[OSM-talk] how big are ways?

[Dave Stubbs]

On 26/11/2007, Paul Fox <pgf at foxharp.boston.ma.us> wrote:
[snip]
> too big (given the data you provided), and b) what i'm interested
> in isn't really the typical end-to-end dimension of a way, but
> the typical node-to-node dimension, since that's what will
> guarantee that a node is referenced in any given quadtile.  [please
> correct me if i've committed some wrong-think here someplace.]
>

That sounds right to me. This is effectively what happens when you
make an API bbox request. Because of this the t at h tile layer will
probably not display a way which crosses a z12 tile, but does not have
a node within that tile area. Because of this, I'd guess the vast
majority of ways have at least one node per map zoom level 12 tile.


> given the numbers below, i suspect that most ways will have a
> maximum inter-node distance that's less than 20 or 30km, which is
> the quadtile size i've been targeting (since it's a dimension
> that leverages RoadMaps internal efficiencies well).  (and if you
> have stats at your fingertips either corroborating or refuting
> that hypothesis, i'd certainly be interested...  :-)

I can't tell you exactly because my quick-hack query to determine that
is taking forever, but what I can tell you is that only 7 lines have
an average node measure > 30km ish. (that is:
length(way)/numpoints(way)). So I think you're fairly safe.