Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-29 Thread Roland Olbricht

> > Could someone[1] setup a web-service where you send it a lat/lon and
> > it returns a list of all boundaries that point is within?  So just one
> > website imports the boundary data instead of everyone having to know
> > how to do the 'is within' search[2].
>
> I think you might be able to do this with
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Server_Side_Script

Yes. To appeal to [1], replace in the URL (in one line)

http://78.46.81.38/api/interpreter?data=%3Ccoord-
query%20lat=%2251.0%22%20lon=%227.0%22/%3E%3Cprint%20mode=%22body%22/%3E

the values 51.0 (latitude) and 7.0 (longitude) by the respective values. Then 
save the file to disk and you receive an OSM-alike file with the areas that 
cover the given location.

Another, maybe more convenient way would be (command line in one line)

wget -O - --post-data="" http://78.46.81.38/api/interpreter | gunzip

The details are explained at
http://78.46.81.38/#section.reverse_gazetteer

Cheers,
Roland


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith

--- On Tue, 28/7/09, andrzej zaborowski  wrote:
> No no, I wasn't talking about ways crossing a postcode area
> boundary.
> Just two ways crossing one another belonging entirely to
> different
> divisions each and where do you invent the boundary
> then.  Possibly
> this is not found in Australia but you'll sometimes find
> the division
> of highways into counties is not 100% geographical and
> postcodes quite
> often isn't.

That is a borderline case and the majority of "things" fall inside one boundary 
or another.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread andrzej zaborowski
2009/7/29 John Smith :
>> Or as a less practical example take two ways that cross one
>> another
>> (one may be a bridge or tunnel), one officially belonging
>> to county A
>> or postcode A and the other to B.
>
> Exactly, you wouldn't need to split the way, by having a boundary it could be 
> calculated which part would be within which area.

No no, I wasn't talking about ways crossing a postcode area boundary.
Just two ways crossing one another belonging entirely to different
divisions each and where do you invent the boundary then.  Possibly
this is not found in Australia but you'll sometimes find the division
of highways into counties is not 100% geographical and postcodes quite
often isn't.

Cheers

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith

--- On Tue, 28/7/09, andrzej zaborowski  wrote:

> One of the two ways to indicate belonging to an area should
> not be in
> OSM, agreed.  Why's this the is_in tags, is the final
> rationale the
> space saving?

By using boundaries you can effectively tag every node, way and relation with 
is_in. If you were to tag everything there would be massive amounts of 
redundancy and wasted space.

> Take three villages belonging to some kind of
> administrative division.
>  You may need more than three nodes to draw a boundary that
> contains
> only these three nodes and no other nodes.  Then it
> depends on how
> much space a (repeated three times) tag takes in your
> particular
> format compared to space taken by a separate node + the way
> with a
> couple of member nodes.

You seem to think this is just about place nodes, it's about everything inside 
a boundary.

> Or as a less practical example take two ways that cross one
> another
> (one may be a bridge or tunnel), one officially belonging
> to county A
> or postcode A and the other to B.

Exactly, you wouldn't need to split the way, by having a boundary it could be 
calculated which part would be within which area.

At present there is already boundaries for at least countries, some have states 
and out boundary information. Which is a nice start and so it's not like we're 
starting from nothing here.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith



--- On Tue, 28/7/09, David Earl  wrote:

> I don't see why you think people entering boundary data
> will be more consistent than in entering anything else - we
> have huge inconsistencies all over the place. Our method of
> tagging encourages it.

Because in "theory" there will be less boundaries then nodes tagged in various 
ways to indicate the same thing.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith

--- On Tue, 28/7/09, David Earl  wrote:

> If there's errors in them, I don't see the difference
> between those and any other errors in the map.

Maybe someone was trying to do something about error, and maybe it just 
happened to turn into this debate?


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread Christoph Böhme
OJ W  schrieb:
> Could someone[1] setup a web-service where you send it a lat/lon and
> it returns a list of all boundaries that point is within?  So just one
> website imports the boundary data instead of everyone having to know
> how to do the 'is within' search[2].

I think you might be able to do this with
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Server_Side_Script

Cheers,
Christoph

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread gary
Have a look at boundaries.pl in the wiki

-- Urspr. Mitt. --
Betreff: Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags
Von: OJ W 
Datum: 28.07.2009 19:33

Could someone[1] setup a web-service where you send it a lat/lon and
it returns a list of all boundaries that point is within?  So just one
website imports the boundary data instead of everyone having to know
how to do the 'is within' search[2].

Namefinder could then query this to add its own internal is_in tags to
the place= nodes as it's importing them.  It might also be quite neat
for "describe my location" type things.

[1] @lazyosm

[2] I assume this is complex, since boundaries aren't guaranteed to
contain a single ordered list of nodes?



On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 2:48 PM, David Earl wrote:
> Shaun McDonald wrote:
>>
>> On 28 Jul 2009, at 13:43, John Smith wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Is there a real need for is_in tags or have admin boundaries replaced
>>> the need?
>>>
>>
>> Admin boundaries are the new way of doing this. The is_in tag was the
>> early way of trying to show a hierarchy of admin areas.
>
> It is still *very* helpful to have is_in present though. It is much
> easier to present this information in a search than to do polygon tests
> which requires a whole new algorithm (desirable though that is), and of
> course, boundaries are nowhere near complete, and you often know in
> which region a place is without knowing the exact boundary.

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread OJ W
Could someone[1] setup a web-service where you send it a lat/lon and
it returns a list of all boundaries that point is within?  So just one
website imports the boundary data instead of everyone having to know
how to do the 'is within' search[2].

Namefinder could then query this to add its own internal is_in tags to
the place= nodes as it's importing them.  It might also be quite neat
for "describe my location" type things.

[1] @lazyosm

[2] I assume this is complex, since boundaries aren't guaranteed to
contain a single ordered list of nodes?



On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 2:48 PM, David Earl wrote:
> Shaun McDonald wrote:
>>
>> On 28 Jul 2009, at 13:43, John Smith wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Is there a real need for is_in tags or have admin boundaries replaced
>>> the need?
>>>
>>
>> Admin boundaries are the new way of doing this. The is_in tag was the
>> early way of trying to show a hierarchy of admin areas.
>
> It is still *very* helpful to have is_in present though. It is much
> easier to present this information in a search than to do polygon tests
> which requires a whole new algorithm (desirable though that is), and of
> course, boundaries are nowhere near complete, and you often know in
> which region a place is without knowing the exact boundary.

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread Andy Allan
On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 5:20 PM, David Earl wrote:
> Andy Allan wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 4:09 PM, David Earl
>> wrote:
>>
>>> The reason I gave was for name searching, not routing. It allows the
>>> result of a search to be given a descriptive context that isn't
>>> currently possible any other way.
>>
>> It allows the result of a search to be given a descriptive context
>> that isn't currently possible in any other way *that you want to
>> code*.
>
> that I want to code *now*.

:-)

Cheers,
Andy

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread David Earl
John Smith wrote:
> 
> 
> --- On Tue, 28/7/09, andrzej zaborowski  wrote:
> 
>> Data being wrong is a moot point, it doesn't speak for
>> either is_in
>> tags or boundary polygons and neither help make data more
>> correct
>> really.
> 
> data being stored consistently is the point.

I don't see why you think people entering boundary data will be more 
consistent than in entering anything else - we have huge inconsistencies 
all over the place. Our method of tagging encourages it.

David


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread David Earl
Andy Allan wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 4:09 PM, David Earl wrote:
> 
>> The reason I gave was for name searching, not routing. It allows the
>> result of a search to be given a descriptive context that isn't
>> currently possible any other way.
> 
> It allows the result of a search to be given a descriptive context
> that isn't currently possible in any other way *that you want to
> code*.

that I want to code *now*. I did say in my first message that polygons 
were desirable, I just don't want to throw away what we've got until 
such time as the various solutions and data that have been mentioned are 
in place.

is_in is a pragmatic solution to a problem we haven't *yet* solved 
another way.

I have lots of ideas of things I would like to do with searching which 
would be vastly easier if we had boundary tests, and as it happens I 
have been thinking about ways to address this before this debate, so I 
may well be the person who ends up writing some code to do this.

Regarding inconsistency, yes that's a problem for automatic processing 
(though not insurmountable in most cases, just makes it a bit more 
complicated). For human readers though its a doddle, and in the case of 
the Syndey suburbs, at least you can read in a set of search results 
that this one is in Australia not Canada.

If there's errors in them, I don't see the difference between those and 
any other errors in the map.

David


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith



--- On Tue, 28/7/09, MarkS  wrote:

> I'm not against getting rid of is_in, I just think we need
> to manage the 
> change over a fair period of time to give the renderers a
> chance to 
> catch up.

It's irrelevant if place nodes don't already have is_in and instead of adding 
is_in tags we should be instead doing things better.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread andrzej zaborowski
2009/7/28 Andy Allan :
> Let's stop the is_in debate - yes, they are useful to data consumers,
> no, they shouldn't be in OSM itself, and no, nobody has yet stepped up
> to sort it out.

One of the two ways to indicate belonging to an area should not be in
OSM, agreed.  Why's this the is_in tags, is the final rationale the
space saving?

Take three villages belonging to some kind of administrative division.
 You may need more than three nodes to draw a boundary that contains
only these three nodes and no other nodes.  Then it depends on how
much space a (repeated three times) tag takes in your particular
format compared to space taken by a separate node + the way with a
couple of member nodes.

Or as a less practical example take two ways that cross one another
(one may be a bridge or tunnel), one officially belonging to county A
or postcode A and the other to B.

Cheers

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith



--- On Tue, 28/7/09, andrzej zaborowski  wrote:

> Data being wrong is a moot point, it doesn't speak for
> either is_in
> tags or boundary polygons and neither help make data more
> correct
> really.

data being stored consistently is the point.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread andrzej zaborowski
2009/7/28 John Smith :
> --- On Tue, 28/7/09, David Earl  wrote:
>> We can give ourselves a helping hand here if we keep
>> is_in.
>
> That's assuming the information contained in it is useful to begin with, as I 
> keep stating the information I've seen is inconsistent so that's not helping 
> any one.

Data being wrong is a moot point, it doesn't speak for either is_in
tags or boundary polygons and neither help make data more correct
really.

Cheers

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread MarkS
John Smith wrote:
> --- On Tue, 28/7/09, MarkS  wrote:
>> We need to be careful about removing tags because it could
>> cause 
>> renderers to fail (or at least not work as expected). For
>> example, I 
>> think the is_in tag is added after the place name in mkgmap
>> when 
>> creating the "city" POIs.
> 
> That's fine for existing correct information, what about incorrect or missing 
> ones? :)
> 
> How's this for consistency, all of these describe various suburbs of Sydney...
> 
> is_in = New South Wales,Australia
> name = Surry Hills
> place = suburb
> 
> is_in = Australia, NSW, New South Wales, Sydney, Eastern Suburbs
> name = Elizabeth Bay
> place = suburb
> postal_code = 2011
> 
> is_in = Australia, NSW, New South Wales, Sydney
> name = Woolloomooloo
> place = suburb
> 
> is_in = Australia, NSW, New South Wales, Sydney, Eastern Suburbs, resort towns
> name = Bondi Beach
> place = suburb
> 
> is_in = Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
> name = Mascot
> place = suburb

I agree we have a problem and this looks very inconsistent. I like 
information to be consistent and held only once. The example shows that 
having a field where you can enter almost anything does result in a 
variety of inconsistent entries.

I'm not against getting rid of is_in, I just think we need to manage the 
change over a fair period of time to give the renderers a chance to 
catch up.


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith



--- On Tue, 28/7/09, Andy Allan  wrote:

> Let's stop the is_in debate - yes, they are useful to data
> consumers,
> no, they shouldn't be in OSM itself, and no, nobody has yet
> stepped up
> to sort it out.

U I am stepping up to sort it out, at least for some parts of the 
world, I was just after a little direction on the subject...


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread Andy Allan
On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 4:09 PM, David Earl wrote:

> The reason I gave was for name searching, not routing. It allows the
> result of a search to be given a descriptive context that isn't
> currently possible any other way.

It allows the result of a search to be given a descriptive context
that isn't currently possible in any other way *that you want to
code*.

I know you're a strong proponent of the is_in tag, because it makes
your life 100 times easier when building the namefinder. That doesn't
make it a good idea.

What you should really be doing is ask someone to provide, every week,
a planet file which has all the is_in tags automatically generated
from the polygons, on as many nodes as you find useful. That way the
database isn't full of duplicated data, it's easy to edit (c.f. move
one boundary vs updating 100,000 is_in tags), mappers don't need to
bother with them, bots don't need to fix them, and you don't need to
write any code. Maybe some smart cookie could even write an osmosis
plugin that does the calculations.

Let's stop the is_in debate - yes, they are useful to data consumers,
no, they shouldn't be in OSM itself, and no, nobody has yet stepped up
to sort it out.

Cheers,
Andy

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith

--- On Tue, 28/7/09, MarkS  wrote:
> We need to be careful about removing tags because it could
> cause 
> renderers to fail (or at least not work as expected). For
> example, I 
> think the is_in tag is added after the place name in mkgmap
> when 
> creating the "city" POIs.

That's fine for existing correct information, what about incorrect or missing 
ones? :)

How's this for consistency, all of these describe various suburbs of Sydney...

is_in = New South Wales,Australia
name = Surry Hills
place = suburb

is_in = Australia, NSW, New South Wales, Sydney, Eastern Suburbs
name = Elizabeth Bay
place = suburb
postal_code = 2011

is_in = Australia, NSW, New South Wales, Sydney
name = Woolloomooloo
place = suburb

is_in = Australia, NSW, New South Wales, Sydney, Eastern Suburbs, resort towns
name = Bondi Beach
place = suburb

is_in = Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
name = Mascot
place = suburb


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith



--- On Tue, 28/7/09, David Earl  wrote:

> We can give ourselves a helping hand here if we keep
> is_in.

That's assuming the information contained in it is useful to begin with, as I 
keep stating the information I've seen is inconsistent so that's not helping 
any one.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread MarkS
John Smith wrote:
> 
> --- On Tue, 28/7/09, Shaun McDonald  wrote:
> 
>> Admin boundaries are the new way of doing this. The is_in
>> tag was the early way of trying to show a hierarchy of admin
>> areas.
> 
> Ok, so is_in is redundant.
> 
> There was talk on the dev list about removing a bunch of tiger tags from 
> nodes. Should other tags also be removed, like is_in that are no longer 
> needed?

We need to be careful about removing tags because it could cause 
renderers to fail (or at least not work as expected). For example, I 
think the is_in tag is added after the place name in mkgmap when 
creating the "city" POIs.

Maybe the solution is to have a list of depreciated tags and maybe give 
people a year or two to stop using them before they get removed.


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith

--- On Tue, 28/7/09, andrzej zaborowski  wrote:

> Both for the time spent tagging and space used in database,
> perhaps
> there might be some saving from using polygons but it
> depends on the
> exact scenario.  Either way, don't add the tags you

I doubt I can agree that using polygons would use more space if you were in 
turn able to reduce a lot of per node or per way information that would be made 
less redundant.

> think are of no
> use, they'll be added by people for whom they're
> useful.  Or easier to

The only people they seem useful for are those making routing software, 
otherwise I doubt the information is used at all.

>  In the renderer one idea I had was to use the number of
> commas in the
> is_in= value to decide on the text size of suburb/district
> labels in a
> city (they could be tagged as districts, parishes, etc
> instead - but
> you would quickly run out of tags), that's much more
> complicated with
> boundary polygons only.

That would also require consistent tagging to be useful, which is the crux of 
the problem, the tagging doesn't appear to be consistent and in turn is less 
useful.

> Well, that stops us because in this case the unofficial
> information is
> taken out of thin air, i.e. wrong.  Say someone asks
> the map: am I in
> county A or county B at this point?  The answer given
> may have 50%
> chance of being wrong.

What happens now if information is wrong, someone who does know fixes it.

You may not know exact boundaries but people on boundaries know where they 
usually run.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread David Earl
John Smith wrote:
> 
> 
> --- On Tue, 28/7/09, Shaun McDonald 
> wrote:
> 
>> Only use the is_in tag on the place nodes rather than every node.
> 
> Why?
> 
> The reasoning I've been given so far is for routing, but to find such
> information routing software would have to look at all nodes near by
> until it found the node tagged with the place information.

The reason I gave was for name searching, not routing. It allows the 
result of a search to be given a descriptive context that isn't 
currently possible any other way. This already works and it is a shame 
to break it because of dogma.

Given a place (or any other object, but as Shaun said, places are the 
key things), determining for every place which county, state, country a 
place is in is complicated and will take a lot of compute resources. It 
amounts in principle to comparing each point against every boundary 
polygon in the world. Yes there are optimizations and short cuts, but it 
will nevertheless be a lot of work to do. And given that places don't 
move around significantly, we'll want to store the result in order to 
avoid recomputing it every time - and we have a natural place in which 
to store it already.

We can give ourselves a helping hand here if we keep is_in.

David



___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread andrzej zaborowski
2009/7/28 John Smith :
>
> --- On Tue, 28/7/09, andrzej zaborowski  wrote:
>
>> What if boundary is not defined but the hierarchy is
>> defined, such as
>> with post codes?  Should people invent boundary
>> polygons based on just
>> what nodes/ways belong to the area?  I hope not.
>
> Why spend just as much time tagging every node, way and relation in an area 
> with this information, how would that be useful when a rough polygon can 
> essentially tag all those nodes?

Both for the time spent tagging and space used in database, perhaps
there might be some saving from using polygons but it depends on the
exact scenario.  Either way, don't add the tags you think are of no
use, they'll be added by people for whom they're useful.  Or easier to
make use of than the boundary polygons, particularly for those asking
where a place is inside a hierarrchy is_in gives the immediate answer.
 In the renderer one idea I had was to use the number of commas in the
is_in= value to decide on the text size of suburb/district labels in a
city (they could be tagged as districts, parishes, etc instead - but
you would quickly run out of tags), that's much more complicated with
boundary polygons only.

>
>> This is the case with administrative hierarchy of
>> regions/counties/municipalities in a lot of countries, in
>> other
>> countries there is no and possibly will never be any way to
>> obtain the
>> official boundary polygon information.
>
> We don't have official information available for most roads in most countries 
> how does that stop unofficial information being added?

Well, that stops us because in this case the unofficial information is
taken out of thin air, i.e. wrong.  Say someone asks the map: am I in
county A or county B at this point?  The answer given may have 50%
chance of being wrong.

Cheers

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith

--- On Tue, 28/7/09, Donald Allwright  wrote:

> (I'm not volunteering to write the checker, but I would
> certainly be willing to spend time looking at any errors
> thus detected).

This came up because I've started writing a checker to find certain tag 
combinations and one thing I kept seeing over and over again was inconsistent 
tagging of place=* nodes.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith



--- On Tue, 28/7/09, Shaun McDonald  wrote:

> Only use the is_in tag on the place nodes rather than every
> node.

Why?

The reasoning I've been given so far is for routing, but to find such 
information routing software would have to look at all nodes near by until it 
found the node tagged with the place information.

The information I've reviewed so far shows at least one airport tagged as a 
place, and a whole bunch of other information wrong or contradictory or you 
name it someone has probably done it.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread Donald Allwright
>But until we do, the existing mechanism does no harm, and as I said, you 
>don't always know the boundary while you do know where the place is.
>
>Determining the inclusion of every place in the database, even if we had 
>complete information, is massively more complex than simply being told 
>the information. If you have it, why not give it.

Given that there is currently quite a high probability that some of the 
boundaries will be wrong (having moved since the NPE maps were published), 
there's another good reason to have what amounts to essentially duplicated 
information in the is_in= tag  - there will be a number of cases where the two 
sources will contradict each other. It will then only be a matter of time 
before someone motivated writes a checker to compare the two and generate a 
list of errors, then motivated individuals will then check their local area and 
fix the errors in whichever source is wrong. It worked for coastlines and  is 
working for things like nearly-junctions now - so could work quite well here.

(I'm not volunteering to write the checker, but I would certainly be willing to 
spend time looking at any errors thus detected).

Donald


  ___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread Shaun McDonald


On 28 Jul 2009, at 15:35, John Smith wrote:



--- On Tue, 28/7/09, andrzej zaborowski  wrote:


What if boundary is not defined but the hierarchy is
defined, such as
with post codes?  Should people invent boundary
polygons based on just
what nodes/ways belong to the area?  I hope not.


Why spend just as much time tagging every node, way and relation in  
an area with this information, how would that be useful when a rough  
polygon can essentially tag all those nodes?


Only use the is_in tag on the place nodes rather than every node.

Shaun



smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith

--- On Tue, 28/7/09, andrzej zaborowski  wrote:

> What if boundary is not defined but the hierarchy is
> defined, such as
> with post codes?  Should people invent boundary
> polygons based on just
> what nodes/ways belong to the area?  I hope not.

Why spend just as much time tagging every node, way and relation in an area 
with this information, how would that be useful when a rough polygon can 
essentially tag all those nodes?

> This is the case with administrative hierarchy of
> regions/counties/municipalities in a lot of countries, in
> other
> countries there is no and possibly will never be any way to
> obtain the
> official boundary polygon information.

We don't have official information available for most roads in most countries 
how does that stop unofficial information being added?


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith

--- On Tue, 28/7/09, David Earl  wrote:

> But until we do, the existing mechanism does no harm, and

Apart from massively bloating the database due to massive amounts of redundant 
and/or useless information that doesn't gain us anything.

> as I said, you don't always know the boundary while you do
> know where the place is.

That's part of the point of my questions, add the information to boundaries if 
it exists elsewhere and other general house cleaning, and if it doesn't exist 
on place tags already it may exist on boundaries so I still think your point 
isn't valid.

> Determining the inclusion of every place in the database,
> even if we had complete information, is massively more
> complex than simply being told the information. If you have
> it, why not give it.

At this point in time a lot of nodes tagged place=* tags in Australia don't 
have additional information, those that do seem very inconsistent and would be 
absolutely useless for any kind of routing engine. I can't speak for anywhere 
else as I haven't checked node information for anywhere else.

What I'm suggesting is a clean up, if that means adding a bunch of tags to 
nodes so be it, but I doubt that is the best way to go to achieve consistency 
to be honest.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread andrzej zaborowski
2009/7/28 John Smith :
> Perhaps the more appropriate question would be what are appropriate tag keys 
> that could be used in combination with the tag place=*?
>
> So far all I can come up with is name and possibly source. I'm primarily only 
> looking at aussie data so I may have over looked things.

A lot of places have population=, ele=, is_in=, is_in:*=, name:*=,
official_name:*=, *_name=, wikipedia=, capital=, various types of
locations codes (off the top of my head) and most of these seem
appropriate.

>
> is_in seems to have already moved to boundary information, as well as post 
> codes, population information and so forth should be shifted to the admin 
> boundaries as well if they haven't already.

What if boundary is not defined but the hierarchy is defined, such as
with post codes?  Should people invent boundary polygons based on just
what nodes/ways belong to the area?  I hope not.

This is the case with administrative hierarchy of
regions/counties/municipalities in a lot of countries, in other
countries there is no and possibly will never be any way to obtain the
official boundary polygon information.

Cheers

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread David Earl
John Smith wrote:
> 
> --- On Tue, 28/7/09, David Earl  wrote:
> 
>> It is still *very* helpful to have is_in present though. It is much
>> easier to present this information in a search than to do polygon
>> tests which requires a whole new algorithm (desirable though that
>> is), and of course, boundaries are nowhere near complete, and you
>> often know in which region a place is without knowing the exact
>> boundary.
> 
> Two different issues, one is presentation the other is simply
> describing something. A lot of software repackages information into
> it's own optimised form, and so I don't think it's a valid argument
> to keep the information when processing the information into a
> suitable presentable form would do the same thing.

But until we do, the existing mechanism does no harm, and as I said, you 
don't always know the boundary while you do know where the place is.

Determining the inclusion of every place in the database, even if we had 
complete information, is massively more complex than simply being told 
the information. If you have it, why not give it.

David


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith


--- On Tue, 28/7/09, David Earl  wrote:

> It is still *very* helpful to have is_in present though. It
> is much easier to present this information in a search than
> to do polygon tests which requires a whole new algorithm
> (desirable though that is), and of course, boundaries are
> nowhere near complete, and you often know in which region a
> place is without knowing the exact boundary.

Two different issues, one is presentation the other is simply describing 
something. A lot of software repackages information into it's own optimised 
form, and so I don't think it's a valid argument to keep the information when 
processing the information into a suitable presentable form would do the same 
thing.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith

Perhaps the more appropriate question would be what are appropriate tag keys 
that could be used in combination with the tag place=*?

So far all I can come up with is name and possibly source. I'm primarily only 
looking at aussie data so I may have over looked things.

is_in seems to have already moved to boundary information, as well as post 
codes, population information and so forth should be shifted to the admin 
boundaries as well if they haven't already.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread David Earl
Shaun McDonald wrote:
> 
> On 28 Jul 2009, at 13:43, John Smith wrote:
> 
>>
>> Is there a real need for is_in tags or have admin boundaries replaced 
>> the need?
>>
> 
> Admin boundaries are the new way of doing this. The is_in tag was the 
> early way of trying to show a hierarchy of admin areas.

It is still *very* helpful to have is_in present though. It is much 
easier to present this information in a search than to do polygon tests 
which requires a whole new algorithm (desirable though that is), and of 
course, boundaries are nowhere near complete, and you often know in 
which region a place is without knowing the exact boundary.

David


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread John Smith


--- On Tue, 28/7/09, Shaun McDonald  wrote:

> Admin boundaries are the new way of doing this. The is_in
> tag was the early way of trying to show a hierarchy of admin
> areas.

Ok, so is_in is redundant.

There was talk on the dev list about removing a bunch of tiger tags from nodes. 
Should other tags also be removed, like is_in that are no longer needed?


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


Re: [OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

2009-07-28 Thread Shaun McDonald


On 28 Jul 2009, at 13:43, John Smith wrote:



Is there a real need for is_in tags or have admin boundaries  
replaced the need?




Admin boundaries are the new way of doing this. The is_in tag was the  
early way of trying to show a hierarchy of admin areas.


Shaun



smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk