Roads over optimistically shown as connecting

In the editor we see the roads don’t connect:

But “on OpenStreetMap” they look like they connect,

Probem: people using OpenStreetMap might discover a brick wall and have to detour.

Actually “on OpenStreetMap” (whatever that is supposed to be) they clearly don’t connect, just give the image you included a close look.

Yes, I’m aware that it is actually an accessibility issue you are complaining about, but maybe you would get a better reception if you clearly worded what your problem is, instead of making vague insinuations.

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It seems iD does a good job at warning editors,

By “on OpenStreetMap” I mean by the general public looking at those six rendering samples.

The “general public” is not going to be using the rendering samples for anything related to navigation. If you look at the actual map renderings some them leave an explicit gap and some don’t, probably depending on how they render end caps.

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Map the wall :grinning:.

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And add noexit=yes to the end node of the dead-end.

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I’m not sure that’s 100% true. I will often plan short working routes just by looking at a rendered map, and doing the routing in my head, without invoking any navigation software. So it’s a problem if the map shows two roads as meeting, when they don’t in the data.

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Those are samples in the layer switcher, not the full blown map.

The fundamental problem here is that a map is a representation of reality at a scale that is less than one to one. In order for things to be visible, they need to be larger than they would be if “to scale”, and this has the result that things that don’t overlap in real life will look as if they do.

The person creating the map still has some options (they can choose what is shown on top of what, how things join, and what shape the ends of things should be), but the problem is that there are no easy answers - any attempt to “make it obvious there is no join” (for example by drawing the smaller road on top of the larger one) will have negative knock-on effect elsewhere.

Why don’t you have a go at trying to fix the problem? Here is a map of the area, created using OSMF’s demo vector tiles, so hosting can easily be done on any PC. Here is the source of the map style. Zoom out and yes, it looks like the roads join. Why don’t you create a modification to that style that doesn’t show the problem and share it with us?

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Strategy for simple (person in the street) map end user (never edited in their life):
If wanting to make sure roads really connect, even though they look like they do zoomed in all the way, always double check with a second map family (e.g., Google vs. OpenStreetMap, OpenStreetMap vs. Google.)

And there are “bigger problems” like this in the area:

https://osmose.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/#loc=15/24.14849/120.73296&item=1270&level=1%2C2%2C3

In all those cases where things almost touch in the editor,
why not just, one way or the other, when rendering on maps,
no matter what zoom level, be sure there is at least uninterrupted
“casing”, i.e., a thin black line, tipping viewers off to the
probability that the roads do not in fact connect.

Perhaps in the early years of OSM there were large imports of poor data
so in many such cases on the ground they did connect, so a choice was
made to make close calls show as connecting.

Whereas Young Dan (me) thinks these days they should show as not connecting.

In fact come to think of it,
the way things currently work,
users are forced to
“edit for the renderer”. Editors mumble under their breath:

  • Even though road A and road B simply do not connect on the ground, I must lengthen the gap, for the renderer.
  • Also there is no official “safe distance”, beyond which the renderer will believe my edit, so I am forced to use lotsof noexit=yes hacks, for the renderer.

Imagine ===Road A=== ===Road B===
with a one meter gap, consisting of [top secret material].

I have to use hacks, else the renderer will doubt that I know what I
edited, and joint the roads for me.

Why don’t you just explain to us how to do that, perhaps using the example I gave above?

Here is what I think a road coming from the side that doesn’t connect should look like:

ㅖU+3156 HANGUL LETTER YE


And here are two roads coming straight at each other, but which do not connect. They should look like:

工 U+5DE5 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-5DE5


Works great at all zoom levels. No funny rounded caps. Just a thin line warning of trouble that, well, "if you looked close at the map you would see", vs. current "but I did look close at the map". But at the same time that thin line doesn't "wreck the aesthetics."

No do not use hacks, OSM’s primary goal is a geographical database and with that everybody can map the the way they like it. You seems to have a requirement for a map that is not implemented in the OSM default map nor any other map display I know of.

Nowadays most people do not plan a route by hand on a map and a router does not have any problems with these gaps even if they are 1 cm. I had a look at the Osmose “Almost junction, join or use noexit tag” for streets where I am the last editor (probably just adding maxspeed) and I can tell you that for me > 50% are real problems so a road stops but pedestrians can continue.

just draw a barrier=fence and fence_type=classified and how often does that happen? Try not to engineer a design for some outlier.

Alas, I only see " U+3156 HANGUL LETTER YE" etc. in your post above. When I said “explain to us how” I meant “modify the map style I linked to above so that the problem does not occur”.

The reason that I linked to a Maplibre map style using OSMF’s demo vector tiles above is that it’s easy for someone to deploy locally - the map style is in one file (svwd03_style.json) that is only 215kb in size. It’s technically possible to deploy that pretty much anywhere; you don’t need to host any map data.

Just writing forum posts like yours above will not help. Only by actually trying to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem will your problems get fixed. In this case I suspect that while simple technical solutions (such as casing draw order) exist, the downside elsewhere is greater than the benefit here, and “some other approach” is likely to be needed. However, you need to at least try to help yourself to understand why it’s complicated.

Numbers, please ?

Not everybody can both report discuss and solve all bugs themselves.
Each has their separate roles to play.

Also it is no fair that routing algorithms can magically tell which streets don’t connect, but people looking at the map cannot…
even after zooming in as far as is allowed.

Anyway, the person / thing editing the map lays down the Ground Truth,
exactly how long each road is. But they forgot to “edit for the renderer”,
so the roads end up getting joined anyway, to people viewing the map.

Anyway, this time all that happened is I walked up to a wall, and had a red face as I had to lead family members on a detour. But it could have been worse, yes even when just following maps with one’s eyes, not using navigation.

To state the, I hope, obvious: you are not actually reporting the issue by starting a thread here. You need to do that in the resp. issue trackers for the map renderings/styles. Most of the layers have, when they are displayed, links to the corresponding operators or projects in the lower right corner.

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