> > While a relation on the street could be useful for most addresses, it is > > not sufficient for all. There is nothing stopping anyone from > > implementing both, though.
> i don't understand what this would mean in practice -- doesn't it just > mean that data would have to appear twice in the database, and/or the > renderers would need to render based on two different schemas? Implementing both does potentially mean that data could appear twice in the database. I wouldn't worry about the computer processing costs of that. I would worry about the data accuracy and human processing costs of maintaining it. (If the database contains both a Karlsruhe-style addressing way and some other relation-based form, and a user moves an addressing node or interpolation point, does the user update both data sets or will it require smarter tools in JOSM, Potlatch, and Merkartor to maintain it automatically?) The renderers would not necessarily need to render both forms. OSM as an architecture says that the Osmarender and Mapnik renderers are an important but only partial part of the total usage of OSM data. Either of the two could display addresses on a rendered map using either Karlsruhe nodes and ways, or a relation-based system. As far as I know only the Karlsruhe form is implemented but like all open-source projects, it is just waiting for an implementor for the other. However, the bigger issue under discussion, I think, is not how those two renderers draw pretty pictures, but rather how will routing software make use of the address information to provide routes. There are a number of routing programs which are looking for this data. There is openrouteservice.org, local software like Navit and Traveling Salesmen, and some people's Holy Grail of routing, Garmin GPS onboard routing. Any one of these users could be implemented to make use of either Karlsruhe-format data, relation-based data, or both. None of them must implement both but are free to do so if they want; it is up to the authors of the various tools to choose which they want to make use of. So this is a parallel-path of how to people want to enter and store the data, and how people want to extract and make use of the data. OSM can certainly support both, but I have a feeling that people are likely to converge on one or the other, and Karlsruhe seems to have the edge at the moment. Has anyone actually done ANY implementation of a relation-based addressing system in OSM yet? I've yet to see any actual examples of either data collection or use; I've only seen wiki proposals so far. - Alan _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
