Peter,<br><br>The point isn't whether or not your tool will create correct route relations but what the point of doing that would be. I can understand creating route relations for long distance cycling/hiking paths that people actually want to navigate and historic routes (Route 66 comes to mind as a non-American) but what is the point of creating a route relation for every highway?<br>
<br>No-one gets up in the morning and decides to navigate "State Highway 483" from one end to the other and even if they did a decent routing engine could create the route on the fly, so adding it to OSM is a waste of time and would just add pointless complexity to the data-set.<br>
<br>Kevin<br><br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 21 February 2011 16:58, Peter Budny <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:peterb@gatech.edu">peterb@gatech.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">Frederik Ramm <<a href="mailto:frederik@remote.org">frederik@remote.org</a>> writes:<br>
<br>
> Hi,<br>
><br>
> On 02/21/2011 04:03 PM, Peter Budny wrote:<br>
>> Those of you who think all automated or semi-automated data<br>
>> contributions are harmful to OSM are dooming this project to never be<br>
>> able to grow to become a leading source of mapping data.<br>
><br>
> It is a common fallacy to believe that good map data could somehow,<br>
> magically, be produced from computers that evaluate GPS tracks, camera<br>
> recordings, or aerial imagery.<br>
><br>
> If this were possible, then Google et al. would be 10 times as good at<br>
> doing it as we are.<br>
<br>
</div>Google, like Waze, has both historic and real-time traffic data<br>
automatically generated by millions people with mobile phones. So in at<br>
least some ways, they ARE 10 times better than OSM.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> The strength of OSM is the people on the ground. If you try to<br>
> eliminate them from the equation<br>
<br>
</div>Whoa, who said anything about eliminating people? What I'm saying is<br>
that we should find ways to integrate human editors with automated or<br>
semi-automated tools, so that humans can delegate the tedious work to<br>
computers and spend more time doing things that can't be handled by<br>
computers.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
>> Last year, as part of a school project, I built a robot that will<br>
>> automatically create route relations for all the state highways in the<br>
>> US, being careful not to change or duplicate existing data.<br>
><br>
> [...]<br>
><br>
>> The code would be in use already if not for a few people running around<br>
>> panicking about my devil-robot and its witchcraft.<br>
><br>
> Maybe you haven't been able to demonstrate the added value your<br>
> mechanical edit would bring to the database?<br>
<br>
</div>The value is that<br>
<a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Kentucky#State_routes" target="_blank">http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Kentucky#State_routes</a> would show<br>
route relations for all 6000+ state routes in Kentucky, instead of<br>
7... and then I could use the same code to finish the other 49 states in<br>
the US. And then with minor modifications, I could use the same code in<br>
other countries.<br>
<br>
As an analogy, we store OSM's source code in Subversion and Git, and let<br>
those tools compare files when we make a change. Could this be done by<br>
hand? Of course. But why would you want to? You would produce the<br>
same result (actually, you're more likely to make a mistake than the<br>
computer). Yes, sometimes the tools come upon situations they can't<br>
handle, and have to let a human intervene, but they relieve us of the<br>
tedious bits.<br>
<br>
Some people look at OSM and say, "It needs more tools." Some people<br>
say, "It needs less tools." Consider me firmly in the first camp.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> I mean, if it can be<br>
> determined by a robot, then surely it would be redundant to have it in<br>
> the data again?<br>
<br>
</div>First, your reasoning is specious. Consider a shopping receipt: what's<br>
the "added value" to listing a subtotal and total, when these could be<br>
trivially computed by summing the items purchased and subtracting the<br>
amount paid?<br>
<br>
Second, the robot's contributions would not be perfect... but then<br>
again, neither are mine. I've never drive down Kentucky State Highway<br>
483, so any edits I make to it are merely the best I can do given what's<br>
already in OSM. But if I see tiger:name_base="State Highway 483", I'm<br>
going to put it in a relation with the other ways that match it. A<br>
robot can do exactly the same thing, only a lot more efficiently than I<br>
can.<br>
<br>
And before you counter... no, I don't think it's pointless or wrong to<br>
edit a part of the map I've never been to. If I (or anyone else) ever<br>
DOES go there, it would be nice to have already improved the map as much<br>
as possible, rather than letting it remain a completely unedited jumble<br>
or void.<br>
<div class="im">--<br>
Peter Budny \<br>
Georgia Tech \<br>
CS MS student \<br>
<br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br>