[Openstreetmap-dev] Adding street data

[Lars Aronsson]

Preben Mikael Bohn wrote:

> It _should_ be available somewhere on http://www.kms.dk/ however 
> I can't seem to find it right now (I have saved the files 
> locally). I have made a few reader programs for the data files 
> (they a packaged in a rather inefficient way) and I can write 
> the data out in another format which I could upload to the OSM 
> server.

The first step should be to republish the exact original source 
data without any modifications, together with the license.  From 
there, many projects can make use of it.  Do you have the storage 
space and bandwidth to do this?

> If I add a tag such as the one below for each and every address 
> in Denmark, wouldn't it slow down the OSM server

This is the wrong way to do it, anyway.  Attributes disappear when 
line segments are deleted, and sometimes you have to delete a 
segment in order to replace it with two new ones.  Street 
address coordinates don't always follow the street, for example 
when large buildings are perpendicular to the street.

The OSM data model soon needs to be remodeled to something more 
advanced, where the current dots-and-lines are just one of many 
layers or components.  The availability of your Danish street 
address data should be an important source.  For use in OSM, 
streets should be identified both as a group of street addresses 
and a group of line segments.  But the street name should be 
stored once, so that it can be edited at one place for the entire 
street.  Street addresses should be a class of objects, a subclass 
of geographic point, with a link to the street object.  Something 
like this:

  class StreetAddress
    extends GeoPoint { // e.g. latitude, longitude
    Street street;    // pointer to object, e.g. "Downing Street"
    String number;    // e.g. "10" or "14 A"
    ZIP    zipcode;   // pointer to postal number zone
  }

  class Street {
    String name;      // e.g. "Downing Street"
  }


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se