[OSM-talk] The segments vs ways vs superways question again...

[Jochen Topf]

On Wed, Jan 03, 2007 at 10:01:35AM -0000, David Earl wrote:
> If the structure is changed, would it make sense at the same time to
> explicitly represent areas rather than relying on tags to imply this
> (consider the difference between natural=water and junction=roundabout
> applied currently to a colection of ways): an area would be a collection of
> nodes where the last is defined to close with the first.
> 
> <area ...>
>   <tag k='natural' v='water' />
>   <tag k='name' v='Mill Pond' />
>   <noderef id='...' />
>   <noderef id='...' />
>   <noderef id='...' />
>   ...
> </area>

I think we definitely need to have areas as a different data primitive
than lines. Without this we can never do areas with holes in them. But
your example above seems too simple. You can look at the data model
Google Earth uses in the KML for a more complex and complete way of
doing this, but that might be too hard for everyday users.

Jochen
-- 
Jochen Topf  jochen at remote.org  http://www.remote.org/jochen/  +49-721-388298