I would like to continue this discussion under a new subject related to the ref tag and external databases, but I am not sure how to do that.
I think it would be great using existing tags to fully label the reference. I am interested specifically in using an external database for data appearing on indoor maps. On example is for the store directory at a shopping center. I believe I can also create an external database or, even better, use an existing one. I'd like to know how to tag these entities. Here are a few specific use cases of interest. There are of course many more. 1) Shopping Mall - For a given shopping center there are one or more buildings with units that are occupied by stores. Some formats: - Unit specified as part of the postal address: Apple Store in Valley Fair Shopping Center, Santa Clara, CA - suite 1025 - Unit has a made up name not part of an official postal address: American Girl at Mall Of America in Bloomington MN - 5160 Center Court The external database would likewise need to specify this information. In the case of the postal address it is easy. What tags would best be used for the non-postal address? Presumably this would require information about the venue since this is a venue level name. 2) University Room - A common use case will be referencing rooms in academic buildings, for example to specify the location of a class or a professor's office. Here, there may or may not be a postal address for the building. The building may be named and/or numbered. - An office at Stanford University - Durand 101A Here it is easy enough to label a room and a building. What is the way for labeling this as a part of Stanford University? Presumably the external database would specify the room reference is a part of Stanford University. (I presume there is a well established answer for this one.) 3) Airport - The main thing to label at an airport are the gates. But two other things that would be labeled are units for stores or restaurants and the baggage carousels. - Gate 71 - Carousel 12 With multiple types of references, I assume the object type (however this is tagged) would be the give away as to what is being referenced. Hopefully this would not be too cumbersome to infer the OSM object type from the commonly used reference term (such as Apartment, Flat, Suite, Unit etc) 4) Retail Store - In a retail store aisle, shelf and bin are often used to specify a product location. Also there are of course sections or departments. Admittedly, OSM may not do a lot of retail stores at the shelf level, but it would be good to have a strategy. The concept also carries over to other use cases. - Health and Beauty Section - Aisle 7 - Aisle 7 Shelf 5B - Aisle 7 Shelf 5B Bin 3 For bins, should the reference include just the bin number, or should it include the full specification? Or perhaps it would be better to just use the bin number as the reference and include a tag that tells the parent information (in this case the shelf and aisle)? Finally, for any case of matching a between OSM and an external reference, there may not be a reference that can be tied to the entity. How should the object be referenced in this case? Possibly by ID in the OpenStreetMap or external database? Or is this discouraged? Comments and suggestions are appreciated. Cheers, Dave On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 7:53 AM, Janko Mihelić <[email protected]> wrote: > 2012/9/7 Dave Sutter <[email protected]> >> >> I was thinking of using the ref tag as the publicly used term for the >> entity. For example, there is a bus route 110 for SamTrans (San Mateo >> county, California). I imagine the ref for this route is 110. There >> could be some added information to specify this is a bus route for >> SamTrans, as opposed to a room number in some academic building or an >> exit on a freeway. >> >> Perhaps tags such as ref:type = Bus Route, and ref:scope = SamTrans >> >> The external database would also specify the same reference, and then >> the two could be matched. > > > But if you combine several already existing tags, like 'ref=38' and > 'operator=SamTrans' then that should be good enough. If you add a website=*, > there shouldn't be a chance that there is going to be duplicate elements > somewhere in the database. > > Janko > > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging > _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
