Am 09.01.2010 11:36, schrieb John Smith: > You could have at least answered me this, if OSM only stores lat/lon > data how can projections be an issue exactly, and in turn how is it a > problem how far apart nodes are on a way? > Okay, look at this image [1]. It shows the shortest line between London and Los Angeles on the earth's surface. I think this is what you would call a straight line on the earth. As you can see this is *not* a straight line on the map. Now imagine someone wanted to draw a straight line between these two points and does this in an editor using the same projection as this map does. He would create a way with one node in London and one node in Los Angeles. In the editor there is a straight line. But now, when you would draw this line on the earth's surface it will never be the straight connection between London and LA; it will be a curve somewhere south of it.
Due to not being an expert I hope this is more or less correct. Greatings: Martin Siegel [1] http://www.v-flyer.com/bluemarblemap.aspx?PATH=lhr-lax _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
