On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 11:27:27PM +0200, Martin Simon wrote:
PS: Any objections if the default style adds surface=paved to motorways and motorway links? What does the Vienna convention say about motorways? Does it require a paved surface?
No, not from my side. IMHO, there is quite a difference between "dictating" global or per-country defaults for highway types and interpreting data when reading it with a tool like mkgmap.
On a second thought, the default style would not benefit from the surface=paved. There are two rules with { add mkgmap:unpaved=1 } and none that would set mkgmap:unpaved=0, because mkgmap:unpaved=0 is the implicit default.
IMHO, the best thing to happen for the database would be tools like mkgmap ignoring top level highway tags to some degree (lets say reducing them internally to pathlike->tracklike->normalroadlike->connectingroadlike->motorwayroadlike) and focusing on the secondary, more specific tags like surface, lanes, width, sac_scale, "grade_seperated" etc. to determine the sub-categories and routing importance.
That could make sense for motor vehicle routing in densely built areas, yes. Bicycle and pedestrian routing is hopeless beyond distances greater than a few km, because the Garmin algorithm takes unacceptable shortcuts (ignoring all cycleways or paths in the middle of the route). Marko