[OSM-talk] Mapping everything as areas

[Anthony]

On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 4:09 PM, Roy Wallace <waldo000000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 6:51 AM, Anthony <osm at inbox.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Right now, what's stopping them?
>>>
>>> Documentation. Or, in other words, at least some suggestions as to how
>>> to do it. For example, you'll notice that Map Features states that
>>> highway's are ways, not areas.
>>>
>> Weird.  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:area%3Dyes says that
>> highways can be areas.
>
> Interesting, thanks for that link - it appears to be easy to overlook
> - for me, anyway.
>
> Note, though, that the Key:area page states "area=yes, in the context
> of roads, indicates that the area has no street lines within it". I
> expect we will want this restriction lifted at some point, to be able
> to indicate the area occupied by long roads, or roads with a
> direction. I guess the questions remain:
>
> 1) how to indicate an area's direction

Areas don't have a direction :).  When you try to combine the physical
with the logical, problems arise.

> 2) whether it is necessary/most convenient (in some situations) to
> represent a particular highway as both a way AND an area

More likely a particular "highway", like "Dale Mabry Highway", would
be represented by *many* ways and *many* areas.

> 3) if so, how to relate a physical area to the corresponding logical
> way, if that's even necessary/recommended

Depends what you want to show.  To show that a way travels over a
particular paved section of road, the geometry should be adequate.  On
the other hand, to show that these paved areas, plus these sidewalks,
plus these center-islands, plus these ways, etc., make up "Dale Mabry
Highway", sounds like a job for a relation.

> Apologies if this has been discussed before - if it has, please point
> me to the relevant discussion page :)
>
It has been discussed ad-nauseum in some form or another as long as
I've been reading this mailing list.  But there haven't been many
conclusions made :).