[OSM-dev] Navigation vs maps, connectivity, and OSM data

[Ben Supnik]

Hi Y'all,

I apologize in advance if I am stirring up a hornets nest that has 
already been kicked a few times before...and for the long intro...
--
I work on the default scenery for X-Plane, a flight simulator.  We are a 
small commercial company with an active user base.  We use GIS data to 
build the default scenery, including TIGER and VMAP0 vector data to 
construct road grids.

Some users pointed me back to OSM as a source for improved vector data 
compared to VMAP0.  It occurred to me that OSM also already has the 
infrastructure to manage collective editing and integration of a road 
grid, something our users want to participate in.  (I get "can I fix the 
roads near XX and send it back to you" a lot, but we don't have a way to 
let users do this with revision and merge control right now.)

I have looked at the data model and I/O code for JOSM, as well as the 
specs for the mapping data in XML and it all looks like stuff we can 
work with.  But today I finally got to looking at actual vectors in JOSM 
and found a lot of duplicate/overlapping segments - it looks like in 
some cases GIS data has been imported directly on top of hand-made 
mapping data, potentially without removing the underlying segments. 
There also isn't necessarily directional data for the segments (not 
surprising considering the source in some cases).
--
So...my stupid newbie questions is: is it a goal of the OSM project to 
create a map that can be used for route planning, or only to create a 
map that describes where there is pavement on the ground?  (In other 
words, do the duplicate segments represent an editing job that needs to 
be done or an acceptable set of map data?)  Or perhaps there isn't a 
project-wide standard for these things?

Thanks for your time!
Ben

-- 
Scenery Home Page: http://scenery.x-plane.com/
Scenery blog: http://xplanescenery.blogspot.com/
Plugin SDK: http://www.xsquawkbox.net/xpsdk/
Scenery mailing list: x-plane-scenery at yahoogroups.com
Developer mailing list: x-plane-dev at yahoogroups.com