at 500m (or .5mi) zoom 
level would pollute the map display in cities.

Nothing else than amenity=shelter is using the 0x2b06 POI code. Most of 
the 0x2bxx code space is used for accommodation (0x2b04 being the 
exception) in the default style. The tag amenity=shelter is problematic, 
because sometimes has been used instead for mapping something that 
implies sleeping or eating facilities (and would better be tagged as  
tourism=lean_to, tourism=wilderness_hut or tourism=picnic_site), while 
in other cases it is just a generic shelter where camping is not 
possible or allowed.

The only users of the code 0x2b03 are these rules:

tourism=camp_site [0x2b03 resolution 24]
tourism=caravan_site [0x2b03 resolution 24]

I guess that if you wanted to better distinguish amenity=shelter 
(0x2b06) from camp sites (0x2b03), you could use a TYP file that assigns 
a different default name and symbol for 0x2b06.

>City parks and highway service areas now sport 'camp grounds' and a POI 
>search is now polluted by them. Why is this?

Sorry, I am not sure I completely follow you here.  There is no rule for 
a highway=service area in the polygons file; such areas should show up 
as regular ways in the default style.

Are you referring to the polygon type 0x17? highway=pedestrian&area=yes 
translates to it, along with some leisure=* and landuse=*. I am open to 
better suggestions for the highway=pedestrian polygon type, because the 
other polygons imply some green elements, while pedestrian areas lined 
with paving stones can be void of anything green. Also, the Garmin Edge 
705 default name for 0x17 is something like "park" (my translation from 
non-English user interface).

Do we even need unnamed highway=pedestrian areas on the Garmin map?  I 
guess that named plazas or squares could be useful, but unnamed ones 
only make the map grow bigger, with little or no added value.

Polygons (areas) are not assigned POIs by default. If you (like me) 
compile the map with --add-pois-to-areas, then you should get POIs for 
those closed ways whose attributes occur in both the polygons and points 
files. Buth, there is no rule for highway=pedestrian in the default 
style. There are rules for leisure=* and and landuse=*&name!=*.

I think that the POI 0x2c06 (used by leisure=playground and a few other 
things) can be useful when bicycling around with kids. On the Edge 705, 
they appear in a separate menu from the camping grounds (unless I select 
"all categories").

Best regards,

	Marko