[OSM-talk] New Debugging-Tool: OSM-Inspector

[Jochen Topf]

On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 02:59:44PM +0000, Dave Stubbs wrote:
> >>> finally, a request: could you please add postal_code
> >>> (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Key:postal_code) as a synonym
> >>> for addr:postcode, so i can debug these areas in the UK? it'd be a
> >>> pain to go back and change them all :-)
> >>
> >> I hesitate to support two tags for the same thing. And there are many
> >> more addr:postcode tags than postal_code. Has this been discussed
> >> somewhere already?
> >
> > as far as i can tell, the postal_code tag has been used for about a
> > year and a half longer than addr:postcode, although i can't find much
> > mention of it on the mailing list / wiki besides these:
> >
> > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/dev/2006-March/000823.html
> > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2007-March/001931.html
> > http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php?title=Key:place&oldid=5338
> >
> > it probably should be discussed. i guess the alternatives are are:
> >
> > 1) we choose one and start highlighting the other in openstreetbugs / maplint
> > 2) we choose to use both, and tools must be adapted.
> >
> 
> It's used fairly extensively in the UK.

Ok, it seems to be mostly a UK thing, but also used in other places. In
norther Spain there is a whole area where it is used, but in a different
way: polygons with the postcode instead of roads like in the UK.

I have added a new layer to the OSM inspector showing ways tagged with
postal_code. If you zoom in far enough they are labelled. Nothing as
cool as your rendering, though. :-) Using the Voronoi stuff to get the
postcode areas seems to work really well once there is a decent amount
of data available.

Jochen
-- 
Jochen Topf  jochen at remote.org  http://www.remote.org/jochen/  +49-721-388298