[OSM-talk] Business Building Conventions

[David Earl]

On 20/08/2009 04:03, Andrew Ayre wrote:
> Roy Wallace wrote:
>>> If I draw the outline of a strip mall (a connected string of shops) this
>>> represents several businesses together. If I then put nodes on them and
>>> give the nodes names Mapnik won't render the names unless they are
>>> amenities. But not all businesses are amenities.
...
> However, if business names don't appear on the online maps which most 
> people will use, I'm not sure how good an investment of my time it is to 
>   go around photographing buildings and adding the names. I want what I 
> do to benefit the most people.

IN such circumstances I use building=... or landuse=retail to outline 
the combined structure or area, and then use landuse=retail NODES within 
them to label each unit (I don't do it for everything, usually just the 
larger ones, but that's me being lazy rather than any particular principle).

The thing is, the Mapnik rendering does indeed render these (ditto 
landuse=industrial to pick out individual industrial units in an estate).

Examples:
http://osm.org/go/0ESQxVuz

I think building=...+name=... is also rendered for building tags on 
nodes, though that's less appropriate in these circumstances. Useful 
though when you can't get or reasonably estimate the outline, but it's 
obviously second best.

David