[OSM-talk] [Talk-us] Address improvement through imports?

[John F. Eldredge]

Martijn van Exel <m at rtijn.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 7:35 AM, Steven Johnson <sejohnson8 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Up to now, we've been talking largely about addresses as point
> features.
> > However, one thing I think would be good to have is block ranges on
> streets.
> > What I mean is a tag that indicates this is the 1000 block, the 1100
> block,
> > the 1200 block, etc. Rather than being a point feature attached to
> > buildings, it would be a tag associated with the way. It would be
> much
> > easier to implement, make the map renderings much more presentable
> at small
> > scales, and provide better address utility than presently exists.
> 
> Ranges are what 'all the others' use and are familiar territory for
> all navigation applications. They rarely if ever rely on address
> points and do interpolation, which works well in urban areas but can
> be miles off in rural areas.
> 
> I think that ranges are good for a first iteration because they're
> less cumbersome to collect and map. They do require cutting up the
> ways at junctions like Richard mentions. Where there's no data
> available to import and / or not a lot of local mappers, ranges may be
> as good as it gets for OSM. Where there is good quality data to import
> and/or enough dedicated mappers, they should be replaced by address
> points, I think.
> 
> Another thought: the ranges could be derived from the cross streets,
> couldn't they? At least here in Salt Lake the addresses on 900W
> between 100S and 200S are all in the 100-200 range. And if they can be
> derived, what use is it to duplicate the information?
>

One thing that would reduce the visual clutter would be for the renderers to display no addresses at low levels of zoom, address ranges at medium levels of zoom (whether entered directly by taggers or interpolated), and to only display individual addresses at high levels of zoom.  It might be good for there to be rules based upon address density to decide when to switch over from ranges to individual addresses.

-- 
John F. Eldredge -- john at jfeldredge.com
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria