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In a Nominatim detailed view, such as http://open.mapquestapi.com/nominatim/v1/details.php?place_id=36822949, when I scroll down to "Parent of..." and further to "Residential", it lists polygons first (as in residential neighborhoods) and then streets. Each street has "(Point, ~0 miles, way <osmid>, GOTO)" next to it.

Shouldn't it be Way (not point) and the street's length, not zero?

Is it a (known) bug, a placeholder for an undeveloped feature?

asked 11 Apr '11, 08:42

ponzu's gravatar image

ponzu
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The "Nominatim detailed view" is more or less a dump of the internal data Nominatim uses, so much of it is probably not very understandable unless you know how Nominatim works internally.

That said, to address your points:

  • The "miles" indication is the distance to the object, not the object's size. So "~0 miles" in your example just means that this object is 0 miles from the main object of the page you are looking at. As the main object on the page you give is a polygon, it makes sense for streets that lie inside that polygon to have a distance of 0. If you look for example at the details for Düsseldorf, Germany, you see that most entries have a "miles" indication. That's because the main object is a point, and hence you can calculate the distance to other objects: http://open.mapquestapi.com/nominatim/v1/details.php?place_id=623958
  • As to "Way" vs. "Point": I believe Nominatim internally does not distinguish ways and points, it just knows polygons and points. But that's a question only the Nominatim devs can answer definitively.
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answered 11 Apr '11, 11:39

sleske's gravatar image

sleske
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Thanks, that makes sense now. If this is a "dump" that's not supposed to be understandable to laymen like me (no offense taken), am I going all wrong about testing my data (outlines of suburbs and neighborhoods I'm adding within the city) using this view? I am trying to verify that after I'm done, the city will contain (be parent of) the suburbs, and each suburb will contain (be parent of) the neighborhoods. And also that any given street is found in a neighborhood, then in a suburb and then in a city. Is there a better tool to test this hierarchy?

(11 Apr '11, 18:38) ponzu
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question asked: 11 Apr '11, 08:42

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last updated: 11 Apr '11, 18:38

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