[OSM-talk] Yet another street number scheme

[Matias D'Ambrosio]

On Thursday 16 October 2008 05:47:57 Elena of Valhalla wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 7:28 AM, Karl Newman <siliconfiend at gmail.com> wrote:
> > [...]
> > Just to reiterate my perspective, the Karlsruhe schema is fine for what
> > it is, but it's not sufficient for all uses. You can pretend that address
> > numbers don't belong to the street they're on (!)
>
> yes, they don't _belong_ to the street, they are _related_ to the street
>
 That depends on culture, laws, etc, I guess.

> >  but there are a ton of
> > existing navigational devices and software (probably all of them) that
> > do, in fact, treat them like that. [...] It's a reality
> > we should accept and accommodate.
>
> Indeed it is a reality we should accomodate: not in the dataset but
> with proper conversion scripts
>
> adapting the dataset to compression tecniques used in current
> navigation devices would be mapping for the navigator, and that is
> just as bad as mapping for the renders
>
 I agree completely. We should map for ease of editing and correctness. Of 
course if we can achieve those *and* make it ease for low-spec hardware, all 
the better.

> [1] with one exception: if the local rule mandates that numbers are
> the distance from one point on the road, the interpolation method does
> not really lose lots of informations, except near crossings (on which
> road does a corner building relate to?). Here in Italy it this method
> is used only for buildings on primary roads outside urban areas, and i
> suppose that at least some of them is big enough to need more
> informations than a simple outline to know the number
 This is indeed the case here, for all roads. A civilian GPS does not have 
enough precision for the error between the interpolation and an exact 
position for every house to matter; and the 'error' is actually a cosmetic 
decision by the home owner as to where to place the sign with the number on 
the front of his house (if he does at all).
 The fact is interpolation will actually take you to the place just fine in 
Argentina and any other place with a similarly sane street numbering scheme. 
And one system does not have to exclude the other, interpolation and 
karslruhe can work alongside each other just fine.