[Tagging] tagging the multipolygon model (was landuse and military)

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/10/15 sly (sylvain letuffe) <liste at letuffe.org>:
> On jeudi 15 octobre 2009, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
>> For the lake in the forest: do you agree that someone would say: the
>> lake (pond) is in the forest? Like a way in the forest, which doesn't
>> have trees growing on it, but still is in the forest. It is not
>> excluded.
>
> That's a human language matter. I don't think it's good to stick a data model
> to verbs and words.

it's not purely about language. It is about definitions, and the way
you are looking at things.

> Between them, there should be interpretation, understanding, and questions
> answering. That is to say, programs.

infomationstechnology-centric point of view

> Case of the lake in the forest, you could imagine multi-question to answer :
> - what surface is this forest ?
> Suppose I'm a wood lumber producer, I've got statitics about mean trees per
> square km. I'll surely want to exclude the lake's surface, as well as any
> road's surface going thru.
> - is the lake "in" a forest ?
> I suppose here I want to know if I can reach the lake by transporting my boat
> through grass fields.

I'm not sure if someone counts the surface of forests he doesn't
usually include lakes that belong to the forest. If you want to get
the surface of tree-planted areas, you still will have to subtract
streets, and potentially other included areas where there are no
trees. - Probably you are right and it is a better approach to exclude
lakes and even small ponds from the forest (the street-problem remains
though).

cheers,
Martin