[OSM-newbies] tertiary dirt roads?

[James Ewen]

On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 6:49 PM, Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org> wrote:
> James Ewen wrote:
>
>> I prefer the main roads in the bush being tagged as tertiary, because
>> they then become a useful addition to the map database.
>
> I tend to agree with that opinion if they're a referenced highway (BIA
> highway as is common in the Warm Springs, Navajo and Hopi nations, or
> Forest Service route on USDA and BLM land).  Definitely tag it as
> surface=* as appropriate!

I guess you missed the rest of my post where I described these
roads... many are privately owned, and therefore NOT a referenced
highway belonging to the government, but rather a private road owned
by a privately held company. They are however available for use by the
public. Putting them on the map in a manner where they can be seen is
important. Having a bunch of data available, but not visible to the
user renders it nearly useless.

My AvMap G5 uses the TeleAtlas map database, and many of these roads
are categorized down near the bottom of the priority stack. I can not
use the GPS for manual navigation because there are no roads on the
screen when zoomed out enough to be able to see where I want to go. If
I zoom in close enough to see the roads, then I can't see far enough
to know which road goes in the direction I desire. The only thing the
database is good for, is to have the device choose a route for you.
Then you can zoom out to see where you are going, and still see the
chosen route. However, you don't get to see any of the intersecting
roads or other finer details.

If you tweak the navigator rendering rules to show the bush roads when
zoomed out, then it will end up drawing every road on the screen, and
you won't be able to see anything for all the clutter. Careful choices
are required to decide which roads need to be tagged at which level in
order to ensure that maps can be rendered in a useful way by the
rendering engines.

James
VE6SRV