[OSM-talk] Advanced Relationships

[Martijn van Oosterhout]

On 6/20/07, Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemed.net> wrote:
> Martijn van Oosterhout wrote:
> > Sure, but we should also have a serious discussion about what to do
> > about the street number data that already exists in the DB. Currently
> > segments are the natural place to put such data and you're not
> > providing a useful alternative...
>
> Ok. To me a street number is point-based information so its natural
> home is in a node. But I may be missing the point...

Firstly, we're not talking about one street number, but billions of
them, every street has many. Adding a node for each is a complete
waste of time, since nobody actually cares about the exact location of
the letterbox. For routing all you want to know is which segment the
number is on and possibly left or right.

The comment about delivering something to the middle of the road is
silly. The map is a *representation* of the real world, not a replica
of it.

Secondly, a street number is associated with a way., so saying it's a
standalone node isn't true. It's a sub-object of something else. The
GPS coordinates are not relevent, You then also start getting into
discussions about where a number is (is it the letter box, the front
door, the front entrance of the flat,, what?).

Now, whether you want to use the segments as sub-parts of the road, or
something else, there has to be a way to say: this <whatever it is> is
between node A and node B on this way.

Have a nice day,
-- 
Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog at gmail.com> http://svana.org/kleptog/