Re: [OSM-talk] Redefine the highway-key from scratch
Konrad Skeri wrote: we should redefine the syntax of the highway-tag from scratch. I don't think this is not at all a good idea. This affects on of the basics of mapping OSM and is considered as having an larger impact than inventing a new API. Maybe we should just add more/additional information to tagged roads. Best regards, Michael. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] Redefine the highway-key from scratch
As we probably never can agree on the semantics discussion we should redefine the syntax of the highway-tag from scratch. This will never happen since it's a pita-job to edit the existing data, but here we go: 1. Remove all highway=motorway, trunk, primary, etc. 2. Use highway=road. It's a road! If we can't agree on what is a road we're in trouble. 3. Use additional tags like motorway=yes, living_street=yes for roads with special status. Perhaps also trunk=yes (this is alreasy used in Sweden as stamväg=yes). 4. Use admin_level=1...10 or 1...20. (or whatever key name is best suited) You can argue until hell has experienced 666 freeze-thaw cycles wheater unclassified is higher, lower or equal than residential, but 4 is a higher classification than 5. Period. spinal tapBut remember: 11 is always more than 10, right... ;) /spinal tap Use the whole scale and omit levels so that countries with intermediate classifications will have a free number to use. One way of doing this it so use 1...100 and have 1, 10, 20, 30...100 as standards. If a country then has a road that lies between 40 and 50 then use 45. If if your area has two roads between 60 and 70 then use 63 and 66. (The freeways of US goes here (though in the 1...9 span) - from the little I've read there are users who wants to splice it up depending of different factors.) Large scale renderers (mapnik, osmarender, cycle map) can easily have the same rendering for 1...9, 10...19, 20...21 etc and local renderers can create special rules that suites their purpose. This key could also encompass the track_grade system, but admin_level might be a bad name for that. 5. A residential road would be a highway=road, abutters=residental or a highway=road passing through landuse=residential area. This allows for different grade residential roads. Eg. http://osm.org/go/0ex4n1HM?layers=B000TTF - Östra Kyrkogatan is a residential road (apartments with doors directly facing the street), but at the same time it's the main drive-through road of the area. 6. Make good use of availible road standard tags such as, but not limited to, lanes=*, maxspeed=*, surface=*, lit=* etc. And yes I know, highway=road is already in use. So add admin_level=unknown to them first then. (See the solutions - not the problems) Now, you are on the way of getting administrative grading (admin_level), quality grading (lanes, maxspeed, surface) and lovely beautiful maps without having to argue the purpose and size of a unclassified road. As always: grade what is - not as you wish it to render. Are you using highway=unclassified since it renders properly compared to residential, or because it fits the description of the highway-type. And finally - this is not a super-serious proposal. Just giving you something to think about. /Konrad ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Redefine the highway-key from scratch
Konrad Skeri konrad at skeri.com writes: [tagging 'admin_level' of roads instad of residential, unclassified, etc] Use the whole scale and omit levels so that countries with intermediate classifications will have a free number to use. One way of doing this it so use 1...100 and have 1, 10, 20, 30...100 as standards. If a country then has a road that lies between 40 and 50 then use 45. If if your area has two roads between 60 and 70 then use 63 and 66. I hardly think this will make it easier for newcomers (or indeed old-timers) to edit OSM. Nobody will remember the exact number to use - is a residential road in Belgium 42 or 57? - and every map editor will need to have a lookup table that turns numbers into strings like 'residential', 'secondary' and so on to present to the user. In which case you have the same mess again, but multiplied by the number of OSM editors available. Is residential higher or lower than unclassified? This argument would not go away under your proposal. Instead we would have long discussions about whether it is appropriate to tag residential streets with admin_level=30 and commercial ones with admin_level=25, or whether they should both have the same magic number, and so on and so on. If there were any disagreement then it would be scattered across the map, with some areas using 25 and others using 30, and since these are just numbers with no other meaning it wouldn't be possible to do a cleanup to recover the information of what street type is what. It's not like the 'layer' tag which is arbitrary, as long as one layer is higher than another. Road classifications do have meaning, and the fact that classifying the meaning is difficult does not suggest we should just give up and resort to essentially meaningless and unverifiable numbers. (The fact that a road is 'residential' or 'unclassified' is perhaps a little fuzzy round the edges, but it is verifiable, whereas admin_level=45 is not verifiable by any reference to the real world, unless by comparing to all the other streets in the map which have the same admin_level.) 5. A residential road would be a highway=road, abutters=residental or a highway=road passing through landuse=residential area. This allows for different grade residential roads. Eg. http://osm.org/go/0ex4n1HM?layers=B000TTF - Östra Kyrkogatan is a residential road (apartments with doors directly facing the street), but at the same time it's the main drive-through road of the area. This makes some sense. And finally - this is not a super-serious proposal. Just giving you something to think about. Ah, ok. I hope I've explained why using numbers is not really the way to go, unless those numbers can be verified in the real world. -- Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Redefine the highway-key from scratch
On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 11:08 AM, Konrad Skerikon...@skeri.com wrote: 1. Remove all highway=motorway, trunk, primary, etc. 2. Use highway=road. It's a road! Q) how will we classify each road? A) they will all be named Beverly ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
