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Society of Cartographers
45th Annual Summer
School
University of Southampton
7-9th Sept 2009
The OS OpenSpace + Google Maps mashup 'Where's The Path' has proved popular with a wide range of users: Hikers, Bikers, 4x4 Drivers, Dog Walkers, Bird Watchers, Ancient Tree spotters, Derelict Building Spotters, Metal Dectorists and more.
This is perhaps partly because of the provision of free OS mapping but also because of the intuitive and compelling way in which OS Maps and Google aerial imagery are presented side by side. The twin map display uses coupled panning and mousepointers to enable the easy identification of map features on the imagery and vice versa, despite the imagery and map being displayed with different scales and projections.
Another benefit is that the map and imagery do one obscure one another as they do using a simple overlay. The presentation will demonstrate the operation of Where's The Path and cover its internal workings including the use of REST/JSON services for terrain profile lookup and the client side thinning of uploaded GPS Track Logs etc. Finally, the talk will also introduce the use of various 'Cloud' data services for the storage of collaborative web GIS data.
It all started with Ed Parsons (of Google) announcing Mapmaker at the OpenStreetMap conference, and that they were concentrating on mapping the Caribbean as part of the first round. He then mused that it would be good to be able to do some fieldwork as part of it. OpenStreetMap s immediate response was to set up a Pledgebank project to actually fund someone to do that very thing for OSM, not Google. This is the story of that pledge and what resulted from it.
Data Protection and Accuracy in Emergency Mapping
Keir Clarke, Google Maps Mania
In times of emergency, accurate online maps can often prove critical in saving lives. This year the outbreak of bush fires in Australia, the emergence of the Swine Flu epidemic and the political revolt in Iran have all helped to underline some of the logistical problems in providing online maps in times of emergency.
The public's demand for immediate data during times of emergency can cause huge logistical problems for response agencies. Some of the biggest spikes in search traffic for online maps occurs during times of emergency. In trying to meet this demand agencies often struggle to cope with:
Being able to show the location and availability of resources such as transportation, hospitals and emergency services during a crisis situation can be critical. Government agencies are often the most likely to have accurate data. However, these same government agencies often struggle to meet the demand placed on their servers during times of emergency.
The most successful online response maps are often produced from a partnership between the public sector and private companies. These partnerships can, however, be hampered by copyright issues to do with government owned data.
Geo-Enabling local communities in Brazil
Steven Eglington, GeoEnable Ltd
In this paper, I will outline the techniques and strategy for horse-back survey techniques, how I devised a method to show the covert planned open-cast mining activities, and my tutoring of ESRI GIS at Iracambi in the Rainforest.
I will also reflect on major recent changes in GIS such as the GeoWeb and how these have been leveraged by Iracambi.
Maps and GIS are used at Iracambi to identify the critical areas for conservation and the environmental degradation hot spots (erosion, deforestation), to train potential users in how to use this material, and to provide local planning agencies with the technical assistance that will allow them to make rational decisions on conservation management and planning.
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Legible London - a wayfinding system for London
Tim Fendley, Legible London
The Legible London concept was proposed in 2004 to tackle the problems faced by many travellers throughout the capital. In 2007 a prototype multi-modal wayfinding system was commissioned in a limited area in the West End to trial methodologies, uncover unknown issues and provide proof-of-concept. This was implemented in November and ev ruary. The evaluation has been some of the most extensive of a scheme of this kind to date.
The main premise is that if users are presented with accurate, timely and reliable wayfinding information then this will promote walking as a viable transport alternative for some journeys that are currently served by other transport modes. Research has shown that many journeys currently made by underground, could be made quicker by walking and also deliver additional benefits including personal health, stimulation of local economy and improvement to the local environment and to society.
An understanding of mapping designed for walkers is at the heart of the idea, along with an array of central data resources to connect information and providers together. This talk will provide background to the research and methodologies behind the initial concept, the formulation of the idea, and the creation of the prototype solution.
How HSE uses population data for hazard mapping and modelling
Mr William Holmes & Dr Helen Balmforth
The UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is responsible for the regulation of almost all the risks to health and safety arising from work activity in UK. The HSE has a duty to protect people's health and safety by ensuring risks in the changing workplace are properly controlled. The Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL) provide support to HSE for these duties. This includes developing risk assessment techniques and tools for use in major accident hazard modelling and societal risk estimation.
HSL host, maintain and run the HSE’s National Population Database (NPD) tool. This tool is being used to provide a valuable new dimension to population density and distribution estimation. The NPD provides population data from a local to a national level for England, Scotland and Wales. Populations are available on a 100m grid or on an individual building level and include residential, workplace, retail, transport system, leisure and sensitive populations. This detailed population breakdown allows for a new level of analysis detail, including the identification and estimation of populations that may be more susceptible to harm or hard to evacuate. The NPD has been used for a range of tasks including detailed societal or ‘off site’ risk calculations, identification of certain ‘at risk’ populations and scenario planning. This paper will present some recent case studies where the NPD has been used and will discuss how this has aided HSE risk assessment work.
Yournavigation routing system
Lambertus IJsselstein
As the data quality of the OpenStreetMap database improved so did its potential for useful applications. During the spring/summer of 2008 data complexity levels in the UK, Netherlands and Germany reached a level such that routing actually became usable and coincidentally several route planners were introduced who make use of this data in that period, one of which is YOURS. YOURS goal is to integrate other opensource projects as much as possible to produce a usable routing website. Using this strategy it has become (and still is) the first opensource routing website using OpenStreetMap data to provide worldwide coverage. Because of this worldwide coverage YOURS itself has become integrated into many 3rd party applications as an embedded online provider of routing information as well. This talk will give an inside view at the logic behind YOURS, how it effects communities worldwide, its influence on data integrity in the OpenStreetMap database and where it will go next.
Does the UK need a second large scale mapping database? The arguments for UKMap.
Alun Jones, Managing Director, The GeoInformation Group
There is a long held view that government should provide the necessary infrastructure for the economic growth and future development of the country. Part of that infrastructure has always been the large scale base mapping that is a key part of planning for the future. The argument goes that a well maintained high quality map base underpins much of the economic activity of the country and provides a reference base for everyone to work from.
What then is the case for having a second large scale, independent, mapping base for parts of the UK? This paper presents our thinking on why choice stimulates innovation and leads to new and more effective geo spatial solutions. That choice has existed in the UK aerial imagery market for many decades and innovations over the last 10 years have grown the market and created a much more competitive pricing environment for the benefit of the end users. There is no reason why this should not be the case for large scale mapping.
New products created using the latest technical innovations increasingly become more commercially viable. At the same time they can be designed with modern GIS applications in mind and can bring together what have previously been disparate information sources. UKMap was designed not only as an alternative large scale mapping base, but as an integrated geo-spatial database bringing together address data, points of interest, retail classifications and 3D information through a common base layer designed for that purpose.
Choice, or if you prefer competition, will challenge current approaches to licensing and IPR, maintenance and pricing, and will lead to a more dynamic, innovative geo-spatial market in the UK.
Mapping the cycle streets
Martin Lucas-Smith, Cyclestreets.net
CycleStreets.net is a UK-wide cycle journey planner and photomap system. Aimed mainly for urban use, it provides a choice of fastest, quietest and shortest cycling routes. This allows it to cater for both new and experienced cyclists, and take account of preferences such as speed and whether dismounting is acceptable. The ‘photomap’ aspect enables anyone to add photographs of cycling/transport-related problems or good practice, and locate these on a map. Photos are used for campaigning purposes and also shown within the route listings in the direction of travel.
CycleStreets is one of the first major UK users of OpenStreetMap data for routing. OpenStreetMap is a collaborative project which enables ordinary people to contribute map data – effectively a ‘geo-wiki’. The data is available under an open licensing regime, enabling bodies with little funding to use it.
The talk will demonstrate the system and consider issues relating to the use of generic mapping data for use optimised towards a specific community (in our case, people who cycle). We will discuss issues relating to the completeness of the data and how that has impacted on development, and consider the relationships between cartographic renderings of the data compared to its use for routing purposes.
Collaborative mapping: flirting with the music industry
Edward Mac Gillavry
Crowdsourcing, outsourcing a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor to a community, can be used to complete a variety of projects, for example to help capture, systematise or analyse large amounts of data. This content created by a community of users is typically referred to as “user-generated content” or “volunteered geographic information” (VGI) in case of geographically referenced content. In an interview a few years ago, Ed Parsons argued that the music industry provides important lessons for understanding how new technologies and the Web are changing consumer attitudes towards digital content, and that their experience may just as well apply to geographic information. Building on his argumentation, a model to evaluate crowdsourcing will be explored and then applied to several music websites to identify key aspects that contribute to their success in engaging the community. This model together with the identified key aspects will be subsequently used as a framework to assess the success of various non-profit and commercial collaborative mapping initiatives such as OpenStreetMap, Google Map Maker, and TomTom Map Share and to look at ways to improve upon their current project organisation or management to prepare for the road ahead.
OS-OpenSpace and OS-GeoVation
Tim Martin, Ordnance Survey
This session, looks at the OS OpenSpace(r) API (application programming interface). OS OpenSpace(r) supports the creation of dynamic mapping applications that can be embedded on your website. This session will cover various aspects - from displaying a basic map - to adding markers, how to use the boundaries derived from the Boundary-Line(tm) product, and calling in an external dataset. It is important to note that OS OpenSpace(r) is not just for developers; anyone can create and display a map (with other data).
Recruiting the crowd to produce compelling location-aware public transport promotional displays
Peter Miller, ITO World Ltd
How effectively does the transport sector currently use the promotional space available to it at bus stops and nearby to promote public transport? How can new (and old) geo-aware datasets be used to create effective tailored promotional messages that suit both the geographic and demographic context . What can be learnt from outdoor advertising companies such as JC Decaux and ClearChannel Adshel who provide many of the UK's bus shelters about the art of promoting products and services in a urban context.
Peter Miller will review current practice across different parts of the UK in both the transport and the advertising sectors. He will then explore the available data-sets, both professional and crowd-sourced, that could be used to create more compelling messages. Finally he will explore collaborative methods of assembling this information into coherent posters and propose that the public (ie the 'crowd') should be recruited to create these displays. Peter is CEO of ITO World Ltd who provides location aware bus information for National Rail Enquiries and are also active supporters of OpenStreetMap. Peter is actively involved in OpenStreetMap, Wikipieda and Geography and ITO is an industrial partner of 'Ideas in Transit' (www.ideasintransit.org) together with the Ordnance Survey.
Neodata - From Crowdsourcing to Cloudsourcing and Where It Will Take Us
Chris Osborne
With growing ease of data transfer and communication methods, many crowdsourced projects have been facilitated by the internet. They have all been selective, if you were interested in Open Source mapping then you joined OpenStreetMap, but the mobile phone is changing this too.We talk about the internet as a "cloud", a nebulous entity of applications and data that make up today's internet. Viewed from distance, a hazy mass, draw closer and see how the individual atoms are linked as one huge network. Location aware mobile devices, usually a smartphone are the device that connects us to the cloud. We are all nodes on this network and the two-way nature of Web2.0 means we are all busy communicating data back to the cloud. The way we collect data is changing, and often the outcomes are unexpected.
MapAction is a specialist aid charity that sends emergency mapping teams to natural disasters worldwide, using GIS and GPS data collection to help to create a shared operational picture for humanitarian decision makers/responders on the ground. Since 2004, MapAction teams have assisted in 16 disaster response efforts as well as training many hundreds of humanitarian professionals in basic geospatial methods.
Drawing on practical experience gained during deployments to Haiti, Myanmar, Kenya and other locations, this talk will provide an overview of the humanitarian geospatial scene while looking at some of the problems of obtaining and providing timely geospatial information in a disaster situation, some the tools available and the lessons learned from five years "in the field".
Crowdsourcing Geodata
Frederik Ramm, geofabrik
For five years, OpenStreetMap has been collecting geodata contributed by hobbyists. Everyone can be a part of it, and participants not only get to contribute data, they also build the processes and structures used in the project. There are very few, if any, rules.
This principle of 'Crowdsourcing' has enormous potential not only for OpenStreetMap but also for other areas of data acquisition. It allows the creation of huge data sets which either cannot be created through other means, or would be prohibitively expensive if created commercially. But Crowdsourcing also has issues; you have to motivate people to participate, and you have to deal with the varying quality of results. Without a fixed structure, data processing might become more difficult. 'Edit wars' and vandalism can hurt the project and must be fought with adequate means. Last not least any crowdsourcing project will have to accomodate a potentially very large number of people who have to be treated differently than paid contractors.
The talk describes the Crowdsourcing aspects in OpenStreetMap and tries to identify what other kinds of data acquisition might benefit from such an approach. Positive as well as negative experience from OpenStreetMap is distilled into recommendations for successful crowdsourcing projects
Mapping for Thingfinding
Jonathan Rez, FWDesign
As a shift from the currently commonplace printed maps used in wayshowing systems, in this talk I will put forward a case for incorporation of digital interactive maps to assist the public not only in wayfinding but also in 'thingfinding'. I will explain why wayshowing systems should become thingshowing systems in order to provide more relevant information for those who use them.
A vision for the next generation of wayshowing systems will be presented - using the map as an interactive interface that provides access to multiple layers of information, allowing for user generated content as well as a range of other location based narratives which aren't currently being catered for.
Virtual Globe vs Interactive Map: Choices, choices
Rich Treves, University of Southampton
Recently Google have developed a Google Earth plugin for browsers which works with the new tour functionality. This widens the choices available on how to publish your interactive map content. In this talk I will first explore ideas about when to produce a static map vs an interactive map. I will then go on to outline the advantages and disadvantages of publishing interactive maps in Google Earth the client, Google Earth the plugin, Google Maps and as a Google Earth tour. The discussion will cover considerations such as whether your content is Map with added web or Web with added map and also ideas about when and how to use the new tour facility.
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