[HOT] building=hut

[Nick Allen]

Hi,

A recent post on this list led me to investigate the tag building=hut.

I'm not entirely sure that I remember it's history within HOT, but I 
believe many of us started using it on round thatched dwellings at the 
start of the Ebola outbreak. I've been creating a circle of the correct 
size and tagging the way as 'building=hut' in much the same way as we 
create a rectangle / polygon on a square sided structure and tag it 
building=yes. The info on the main tagging wiki at 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:building shows the tag being used 
on an area, not a node.

I've had a quick look on overpassturbo for part of Liberia, and there 
are clusters of the tag, in some places on a node & in others on a 
polygon - on at least one occasion the node has a comment similar to '7 
huts'.

A quick query on taginfo for building=hut;
All    832415,
Node   8113
Way 824247
Relation   55

The purpose of creating the polygon was for the clever GIS folk to 
analyse and create population estimates, when used in conjunction with 
the landuse=residential polygon which needs to be traced fairly closely 
around the perimeter of the cluster of buildings to allow accurate 
estimates of population for a village / hamlet / town (Something to do 
with area calculations). I suspect that it is still being used for that 
purpose, and will continue to do so. Also if the building is traced it 
appears on the map, but if it is a node it does not. On the basis you 
can do a more accurate calculation on the area from the polygon & you 
can't do it on a node that could represent an unknown quantity of 
buildings I think we need;
* When remote mapping an area, unless the task description says 
otherwise, create a polygon for the round dwelling and tag it building=hut
* To ensure our own training & reference sites, such as wiki pages, 
LearnOSM and slide shows or other materials are up to date - if it's 
wrong & you can't fix it, at least highlight it so someone can.
-- 

Nick

Volunteer 'Tallguy' for 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_OSM_Team

http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Tallguy

Treasurer, website & Bonus Ball admin for 
http://www.6thswanleyscouts.org.uk/ (treasurer at 6thswanleyscouts.org.uk 
<mailto:treasurer at 6thswanleyscouts.org.uk>)

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