[OSM-talk] Worst of OSM

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2012/5/19 Robert Kaiser <kairo at kairo.at>:
> I think the only thing I saw so far that can be correct is the minecraft
> stuff in the US. Anything else needs fixing


I think that the picture of the German village is in no way "worst".
Having buildings drawn is better than not having them, and angles and
stuff can always be refined at a later point. I guess it would be very
demotivating if I had traced my home village and someone came up on a
webpage stating that this was "worst of OSM" (a judgement that I
cannot share at all).

I don't even agree that a building drawn with 90 degree-angles is
necessarily better or more precise than one that is drawn freehand. If
you see a perfect rectangle on the map you get the impression that it
must be precise, but it can be missaligned (rotated) or often not even
be a rectangle in reality (I frequently come across buildings that are
not rectangles but represented with one or more rectangles in OSM
because it is easy to do this with some tools).

My point is: if you see something obviously drawn freehand you know
what you are looking at, instead if there is something that is done
with lots of right angles it does often look "true" but it is often
not more correct than something drawn freehand. I guess in some cases
it would be more helpful to have a freehand approximation which allows
for interpretation than something that is forced into a 90-degree
grid.

I am really sorry that there is still no way to comment (e.g. you
could defend some of the examples or stretch out the problems of
others).

cheers,
Martin