[OSM-talk] talk Digest, Vol 26, Issue 47

Dutch jdsmobile at gmail.com
Thu Oct 19 16:51:30 BST 2006


2006/10/19, Ed Davies <osm at edavies.nildram.co.uk>:
>
> Thomas Walraet wrote:
> > Could we agree in a "normal direction" even if osmarender doesn't need
> > it at the moment ?
> > i.e. : A closed area should be clockwise.
> >
> > If all areas respect these constrain, it will allow correct rendering
> > even with partial areas.
>
> Good suggestion.  Quite a lot of GIS and graphic software has this
> sort of convention.  It does help a lot for partial areas and also
> for making holes in the middle of areas.  E.g., with a clockwise
> convention you know to always shade to the right of the line, even
> when it's the outside of the area.  If your background shading is
> land then sea (or lake) round an island is represented by an
> anticlockwise coastline.
>
> Ed.


Problem is that OSM doesn't have any convention that people have to stick
to. There are only recommendations, such as those stated on the map features
page on the Wiki, but there is no convention that people must adhere to, in
order for their data to be included in the OSM database.

This is both good, as in keeping the system open and as close to the "wiki"
nature as possible, and bad, as in making it hard to consistently render
maps from the OSM database for areas comprising data processed by different
people.

One of the things that IMHO needs to be adressed sooner or later, is whether
OSM must define a convention for tagging that is mandatory, or to keep the
openess of the current tagging.


J.D. "Dutch" Schmidt.
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