[OSM-talk] New "Highways" view in OSM Inspector

[John Smith]

2010/1/10 Dont Reply <dontreplytothisadress at toensberg.dk>:
> John Smith skrev:
>> Pretty sure this is a hypothetical question, because even the highway
>> across the Nullabor is bound to be not perfectly straight, although it
>> would be mostly straight :)
> Well not quite hypothetical..
>
> I am sure you will have the impression of goin on a straight way
> nomatter if you go on a Great Circle or on a Rhumb line between the two
> points.
> Most likely this highway is the shortest way from one point to another
> and then I would think it is a Great Circle straight line, but
> if you had taken an example of state border I would assume that it most
> likely would be a Rhumb line as the border was probably
> drawn as a straight line on a map, but then again maybe that map was not
> in Mercator projection and then the straight line would be something else.

Actually several of the Australian borders were drawn up on paper but
the physical border differs because of miscalculation when surveyed,
they just found out that the angle along NT/Qld borders differs in the
direction they went north, so they'll probably update the paper maps,
they said they have no plans to shift it.

The Vic/SA border was similar to this, they ended up redrawing the
paper maps to match the incorrectly surveyed border.