Tagging and rendering idea for orchard grid pattern (maybe also vineyards)

[keepright_ler (Marco)]

An interesting, but probably useless idea that I thought of in bed, on the early morning of 24 October 2025, and that I now want to share with you.

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osm-carto renders landuse=orchard with a square grid pattern that symbolizes the grid of fruit trees which make up the orchard:

However, what if we could change the rotation and type of pattern?

At first, I thought about guessing the rotation from the polygon shape (if it’s rectangular or close to being rectangular, that is), but this would be too much osm-carto programming hassle without enough benefit.

Instead, I came up with some interesting new tags:

• grid_direction=* to specify the grid rotation in degrees (only needs to be in range 0° to 90° for square grids, 0° to 60° for triangular grids)
• grid_type=square/triangular/irregular to specify the type of grid

There are a few issues with my idea:

• The grid_direction=* idea also makes sense for vineyards (landuse=vineyard), but the vineyard pattern isn’t as flexible to allow rotation.
  
  
• A landuse=orchard with grid_type=triangular would be rendered similarly to landuse=plant_nursery, which would likely cause confusion.
  
  

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I’m curious to read what you think of this concept!

[Jofban]

@keepright_ler

osm-carto renders landuse=orchard with a square grid pattern that symbolizes the grid of fruit trees which make up the orchard:

I think therein lies the problem, the points don’t represent any specific tree.

A better approach (though much more involved, obviously) would be to actually map the trees as natural=tree.

@keepright_ler

Instead, I came up with some interesting new tags:

• grid_direction=* to specify the grid rotation in degrees (only needs to be in range 0° to 90° for square grids, 0° to 60° for triangular grids)
• grid_type=square/triangular/irregular to specify the type of grid

Those tags could be interesting, but not for rendering. Instead analysis of the sort “Which angle is chosen for the most sunlight/the best harvest” etc could use it. If there is anyone doing that that is.

[Nielkrokodil]

There is a “in use” tag (2.300 uses) vine_row Key:vine_row_orientation - OpenStreetMap Wiki for vineyards.

[Nielkrokodil]

Before thinking about how to render it, think about how to tag it.

Maybe we could find a tagging which is applicable to all plants which get sometimes planted in a structured way (like rows or triangles).