But what we have now (you can only correct the whole DSF) isn’t the greatest solution – it’s sort of like curing a tooth-ache by cutting off one’s head. 🙂

I see this kind of issue come up in MSFS, where reviewers say “I like add-on X, but I didn’t like that it mismatches add-on Y”, when of course the two add-ons were developed against the default scenery and not each other.

I take this way – instead of the “usual” mails 😉 – to comment on this stuff. First of all – of course – I’m very happy to see your plans for the new roads. Having the draping – instead of absolute 3D placement – will make so many things easier (and more compatible) and should encourage more scenery development. Especially when I think of custom mesh – as you already pointed out – that should be great …
BUT (i always come up with a but 🙂 I’m now thinking about the forests (what else). You know, there will be an issue, if we handle them as we do it today. Namely, forests have to be “prefabricated” to make place for roads (we cut them out in advance). So, what do we do, when people begin to place/move new/existing roads en mass??? You know, suddenly there are many trenches in the forests that are empty, and highways totally overgrown …. this is not so simple … one solution would be, if (you know what comes now 🙂 could clear forests at scenery load time in X-Plane (and I wouldn’t have to “pre cut” them) .. but we also know, that this isn’t simple either.
OH, and if I think about it further, I realize that there are even more “prefabricated” features which rely on prior knowledge about the road networks: your global scenery city objects. So, I’m afraid there is a lot to be considered when thinking about roads …

By the way, I was lately looking around in the goedata domain again, and found some interesting new stuff for road data (though, still none of them is complete enough for use in global scenery):

http://www.iscgm.org
– kind of an improved VMAP0. I have already access to their data, and it seems to be a bit ahead of VMAP0 in terms of accuracy (for example when I looked how roads go along the shores of SWBD data – though, it has its imperfections too). If you are interested, I can make some comparisons for you. BUT, ISCGM data is still not available for the whole globe (but they are actively working on it and bring out new countries every 2-3 weeks)

http://www.openstreetmap.org/
– this is a very interesting open source project. They try to map the planet via GPS – through the help of many many many volunteers. AND they also seem to get (data) donations from some organizations. The city areas of Germany for example do look very promising already … though, they still have a long way to go.