[OSM-newbies] Boundaries and Roads

[John Sturdy]

On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 7:24 PM, Dudley Ibbett <dudleyibbett at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Should I try and draw the field boundary along the road in all situations or
> only do this when there is a large gap > 3m?
>
> If I don't draw the field boundary along the road should I link to the road
> or should I stop the boundary just short of the road?
>
> Some guidance would be appreciated as I don't want to link boundaries to
> roads if this could cause problems.

I think practices vary on this; I prefer to make them separate, partly
because the "road" is just the midline of the road, which is not where
the field ends, and partly for practicality of later editing: that
it's hard(er) to select a way that uses the same points as another
one.

What I've found is quite easy, and I think looks reasonably neat, is
to use the "make a parallel way" tool (in Potlatch, I haven't learnt
JOSM yet but I expect it has this too) to take a copy of the road, and
move it slightly aside to where the field boundary is, and cut it to
be just the piece you need for that field; then turn it into whatever
kind of barrier there is around the field (hedge, fence, etc) and also
use it as the edge of the field.  (That doesn't follow my suggestion
of making each way separate for easier selection, but I think it's
less likely to want to do things separately to the field and its
barrier, than to want to do things separately to the field and the
neighbouring road.)

__John