Not particularly happy with the default style mkgmap uses to generate OSM maps I did some experimenting with styles this week.

I came across a great site for maps: Free worldwide Garmin maps from OpenStreetMap You can choose an area, map style and they'll add your request to a queue, generate the map and e-mail you a download link. Sometimes the wait time is a few hours, other times a few days. I'd probably come across this site before, but never downloaded their maps. The "Generic Routable (new style)" and "Routable Bicycle (Openfietsmap Lite)" option would be the best choices. What really sets these apart from the default map style are the way roads are rendered. In the default style service roads and all types of paths look identical. With these styles service roads, alleys, foot paths, cycle paths all look different. Roads that are unpaved get a marker applied, and roads that are dirt have their own style. Though these road surface features depend on mappers having entered it.


They also have a Google Code project (https://code.google.com/p/mkgmap-sty...source/browse/) where their style sheets and graphics definition file is available, which was exactly what I was looking for. I made a few tweaks to the "new style" (labeled as "world" in the project) for the maps I generate myself. I made paths appear red so they stand out, disabled the gravel indicator for alleys, modified the gravel indicator so it stands out more, and made the buildings get drawn darker.

The OpenFietsMap styles are available here: Customize the map - OpenFietsMap though I haven't worked with those yet.

Editing styles can be tricky. There are text files that can be edited and also a TYP file that defines what roads, pois and polygon fills look like. A typ editor is needed to modify the bitmaps, this one is free (https://sites.google.com/site/sherco40/home). The "Generic Routable (new style)" typ file has the text disabled for most polygons due to the high level of mapping detail in the Netherlands. I needed to use a type editor to re-enable the rendering of text labels for my map.