[OSM-talk] World wide coverage?

[Andy Robinson]

Robert,

Welcome to OSM. Will try to respond to a few of your questions in your text
below.

Cheers

Andy Robinson
Andy_J_Robinson at blueyonder.co.uk 

>-----Original Message-----
>From: talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org [mailto:talk-
>bounces at openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of Robert T Wyatt
>Sent: 20 December 2006 4:09 PM
>To: Talk Openstreetmap
>Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] World wide coverage?
>
>Mikel Maron wrote:
>> If someone comes in and is interested in doing OSM for a particular US
>area, there should be a set of tools
>> to import just the counties they want. For instance, I wanted a few SFBay
>counties imported for Where 2.0
>> this year. Once imported, that data is going to be closely inspected. If
>there's a problem with the import
>> script, that will quickly be iterated out, and a counties worth of bad
>data can be removed vis JOSM easily.
>>
>> This is the kind of personal stewardship we have with GPS derived data,
>and that should be fostered for
>> automated import as well.
>>
>> I've added
>http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/WikiProject_United_States#Users_int
>erested_in_the_United_States
>> to kick off some community around this.
>
>Signed up! Thanks! I'm new to OSM and only just starting to edit around
>Austin, TX. I've been trying to learn how to do things. It *seems* to me
>that the only editing option I have is JOSM since none of the slippy map
>layers seem to contain anything in my region even though there have been
>edits.
>
>This is something I don't understand. Are there additional actions that
>have to be taken in order to get edits via JOSM to show up on the slippy
>map? Are these actions something that the contributors do or are
>these actions by the site admins? Must they be requested or
>are they automated? Thanks for insights.
>

The current slippy map does not use live data, to provide a quick response
time its set up to use a dump of the data called "planet". The refresh rate
of the tiles in the slippy map depends therefore on which planet version is
being used and which renderer is utilised. Expect this to improve with time
to the point that the slippy should generally be a week maximum behind the
current edit condition. If you use the edit function via the web interface
then this does use the current real time data. If you wish to see the fruits
of your recent editing then the best method is probably to run Osmarender
for the area of interest.


>===
>Without really knowing the extent of what is currently accepted, I would
>comment in regards to the tertiary road discussion that I think OSM
>should accept number of lanes and lane width as well as road surface
>material. Lane width is more important than the width of the road in my
>estimation, but the width of the road can be derived from the number of
>lanes and the lane width. It is the lane width that would best predict
>safe travel speeds.
>
>Is it important to know how the roads are striped? Can one keep abreast
>of local lane striping crews and their contracts? Would one endeavour to
>comment on the condition of the stripes without knowing when they might
>be repainted? Hmmm, much more difficult I think. Knowing whether one has
>eight, ten, or twelve feet of lane is more useful in my mind.
>
>There should also be designations for whether hazardous cargo is allowed
>on the road, hurricane evacuation routes, and all kinds of other things
>like seasonal roads (the Dalton Hwy in Alaska comes to mind--one needs a
>permit from the Governor's office to drive the road in winter). If
>private roads are mapped, then they need to be designated as such. I've
>seen roads that are originally cut by governments for utility lines, but
>are maintained by the local land owner and have padlocks on access
>gates. I'm thinking here of very large cattle ranches. USGS maps will
>show these as "county" roads, but there is no indication that they are
>accessible only to people who know the padlock combination. Certainly
>this is an important attribute to record/contribute. I'm thinking that
>access: restricted and another attribute indicating the type of
>restriction (seasonal, padlock) and possibly contact URLs (for the
>Governor's office) or phone numbers (for the ranch manager), could be
>included. Yes, I really think that contact info needs to be present.

Some of these ideas simply haven't been thought of to date. i.e. nobody has
needed to tag their highways in this way. We are very aware that highways
across the world vary in classification and physical properties. The current
"Map Features" tagging system does not properly separate out these two
aspects. I have it on my to-do list to rework a proper separation between
the physical and the administrative. For the physical it should be possible
to make certain definitions that for instance describe the typical
configuration of a freeway lane width and overall construction for the USA
and do the same for other locations around the world. With this information
located and referenced centrally at OSM it should make the tagging of
highway types in each country more logical. The motorway/trunk/primary etc
classification methods might also be split by location.

With respect to some of the other useful tags you suggested, you are welcome
to use and suggest on the wiki additional tagging which fits your needs. If
you do this in keeping with the Map Features format then you will be on the
right track.


>
>Best,
>Robert
>
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