[OSM-talk] OSM needs a measure for completeness

[Bruce Cowan]

On Sat, 2008-01-12 at 19:08 +0000, graham wrote:
> Surely completeness is relative to purpose? I have areas where all roads
> between settlements are filled in but not the settlements, other urban
> areas where all roads are filled in and named, others where all roads
> and footpaths are complete. I haven't yet done any areas which have
> complete traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, turn restrictions, bus
> routes, administrative boundaries, or navigational information for
> waterways. The possible purposes are pretty orthogonal - rather than a
> set of numbered completeness, you'd need to allow multiple
> 'complete_for=purpose' tags. And if you attach that to landuse
> boundaries, what do you do in large urban areas where it's all residential?

I had a few roads which I considered "complete", but revisiting them a
few months ago, I noticed they were of fairly low quality (node density
wise). This could apply to any area.

As a sideline, I wonder if wrong GPS traces will become a problem. In
this scenario, imagine a road changing position (like the A8 in Port
Glasgow [0]). The old GPS traces will still have the old position, so
the majority (to start with) of traces are in the old place.

[0]
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=55.937&lon=-4.697&zoom=16&layers=B0FT
-- 
Bruce Cowan <bcowan at fastmail.co.uk>