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In the editor, what does "Level" mean?

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 6:27 pm
by MikeARogers
I've watched the Waze editing video, searched the FAQ and forums but can't seem to find this answer. I apologize in advance the remedial question but I cannot seem to find the answer, and I'm quite curious...

Select a segment on the map editor. Under the "General" tab there are the options: "Road Type" "Direction" and "Level" and while the first two are obvious, the last one is not.

What does "Level" mean? What does it do? I noticed there are both positive and negative possible values, so I'm assuming they don't correspond to editing permissions...?

Thanks is advance!

Re: In the editor, what does "Level" mean?

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 9:37 pm
by AlanOfTheBerg
rottielover wrote:When road deck's cross over or under one another, without connecting, that's when you need different levels. Otherwise you could have the client give someone directions to turn right (which in real life would have them turn right off the side of a bridge!).
If there's no junction, this won't happen.

Levels are, for the most part now, deprecated though we still use them. The basemap had junctions between overlapping roads which caused lots of turns off of bridges. Those are, for the most part, gone now in those basemapped areas. There was a map problem in the older editor which would suggest that, because these two roads overlap and are at the same level, that a junction may be needed. That code isn't active any longer. I do not believe that level serves any actual purpose any longer, but I'm not saying that officially.
rottielover wrote:...Sure enough there was a road bridge running over the top of another road and waze thought they were connected, as was trying to route people to turn off the bridge onto the other road...
I find that interesting and I've never see that situation. Depending on when this was, any not speaking with any authority to this exact situation, is that this happened, someone saw it on the edit map and removed the junctions between the roadways, but didn't change the levels. Another person posts a UR the next day, before the map update completes, and shows the same bad routing. To the second editor, it looks like the levels caused the problem, which, I believe, is not the case. It was only the junction.

Re: In the editor, what does "Level" mean?

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 9:54 pm
by AlanOfTheBerg
rottielover wrote:I do wonder if it affects the GUI display in the WME at all... IE if a segment is set to a lower number with the higher number level segment show up "on top" of the other ?
Yes, it should. Evidence suggests that it properly orders the display for all road types except Freeway. Freeway appears on top of everything regardless of level. Where two Freeways meet, you will find a singularity "inside" which all your dreams are reality. When you drive to this point, you are instantly transported to your destination. And Greg Oden actually plays basketball. And he always has, because time has no meaning.

Re: In the editor, what does "Level" mean?

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 6:36 pm
by CBenson
There is a wealth of information in the wiki. Levels are used to indicate that one roadway is above or below another such as when a highway passes over another on a bridge. Currently the level properties of a road segment doesn't have much effect.

Re: In the editor, what does "Level" mean?

Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 11:20 am
by CBenson
kentsmith9 wrote:Further, since the end user at the client sees no benefit from the segment level setting and only the editors see it, I propose we put less importance on it except for the current need to separate overpasses from underpasses and railroads (both of which are already explained in the wiki in the section I will be updating).
I haven't looked at the level property of roads in ages. I don't really think levels currently have any effect to separate overpasses from underpasses and railroads. It is likely good form to keep the levels different where there are overpasses - who knows what waze will do in the future. But at this point it seems to me that if the waze algorithms think that two roads crossing should be connected then a map problem is generated regardless of what the level of the segments are set to.
BridgeTurn.jpg
(250.49 KiB) Downloaded 1243 times
https://www.waze.com/editor/?zoom=7&lat ... TTTTTTTTFT

Re: In the editor, what does "Level" mean?

Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 5:12 am
by kentsmith9
AlanOfTheBerg wrote:
rottielover wrote:I do wonder if it affects the GUI display in the WME at all... IE if a segment is set to a lower number with the higher number level segment show up "on top" of the other ?
Yes, it should. Evidence suggests that it properly orders the display for all road types except Freeway. Freeway appears on top of everything regardless of level. Where two Freeways meet, you will find a singularity "inside" which all your dreams are reality. When you drive to this point, you are instantly transported to your destination. And Greg Oden actually plays basketball. And he always has, because time has no meaning.
I was trying to answer a question for another user when I came across this thread. I started doing some investigation and found the following relative to Segment Levels.

1. The WME and Client app treat the Segment Level differently.
2. The Client App (at least for IOS) will display segment levels based on road type only, meaning Freeways are always on top, Major Highways are next, followed by Minor Highways, Ramps next, Primary Streets below all those, and finally Streets are at the bottom. This is the same order seen when setting the road type in the editor.
3. The WME uses the Segment Level setting to display the relative level of the road. It displays the road with the highest "level" at the top of the stack and works its way down as would be expected.

Unless someone can tell me this is not correct, I plan to put this into the Wiki in the section talking about Segment Levels (and will add the appropriate search term links so people can find it.

Further, since the end user at the client sees no benefit from the segment level setting and only the editors see it, I propose we put less importance on it except for the current need to separate overpasses from underpasses and railroads (both of which are already explained in the wiki in the section I will be updating).

Re: In the editor, what does "Level" mean?

Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 1:56 am
by kentsmith9
I have posted the above information into the Wiki as I noted in my last post under the road level article.

I also created a disambiguation page for Level to help people find the appropriate term. If there are other terms requiring disambiguation, please see this thread for further discussion on that topic.

Re: In the editor, what does "Level" mean?

Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 3:00 pm
by khaytsus
I personally continue to maintain road levels when I am doing editing, because I'd love to see Waze in the future render bridges in the client. It's a lot easier to eyeball a complex freeway junction in my ancient TomTom because it showed some levels to the roads.

Re: In the editor, what does "Level" mean?

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 6:39 pm
by Laakkus
Had more meaning in the old times..
Were/are used in more complex intersections where roads/ramps run in many levels (over/under each others)

Overlapping roads used to cause automatic errors in the old editor.

Someone with access to a real keyboard can explain more thoroughly :-)

Smudged screen with finger.

Re: In the editor, what does "Level" mean?

Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 11:43 pm
by Machete808
I was having a routing problem that I assume involved road levels. Rather than routing me through a left turn as it had in the past (this was a place I go to almost every morning), suddenly it started directing me past that intersection and then through a U-turn to come back and turn right.

Started checking all the segments. I had been cleaning up connectivity errors in this area which is probably why this happened by mistake, but I discovered the segment leading into the left-hand turn had been notched up to Level 2. I restored it to a zero. When that didn't immediately work, I went back and detached and reattached the segment, hoping to reset things.

Now the intersection is behaving normally. I don't know if it was the level switch at fault, or just some unrelated connectivity problem. My money is on the level setting being a factor.