Anthony wrote: > On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 4:57 PM, Roy Wallace <waldo000...@gmail.com > <mailto:waldo000...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 3:24 AM, Anthony <o...@inbox.org > <mailto:o...@inbox.org>> wrote: > > > > Because that's the primary purpose for which maps are created. > To inform us > > how to get from place to place. > > Be careful...big assumption. > > You're right, I'm assuming too much.
In some parts of the world simply having a route from a to b would be nice to have, and I'm including areas of the world where a lot of detail has already been mapped. BUT in a large area of the world we now have much of the coarse detail mapped, and it IS the fine detail which is now needed. While a single way CAN be used in a lot of places, it has reached the point where expanding a way into multiple parallel elements is actually essential to add the fine detail. Not just for vehicle 'carriageways' on a road, but also to add sidewalk details for pedestrians and bikes. In the case of bridges, where the main function is moving vehicles, there may be a pedestrian way as well, or this may take an alternative route. Trying to decipher what traffic is allowed down a way and what has to take an alternative track when producing a pedestrian or cycle route as opposed to a vehicle route ( and adding lorry restrictions to that ) could be handled by complex tagging of a single way. The fact that pedestrians can simply run across a motorway if they feel inclined does complicate the routing question, and on roads where simply crossing anywhere is practical, this needs to be catered for. Once a route becomes a complex set of linked ways, then tagging each element with 'bridge' DOES become questionable, and a separate bridge element makes sense as well. Should the tagging handle both situations - macro and micro mapping - YES Does it currently - NO We are now at a point where the data needs a number of levels of complexity, and ideas like having the editors display ways as multiple parallel tracks makes perfect sense - especially when you add sidewalk and other detail to that. We have perhaps reached the point where the level of complexity returned should depend on the zoom selected? Taking a large zoom returns single track ways, while small scale maps return all the fine detail of footpaths, road widths and location of road markings like visually impaired persons crossing markers .... AND if the fine detail has not been specifically mapped yet, it is inferred from the information available in the larger scale tags. In my own case, mapping the footpaths down the side of the roads around here, the problem is showing which side of the road the walkway is, and where it takes an alternative route to the actual road route, perhaps even taking a completely different track. The tags to add these details to a single way are not currently documented, and neither are the guidelines for creating a multiple way route and flaging it as a single element :( -- Lester Caine - G8HFL ----------------------------- Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
