[OSM-talk] Extruded buildings

[Nick Black]

On 9/17/07, Tom Chance <tom at acrewoods.net> wrote:
> On Monday 17 September 2007 16:49:02 Steve Chilton wrote:
> > My view is that is has to be done really well (and completely) to be of
> > any real value. Once you start putting any height visualisation in
> > people want accuracy (cf SteveC's post about accurately surveyed detail
> > of major buildings like the one you illustrated your posting with)
> > rather than impressions. So, actual heights, or numbers of stories, are
> > an absolute must.
>
> Or don't represent height at all, just show all buildings as slightly extruded
> like in the shot Artem provided. Then it conveys "ooh, it's a building"
> really well (I love it) and you don't then think that building is 15 metres
> high just because Mapnik uses the default of 15.

I agree.  Can we produce an alternative tile-set for Central London,
somewhere else with a few building outlines, and add it as a temporary
extra layer to the main map?  I agree that the buildings do look a bit
crappy because of the irregular geometries - we need CAD style drawing
tools to do this properly, but the best way to encourage development
of the tools is to expose the problem.  I think its more important
that OSM continues to innovate in ways like this (extruded buildings)
than it is for OSM to always have perfect cartography.  We shouldn't
be scared to expose the weaknesses within OSM.

>
> On the default map, anyway. If people want to gather height data for their
> area then they can do that and go all the way with accurate representation of
> dimensions, shapes, etc. in their render.
>
> Kind regards,
> Tom
>
> --
> | Green Party Speaker on Intellectual Property and Free Software |
> | http://tom.acrewoods.net    ::    http://www.greenparty.org.uk |
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
>


-- 
Nick Black
--------------------------------
http://www.blacksworld.net