[OSM-dev] PostGIS: algorithm to find the nearest way segment to a mouse click?

[Nick Whitelegg]

Hello everyone,

As part of a walking routes feature I want to add to Freemap, I want the 
user to be able to select the closest way segment to a mouse click.
By "segment" I don't mean the old-style pre-0.5 OSM segment, but rather a 
series of nodes within a way (call it way A) which lie between two other 
ways which intersect the way (call them B and C). The way segment would be 
defined by way ID and start and end node index within the way, e.g.

Way 303, start node index 2, end node index 6

By reading the postgis reference manual I've come up with a reasonable way 
of doing this, but it might not be the most efficient. So can any postgis 
gurus offer a better way? The main problem, necessitating a rather 
cumbersome algorithm, is that postgis does not appear to have a function 
to find the index of a given node (point) within a way.

The algorithm is as follows:

1. Find the nearest way to a given position (this would be a mouse click), 
and the distance (between 0 and 1) of the position along the way.
2. Store all the coordinates of all the nodes (points) making up that way.
3. Find the intersections of the selected way, and their distances (0 to 
1) along the way using the query:

SELECT t2.highway,t2.osm_id as wayid,
                line_locate_point(t1.way,intersection(t1.way,t2.way)) as 
posn,
                astext(intersection(t1.way,t2.way)) as intn 
                from planet_osm_line t1, planet_osm_line t2 
                where intersects(t1.way,t2.way) and t1.osm_id != t2.osm_id 

                and t1.highway!='' and t2.highway!='' and 
                t1.osm_id=$wayid

where $wayid is the ID of the way we're interested in.

4. Loop through the result set to find which intersections bracket the 
selected point, and (this is where it's a bit cumbersome) find the indices 
of the nodes of intersection within the way by comparing the intersection 
node with each node of the way in turn (php code).

5. We now have the indices of the nodes of intersection, so extract the 
relevant nodes from the way.
6. Serialise the extracted nodes as XML.

So is this the best way to do it, or are there any better ways?

Thanks,
Nick