[OSM-newbies] Ungluing in Potlatch

[Steve Bennett]

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 6:49 PM, Mike Harris <mikh43 at googlemail.com> wrote:
> ... And when there is a hedge or fence alongside the road with a stile or
> gate through the hedge giving access to the footpath? The stile is neither
> in the road, or at the footpath / road junction node, nor in the field
> adjacent to the road ... I don't think it is such a clear-cut situation as
> you (rather vigorously IMHO (;>) imply ...

I can't quite picture what you mean. There is a footpath perpendicular
to the road, which crosses a hedge which is parallel and next to the
road? If so, wouldn't you have two parallel ways, one tagged
barrier=hedge, one highway=road, crossed by a highway=footway, with a
barrier=stile at the junction of the hedge and the footway? And
meanwhile, have a landuse=farm polygon sharing a way with the road, or
with the hedge, as you prefer?

As you pointed out, at the micro level, you'll probably want something
more precise than setting the boundary of the landuse polygon to be a
road way, but it's a pretty good approximation for higher levels.

What's interesting is that the landuse tags (and possibly others) seem
to have subtly different meanings depending on the level of detail. A
big block of landuse=residential would mean "this area is mostly
houses". Whereas a smaller block with a detailed outline would mean
"this is one house". It's hard to know how much extraneous stuff you
can include in the area you're demarcating.

Steve