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@RubenKelevra
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  • Add 'dirt' to supported surfaces list for road/path smoothness quest
  • Implement dirt-specific smoothness descriptions
  • Add synthetic surface images for good/intermediate/bad/very_bad/horrible/very_horrible levels for dirt

Fixes #5499

@GaeaKat
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GaeaKat commented Jun 6, 2025

ooh smoothness quest, my compose image list pr at #6294 does touch on theese files a bit also!

@matkoniecz
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@RubenKelevra
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Ah thanks, forgot that one. :)

- Add 'dirt' to supported surfaces list for road/path smoothness quest
- Implement dirt-specific smoothness descriptions
- Add synthetic surface images for good/intermediate/bad/very_bad/horrible/very_horrible levels for dirt
@westnordost
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Thank you! Those pictures though... oof. They look so un-real.

Actually, if I remember correctly, we use the same pictures for all non-paved surfaces starting from a certain horrible-level. So, to include dirt, we actually only need photos of the "better" surfaces.

Especially for dirt surfaces, it makes sense to make photos of typical situations, like you would find on forest paths etc. (e.g. roots). And I really much prefer real photos. Aren't you keen on mountain biking? It should be possible to find plenty of examples in a typical hiking/biking spot.

@RubenKelevra
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Actually, if I remember correctly, we use the same pictures for all non-paved surfaces starting from a certain horrible-level. So, to include dirt, we actually only need photos of the "better" surfaces.

Yeah I know, but the pictures were so "rocky" that I thought it would make more sense to generate them specifically for dirt as well.

Thank you! Those pictures though... oof. They look so un-real.

Well, they look somewhat unrealistic, but I don't think it's "that" bad. I mean, compared what we got a year before...

I think they work fine, until we get better ones captured by someone. But it's quite an annoying blocker at the moment, as we can't capture smoothness for most tracks and paths, as ground, unpaved and dirt are ~25 % of all surface tags. While ground and unpaved is pretty non-descriptive, I think we can assume that most of them are "dirt".

Especially for dirt surfaces, it makes sense to make photos of typical situations, like you would find on forest paths etc. (e.g. roots). And I really much prefer real photos. Aren't you keen on mountain biking? It should be possible to find plenty of examples in a typical hiking/biking spot.

Well, I tried to keep "forests" out of the equation here, to avoid my bias of living in Germany, as SC is an international project, but if that helps with believability, I can certainly generate more believable images without this constraint.

But sadly I cannot supply images for "dirt" with a lot of variation in surface quality, as we got pretty well maintained paths and tracks here in my corner of Germany. Maybe if I'm on holiday somewhere else eventually. The difficulties here are more "persistent mud", rocky paths and extreme elevation changes.

@westnordost
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or maybe look at wikimedia commons somewhere, there should be some pictures of the run of the mill "querfeldein-trampfelpfad"

@RubenKelevra
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or maybe look at wikimedia commons somewhere, there should be some pictures of the run of the mill "querfeldein-trampfelpfad"

I actually did that last year already for an hour or so... it's really hard to find pictured of really nasty paths, because people seem more inclined to picture beautiful things, I guess.

In addition, good is actually also very difficult to find, as usage destroy "dirt" paths, but also creates them. good paths are usually compacted not dirt. (see below in the list for a potential candidate)

How about we mix this up: We use pictured for path qualities we do have pictured from and use synthetic ones for the rest?

This gives us at least the chance to ship it, and replacing pictures in the future is pretty simple.

So I've looked through commons/osm wiki and found the following candidates:

good

Here's a candidate, but I'm not sure if you would argue, that it's compacted:

Farm_Track_in_North_Dale_-geograph org uk-_1804240

source

vs synthetic:

surface_dirt_good

intermediate

Track_to_the_Outgang_-geograph org uk-_6954701

source

vs synthetic:

surface_dirt_intermediate

bad

Farm_Track_through_Farm_Buildings_-geograph org uk-_6644612

source

vs synthetic:

surface_dirt_bad

very_bad

Eroded_byway_-geograph org uk-_7471811

source

vs synthetic:

surface_dirt_very_bad

horrible

Track_alongside_field_-geograph org uk-_1100535

source

vs synthetic:

surface_dirt_horrible

very_horrible

surface_dirt_very_horrible

@matkoniecz
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I want to remind about existence of https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/how-to-map-key-smoothness/109860 where there are ongoing attempts to gather images for various surfaces

@RubenKelevra
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@matkoniecz I've scrolled through it. Not much about dirt in there except your image for very_horrible (File:Forest road damaged by truck traffic.jpg).

Btw: I think your categorization may be a bit too high for that. A heavy-duty off road vehicles can easily pass that. I know that because that are not tractor tire marks. :)

@matkoniecz
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Do you remember where you found that very_bad one? Seems quite fitting. Can you post it in that thread?

And yes, these images are eye - gougingly artificial

@RubenKelevra
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Do you remember where you found that very_bad one? Seems quite fitting. Can you post it in that thread?

The sources are all linked below each image.

And yes, these images are eye - gougingly artificial

I don't really mind that look, as long as it conveys what it needs to convey I don't have hard feelings about it. It's not like that it's pretending to be art.

Anyway, how about the pictures I've posted?

@westnordost
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I agree with @matkoniecz on the AI pictures.

The bad and very_bad pictures look good, IMO. The horrible one is a good example, I think, but the perspective is noticeably different from the other pictures and the picture size/quality might be too small.
In any case, I'd propose to first add those pictures to the smoothness gallery.

@westnordost
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Anyway, I'd close this PR, but not without having added those nice pictures of bad to horrible dirt to the wiki gallery: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:smoothness/Gallery

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Include more unpaved highways in smoothness quest

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