[OSM-talk] JOSM building bricks (was: geometry support)

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

     reviving this old thread, which has already helped collect a lot  
of valuable input:

> I think we should collect these requirements and make a "geometry"
> plugin. (Maybe move the "align nodes in circle/in line" functions  
> there
> as well.) I'm a bit unsure at the moment how one would best implement
> these functions without interfering too much with traditional JOSM
> functions - maybe create an extra layer or so... what geometry  
> functions
> do *you* want and how would you like them?

It occurred to me that it might be a cool thing to have pre- 
fabricated building blocks in JOSM somehow.

It is easy to draw a simple junction between two roads, nobody would  
need a block for that. But there are many things more difficult than  
that ("standard cloverleaf motorway junction", for example).  
Sometimes it would be real cool to be able to summon a full  
cloverleaf out of thin air, with its bridges, links, and ramps,  
rotate it a bit until it approximately fits, and afterwards just move  
a few nodes and connect it with the surrounding roads. No two  
cloverleaves are the same so some editing will always be required,  
but (especially as we get better geometry editing where you can tilt,  
skew, stretch things) that will probably be easier and much less  
error-prone than creating it anew every time.

Even cooler if the "cloverleaf building brick" came with a little  
wizard that would let you tweak it a bit (e.g. road type 1, road type  
2, left/right traffic) before generating it for you.

Still cooler: A relationship object could be used by the cloverleaf  
building wizard to save the editor context so that even after  
uploading the whole thing, someone else could again call up the  
editor on that specific junction and continue to use it.

Anyone thought in that direction before?

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00.09' E008°23.33'