[OSM-talk] [tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - incline up down

[Mike Harris]

I am not an architect (!) and didn't know there was a convention for steps. So I expect 50% of my steps are wrong as I have always simply mapped them in the direction of (my) travel (:<). If everyone agrees that the architects' convention should be adopted, could we document this? It seems to have been left open on the wiki http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Steps .

Elevation-derived tagging is rarely possible on steps as the elevation difference is usually small compared with the typical GPS vertical error. But the existence of steps will be important for many users - cyclists, wheelchairs, etc.

Mike Harris

-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Koppenhoefer [mailto:dieterdreist at gmail.com] 
Sent: 22 August 2009 13:22
To: Mike Harris
Cc: talk
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] [tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - incline up down

2009/8/22 Mike Harris <mikh43 at googlemail.com>:
> I'm with Martin on this one - up/down is better than nothing and is 
> useful in its own right on steps for example.

actually I wrote that it's IMHO not needed for steps: I draw them from down to up, they already have their direction. This is IMHO the "natural" way of doing it (as it is done like this worldwide in architecture, and I'm an architect ;-) ). I don't see much of a benefit for ways either, but I agree that ele-nodes have their own problems, and therefore the incline-tag on ways could at least indicate some kind of inclination (probably you could use this in hilly city centres, where SRTM is not sufficient, to avoid inclinations on bike or something like this).

cheers,
Martin