On 12/12/2013 05:53 AM, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
2013/12/12 Steve Bennett <stevag...@gmail.com>
IMHO it would be nice to have an alternative dataset in lower zoomlevels
for geographic regions and extended/blurry features, something like a set
of shapefiles with translations into all languages we can provide,
something similar to what natural earth data provides, but distributed and
modified/translated by us, not just English and for higher zoom levels
(i.e. more detailed) than what NE has. Still we could start with their
geographic regions dataset and refine it, as "All versions of *Natural
Earth* raster + vector map data found on this website are in the public
domain."
Are you saying that this kind of data is a poor fit for OSM itself?
yes, for the reasons described above: no clear boundaries / fuzzy borders.
A solution could also be a new datatype in OSM for fuzzy objects, (e.g. a
collection of objects and the consumer would create a hull area around
them, possibly also roles for objects that are to exclude), but at least
currently this kind of stuff does not fit into how osm works.
Many villages or other small human settlements have no clearly defined
boundaries, and we just represent them as a node. Similarly, many
objects (say, shops) DO have clearly defined boundaries, but only have a
node in OSM. In both cases, it's understood that the thing is an area,
and the node means "it's somewhere around here".
Those are common examples of nodes representing fuzzy objects, and I see
no reason that a way couldn't also be fuzzy. Just as with nodes, it
would be up to the consumer to either understand the level of fuzziness,
ignore the feature entirely, or pass it through and let a human
interpret it.
--Andrew
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