2011/8/2 Gregor Horvath <gre...@ediwo.com>: > OSM provides uri's to ID's which are linked to names of > physical objects. Example: > > http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/1381574156
But these objects often make no sense in the real world! In the real world, there are things like streets, pubs, counties and hospitals, which have geometry (and other properties). In the OSM database, in contrast, there are pieces of geometry, subdivided according to topology into points (nodes), linestrings (ways), and everything else (relations), which have "thingyness". The relation between OSM objects and real-world objects is quite hairy and probably depends on what sort of real-world object you are intrested in at the moment (is a hospital a place to get yourself stitched back together after falling of the bike while mapping, or a contender for "largest building in a 5km radius from home"?). I am beginning to suspect that the only sensible use for the OSM database, is as input data to a processing step that converts it to something more usable for a specific task. Using it "as is" is a recipe for headaches. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. The database is extremely flexible and can accommodate almost any sort of geographic information one cares to throw at it, it just takes some programming to use it! _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk