# items

guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-179325926611299376.post-924592286371842681
url: http://chris-osm.blogspot.com/2015/06/os-locator-is-to-be-withdrawn.html
title: OS Locator is to be withdrawn
published: 2015-06-01 16:12:00
fetched: 2019-10-07 01:30:08.317240
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:42.322897
updated_at: 2019-10-07 01:30:08.434063
summary:
  I just received an email from Ordnance Survey, telling me that OS Locator, part of the OS Open Data, is to be withdrawn in a year's time. They say that OS Open Names has been published and that replaces OS Locator. They hint that it may replace CodePoint Open too, though there's no notice of withdrawal for that yet. I thought I should look at OS Open Names to see what it offers. <br /><br />The first thing I saw was that the data is broken into the OS large-scale grid squares, which break the country into a 13x7 grid with 55 squares with actual data in them. Each one of these needs to be downloaded separately to cover GB. That is a pain to start with. I requested SE and TA which are both needed to cover the village I live in. After downloading them the .zip file contains each area broken down into 100 separate sections as I would expect, but I quickly realised that there were only 25 in SE and 10 in TA. Much of TA covers the North Sea, so there should be fewer sections, but clearly many were still missing. I downloaded another area and again the same 75 sections were missing. I emailed customer service at OS to point this out, with no answer yet.<br /><br />I pressed on to look at the data in the sections that were there. The data is in a CSV format (there was another choice). There is a summary of column headings, but the data is a strange muddle of three types of data. Much of the data is a url to an OS website with the data summarised on a page for each column of each line of the text. It appears that there is a record type for place names, a record type for postcode centroids and a record type for named roads all freely mixed up throughout the file. There doesn't seem to be a field to simply identify what the record type is for each line. The first field is an id field. For place names it seems to start with osgb and has a number after that, for postcodes a postcode type id, with spaces removed, is in the id field and for road names an id that looks like a GUID is in the field. It doesn't seem to be a pattern for why the data is in the order that it is.<br /><br />I'm going to throw some code together to disentangle these record types and see what useful data is then available. Hopefully we will not have lost anything useful in this process, though it does look as though processing this open data is going to be a bit harder than it used to be.<br /><br />Anyone would think OS don't want to release open data.<br /><br />Edit: There are two fields which distinguishes these different record types.


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-179325926611299376.post-4490374717448722334
url: http://chris-osm.blogspot.com/2015/06/road-closure.html
title: Road Closure
published: 2015-06-01 11:38:00
fetched: 2019-10-07 01:30:08.317240
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:42.325389
updated_at: 2019-10-07 01:30:08.436191
summary:
  The road I live on is closed. A house needs some work done on it. The house wall is tight against the road and that part of the road is also narrow. Scaffolding to work on the house now stands to the middle of the road, so the road is closed to vehicles for two weeks<br /><br />Should I change the road in Openstreetmap to reflect this temporary closure? I have decided not to change it. Anyone trying to use the road in a vehicle will be directed by another route, by the signs. Most are locals so they will know the alternatives anyway. If I make a change to OSM and someone downloads a snapshot of the data with that change in place they may not download a new version for a while and have the break in the road long after it has actually reopened. Anyway the road exists - it's just not accessible to vehicles for a while.<br /><br />This closure has caused some very poor driving standards to surface. The alternative routes are small residential roads with parked cars and tight and narrow corners. People using these routes seem to need to take out some annoyance with their normal route being closed by roaring through these streets at ludicrous speeds with no intention to give way to anyone else.<br /><br />The closure was a surprise to me. I saw a sign go up announcing the closure a couple of days before it happened. When I tried to find out why the road was being closed I drew a blank. The council didn't respond to my request for information and searching their website produced nothing at all. A neighbour pointed out that there was a notice in the local newspaper which was reproduced online. Few few people still read the Hull Daily Mail - it has been steadily descending way below mediocrity for many years.&nbsp; The online notice didn't appear in my searches because it is not sensibly indexed. The HDM website is a nightmare to use, with any page constantly bouncing around as adverts and videos randomly pop up and freeze the pages.<br /><br />Councils are obliged to publish public notices about some things, such as road closures. It's clear to me that publishing in the local newspaper is not a viable way to do this as they no longer reach much of the population. A sensible addition would be publish the notice on the council's website. I what the East Riding of Yorkshire council will respond to my suggestion of this.


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-179325926611299376.post-90974960632867640
url: http://chris-osm.blogspot.com/2015/05/not-alone.html
title: Not Alone
published: 2015-05-21 20:27:00
fetched: 2019-10-07 01:30:08.317240
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:42.327748
updated_at: 2019-10-07 01:30:08.438307
summary:
  I went out looking for new developments in East Yorkshire today. Looks like I was not alone.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HIIwwgScjPs/VV4_us1-R7I/AAAAAAAAB3E/WuFis5CPHv0/s1600/googcar.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HIIwwgScjPs/VV4_us1-R7I/AAAAAAAAB3E/WuFis5CPHv0/s400/googcar.JPG" width="318" /></a></div><br />


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-179325926611299376.post-8854995271370120175
url: http://chris-osm.blogspot.com/2015/05/heights-os.html
title: Heights & OS
published: 2015-05-11 14:37:00
fetched: 2019-10-07 01:30:08.317240
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:42.330122
updated_at: 2019-10-07 01:30:08.440459
summary:
  Working with Digital Elevation Models (DEM) is an interesting extension to creating maps, which are usually a flat representation of part of the world. I really want to find a way to show elevation in a way that is a bit different from a flat map. <a href="http://chris-osm.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/heights.html">Working with the OS DEM data</a> has whet my appetite to try something new, but first I need a map to work with.<br /><br />The most detailed DEM data I have is based on Ordnance Survey OpenData, so creating a map in the OS projection will be useful. I use <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/tilemill/">TileMill</a> to create maps from OSM data. <br /><br />Firstly I needed OSM data in the Ordnance Survey projection. That means loading some OSM data into a fresh PostgreSQL database. I created a PostgreSQL database and, as usual, add the extension for PostGIS. this creates a table called spacial_ref_sys that includes the OS projection, amongst many others. I often add the hstore extension too, but this is a simple map so I didn't need it. <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;">createdb -E UTF8 EYOS<br />echo "CREATE EXTENSION postgis;" | psql -d EYOS</span></blockquote>I loaded an extract of OSM data using the usual osm2pgsql utility except the projection was needed too to convert the data to OS projection as it is loaded.<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;">osm2pgsql --slim -d EYOS -C 1024 ey.osm.pbf --proj 27700 </span></blockquote>I decided to add a coastline, so that needed to be in OS projection too. OSM coastlines are handled differently from all other data. They are extracted from the main DB, checked for consistency and created into a shapefile for the world. This is known as processed_p.shp. I have my own copy with a cut-down version with only the British Isles in it to make rendering a bit quicker. I reprojected that to a copy in OS projection using OGR2OGR, part of the <a href="http://www.gdal.org/">Geospatial Data Abstraction Library</a>.&nbsp; <br /><br /><br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;">ogr2ogr -t_srs 'EPSG:27700' -s_srs 'EPSG:3857' coast_bi_os.shp coast_bi.shp</span></span> </blockquote><br />Armed with all of this I could now start TileMill and add the layers I need for the map. Each of the layers, including the coast shapefile, needed a custom projection. This is:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;">+proj=tmerc +lat_0=49 +lon_0=-2 +k=0.999601 +x_0=400000 +y_0=-100000 +ellps=airy&nbsp; +units=m +towgs84=446.448,-125.157,542.060,0.1502,0.2470,0.8421,-20.4894 +units=m +nodefs </span></blockquote>&nbsp;I got this from the PostgreSQL table postgis created above. Once I had designed the map as I wanted it I exported the Mapnik XML and ran it through Mapnik. I discovered that the Mapnik XML was not quite right. It needed to have the third line changed so the srs part matches the custom projection above. There doesn't seem to be a way to set this in TileMill, so a manual edit was needed.<br /><br />To run the Mapnik XML through Mapnik I used the following python code:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;">#!/usr/bin/python<br /><br /># generate a map image in OS projection epsg:27700<br /><br />import mapnik<br />import sys, os<br />def drawMap(filename, west,south,east,north):<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; print(filename)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; sz = 5000<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ossrs = "+proj=tmerc +lat_0=49 +lon_0=-2 +k=0.9996012717 +x_0=400000 +y_0=-100000 +ellps=airy +towgs84=446.448,-125.157,542.06,0.1502,0.247,0.8421,-20.4894 +units=m +no_defs"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; m = mapnik.Map(sz,sz,ossrs)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; mapnik.load_map(m,"osproj.xml")<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; bbox = mapnik.Envelope(west,south,east,north)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; m.zoom_to_box(bbox)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; im = mapnik.Image(sz,sz)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; mapnik.render(m, im)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; view = im.view(0,0,sz,sz) # x,y,width,height<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; view.save(filename,'png')<br /><br />if __name__ == '__main__':<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; drawMap('cott.png',500000,430000,510000,440000)</span>&nbsp; </blockquote><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q1KxTY7-vtQ/VVC-YJbqKcI/AAAAAAAAB2w/jItfj1F679A/s1600/cott.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q1KxTY7-vtQ/VVC-YJbqKcI/AAAAAAAAB2w/jItfj1F679A/s320/cott.png" width="320" /></a>&nbsp;That long-winded projection was needed again. Notice the coordinates in the drawMap function are OS coordinates, not longitude and latitude. Everything must match the chosen projection.<br /><br />This gives me an image of the map in the OS projection, but the style could be any style you choose, though I'd be wary of copying the OS style too closely. This will now match the DEM data if they are combined. My style is still a bit stark and only renders a few objects, but it is something to work with.<br /><br />Next I need to use it imaginatively.


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-179325926611299376.post-7879726695650290905
url: http://chris-osm.blogspot.com/2015/05/heights.html
title: Heights
published: 2015-05-08 15:52:00
fetched: 2019-10-07 01:30:08.317240
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:42.332621
updated_at: 2019-10-07 01:30:08.443311
summary:
  I've been working on something locally for a while that benefits from maps. It needs height information displayed so I thought I'd take a closer look at what was available, especially Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data<br /><br />OSM doesn't hold much height information, so when people want to display heights they turn to outside information. One such source is <a href="http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/">Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data</a> or SRTM. One Space Shuttle mission flew around the world and mapped the heights of the ground below using radar. This data has been published as open data. It is 1 second of arc data points for the USA and 3 seconds of arc data points for the rest of the world. This gives a height data point about every 90m for the UK. There are issues with this data with some places having voids where the radar return didn't register. It is usual for people who use this with OSM to render this data as contour lines or as hill shading or both as a way of visualising the height. I thought I'd do some simple processing to be sure I understood the data format.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_F8ryzka1rU/VUzVAwh3-YI/AAAAAAAAB2Q/pUvs1sVer4A/s1600/h.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_F8ryzka1rU/VUzVAwh3-YI/AAAAAAAAB2Q/pUvs1sVer4A/s320/h.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SRTM</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table>The SRTM is published as a 1° square. I read the height values and displayed them as a shade of green since human eyes can distinguish more share variations in green than any other colour. Any voids I show as black There were nine pixels in this square) and any value with a small negative value (small so not a void) I show as blue. There's a lot of interest in this which I'd not noticed looking at contours. The dark area top left is the Vale of York, the green area top centre is the bottom end of the Yorkshire Wolds You can just make out the Humber estuary just above the centre and to the right. The bright green area bottom right is part of the Lincolnshire Wolds. The valleys with tributaries feeding into the Vale of York are interesting. None of those exist as rivers or streams today, so I expect they are remnants of the retreating ice caps about ten thousand years ago when the ground was still permafrost so any melting water cut river channels. Today the water table is much lower with the chalk of the Wolds allowing water to drain into it.<br /><br />Next I looked at Ordnance Survey (OS) OpenData. They release height data as contours and spot heights in shape file format and DEM data too. The DEM is 50m spacing and should be free of voids. They use their own projection (EPSG:27700) for all of their data and this works better for the UK for some jobs. OS release some of their data in parcels based on their own grid. I am interested in a section of including Cottingham, <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/53.7776/-0.4249&amp;layers=C">a large village west of Hull</a>. The OS square TA03 has Cottingham in the middle of it, so that is helpful.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M4suWzndaTM/VUzYDCEWEjI/AAAAAAAAB2c/lZQSUU3_5eU/s1600/o.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M4suWzndaTM/VUzYDCEWEjI/AAAAAAAAB2c/lZQSUU3_5eU/s1600/o.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">OS TA03 square</td></tr></tbody></table>I created a similar, image from the OS DEM data. I deliberately emphasised the height differences more than the SRTM image. The area is much smaller than the SRTM area but more detailed. bright green on the left is the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds. The blue line is the river Hull which cuts through the middle of the city of Hull. For comparison the bottom of the the blue smudge on the SRTM image is approximately where the OS image is. Again valleys are shown, though this time running west to east. Again they are dry (though very occasionally not which is part of what I'm investigating). I've decided that there is enough detail in the OS area and that it is big enough, perhaps with one more alongside it, to show what I want. so I'll work with that.<br /><br />More of what to do with it later.<br /><br />The python code to produce the SRTM image is here:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;">#!/usr/bin/env python<br /># -*- coding: utf-8 -*-<br /><br />import struct<br />from PIL import Image<br /><br />def getpix(val):<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; if val == -32768:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; return (0,0,0)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; if val &lt; 0:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; return (0,0,255)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; return (0,int(val),0)<br /><br />if __name__ == "__main__":<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; top=54<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; left=5<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; highest=-5000<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; lowest=5000<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; tile = "N53W001.hgt"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #make the new empty (white) image<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; im = Image.new("RGB", (1201, 1201), "white")<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; with open(tile, "rb") as f:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #print get_sample(tile, n, e)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; # scan through each of the heights in the file and colour a pixel<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; for n in range(1201):<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; for e in range(1201):<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; buf = f.read(2)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; hite=struct.unpack('&gt;h', buf)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #print '{0} {1} {2}'.format(n,e,hite[0])<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; pt=hite[0]<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; if pt == -32768:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; print 'VOID {0} {1} {2}'.format(n,e,pt)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; if pt<lowest and="" br="" pt="">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; lowest=pt<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; if pt&gt;highest:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; highest=pt<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; im.putpixel((e,n),getpix(pt))<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; print 'lowest:{0}, highest:{1}'.format(lowest,highest)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; im.save('h.png')</lowest></span></span></blockquote>The code to produce the OS image is here:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;">#!/usr/bin/env python<br /># -*- coding: utf-8 -*-<br /><br />import struct<br />from PIL import Image<br /><br />def getpix(num):<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; val=round(num)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; if val &lt; 0:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;return (0,0,255)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; return (0,int(val)*3,0)<br /><br />if __name__ == "__main__":<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; top=54<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; left=5<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; highest=-5000<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; lowest=5000<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; osf = "TA03.asc"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #make the new empty (white) image<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; im = Image.new("RGB", (200, 200), "white")<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; with open(osf, "rb") as f:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;lines=f.readlines()<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;for i in range(5,205):<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;s=lines[i].split(' ')<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;for idx, val in enumerate(s):<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;im.putpixel((idx,i-5),getpix(float(val)))<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; im.save('o.png')</span></span> </blockquote><br />


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-179325926611299376.post-4465621887609020811
url: http://chris-osm.blogspot.com/2015/02/drone-deliveries.html
title: Drone deliveries
published: 2015-02-16 12:53:00
fetched: 2019-10-07 01:30:08.317240
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:42.335339
updated_at: 2019-10-07 01:30:08.446506
summary:
  The US FAA has ruled that drones need to remain within sight of the operator. This is a major obstacle to companies planning deliveries in the US by drone. I had wondered what kind of mapping such an enterprise would need. Where would such a delivery be made? If the address has a garden then that might be useful, but what if there are plants or garden furniture in the way? If the address has a driveway then that could be a good landing site, but if the delivery sits on the driveway what's to stop it being stolen or driven over by car arriving? If the address is an apartment on a street front will the parcel just be dumped on the street? How could a drone safely land on a sidewalk?<br /><br />When a delivery is made by hand it is handed over at a doorway, posted into a mailbox or left by a thinking person in a suitable place. A person can gain access to places like a shared lobby too. Can a drone do any of this?<br /><br />Maybe would-be delivery addresses need to designate a landing site for drones, maybe that would need signage and access restrictions and possibly even extra insurance. <br /><br />The more I think about it the mapping needed to control this would be very detailed and very specific. I suspect that the FAA ruling is the least of the problems this idea has.


guid: http://tom.acrewoods.net/?p=1181
url: http://tomchance.org/2014/07/15/bringing-pedestrian-maps-to-crystal-palace/
title: Bringing pedestrian maps to Crystal Palace
published: 2014-07-15 07:05:42
fetched: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.548476
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:55.816044
updated_at: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.584055
summary:
  I&#8217;m leading a Transition Town project to bring Legible London to Crystal Palace. You&#8217;ll have noticed these signs around central London, conspicuously absent across most of the rest of the capital: At the local Transition Town AGM, somebody suggested we should try to bring these to Crystal Palace. But why wait on TfL? Using OpenStreetMap and TileMill, we can try to produce our own similar map style and stick them up ourselves! Here is my prototype for the wide area map: You&#8217;ll notice dark blue lines along the edges of roads and though the park. Those are pavements and footpaths, and indicate where you can walk. Here&#8217;s a prototype for the more detailed map of the local area, with local points of interest, pedestrian crossings and bus stops: You&#8217;ll notice that some roads don&#8217;t show any pavements. Eagle-eyed locals may also spot missing cut-throughs and wonder about missing points of&#8230;<div class="more-link-wrapper"><a class="more-link" href="http://tomchance.org/2014/07/15/bringing-pedestrian-maps-to-crystal-palace/">Read More<span class="screen-reader-text">Bringing pedestrian maps to Crystal Palace</span></a></div>


guid: http://tom.acrewoods.net/?p=1134
url: http://tomchance.org/2014/01/18/densifying-london-part-two/
title: Densifying London (part two)
published: 2014-01-18 20:27:39
fetched: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.548476
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:55.818803
updated_at: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.586956
summary:
  Following yesterday&#8217;s post on making London more dense, Tim Lund suggested I do a slightly more sophisticated analysis. Planners in London use a metric called the Public Transport Accessibility Level, or &#8216;PTAL&#8217;, which does pretty much what you&#8217;d expect. Rules for things like car parking levels and the density of housing you should build are based on these, because obviously if you&#8217;re in central London you have no need for a car and you can justify quite tall blocks of flats, but in low rise suburbia with only sporadic bus services it&#8217;s accepted that more car parking and less dense housing is appropriate. So if you were to follow these rules, how much more housing could you build in London? First, I took the data for PTAL levels (the map on the left). Then I took my wards, sliced up to remove any areas that cannot be built on, cut&#8230;<div class="more-link-wrapper"><a class="more-link" href="http://tomchance.org/2014/01/18/densifying-london-part-two/">Read More<span class="screen-reader-text">Densifying London (part two)</span></a></div>


guid: http://tom.acrewoods.net/?p=1122
url: http://tomchance.org/2014/01/17/making-parts-of-london-more-dense/
title: Making parts of London more dense
published: 2014-01-17 19:46:18
fetched: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.548476
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:55.821452
updated_at: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.589266
summary:
  How do we build more homes in London? The Mayor&#8217;s latest exercise assessing needs suggests we need up to 690,000 over the next ten years, but a parallel exercise looking for land only came up with sites for 420,000 homes. The usual debate is whether or not we build in London&#8217;s greenbelt to make up the difference. But there are at least three good reasons not to go down this route to solve our problems: there are an awful lot of protected habitats that we really cannot build on; building sustainable developments around transport hubs and avoiding those habitats could only deliver (in Andrew Lainton&#8217;s estimation) 72,000 homes; and if we ignore these,  it could lead to more low density, car-dependent urban sprawl, which the greenbelt was established to prevent. The alternative, or perhaps complementary, approach is to make London more dense, particularly around transport hubs in sprawling, low density&#8230;<div class="more-link-wrapper"><a class="more-link" href="http://tomchance.org/2014/01/17/making-parts-of-london-more-dense/">Read More<span class="screen-reader-text">Making parts of London more dense</span></a></div>


guid: http://tom.acrewoods.net/?p=961
url: http://tomchance.org/2013/09/12/mapping-dirty-london/
title: Mapping dirty London
published: 2013-09-12 17:59:52
fetched: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.548476
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:55.824076
updated_at: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.591497
summary:
  In the past couple of months I&#8217;ve been able to combine work and my mapping hobby, working on a web site about air pollution in London. I&#8217;m going to be speaking about this at the October geomob meeting. I&#8217;m lucky enough to live in one of Europe&#8217;s most polluted cities. Air pollution causes more early deaths than obesity and road collisions, and is only bested by smoking. The Mayor published some really good open data on pollution levels, which of course is incomprehensible to ordinary folk. So despite having a sense that it&#8217;s not the cleanest city, Londoners don&#8217;t know all that much about the problem or how it could be solved. We want to help change that. Our first splash was a map showing the quantities of some major pollutants dropped on sections of roads across the capital, so Londoners could find out &#8211; how polluted is my road?&#8230;<div class="more-link-wrapper"><a class="more-link" href="http://tomchance.org/2013/09/12/mapping-dirty-london/">Read More<span class="screen-reader-text">Mapping dirty London</span></a></div>


guid: http://tom.acrewoods.net/?p=929
url: http://tomchance.org/2013/06/12/getting-enthusiasts-into-openstreetmap/
title: Getting enthusiasts into OpenStreetMap
published: 2013-06-12 17:51:57
fetched: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.548476
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:55.826491
updated_at: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.593791
summary:
  I started writing this as an email to Richard Fairhurst, but then thought I&#8217;d post it to my blog. I wrote something on a similar theme just over a year ago. Richard, I just wanted to say that I thought your talk at the SOTMUS conference was spot on. But when you talk about the cycling community, I think there&#8217;s an important caveat missing. Lots of people in our mapping community (or lots of the 5% who do 95% of the mapping) are enthusiastic cyclists, but few in the enthusiastic cyclist community are mappers. I&#8217;ve not come across the London Cycling Campaign or any of the borough groups really getting involved with cycle mapping. Some members (myself included) do, but my impression is that most don&#8217;t. Despite embedding CycleStreets on their homepage and collaborating on a cycle parking campaign with them, I&#8217;ve never come across a big concerted push from&#8230;<div class="more-link-wrapper"><a class="more-link" href="http://tomchance.org/2013/06/12/getting-enthusiasts-into-openstreetmap/">Read More<span class="screen-reader-text">Getting enthusiasts into OpenStreetMap</span></a></div>


guid: http://tom.acrewoods.net/?p=828
url: http://tomchance.org/2013/01/12/openecomaps-is-back/
title: OpenEcoMaps is back!
published: 2013-01-12 17:45:34
fetched: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.548476
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:55.828926
updated_at: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.595978
summary:
  OpenEcoMaps, eco-living maps using OpenStreetMap data, is now working again. Hooray! I decided to sit down and work out why the OpenLayers interface wasn&#8217;t working and it turned out to be quite simple to fix. You can now browse around maps of low carbon energy generators in London, veggie restaurants in Edinburgh, allotments in Exeter, recycling facilities in Glasgow and more! The data is updated every hour, direct from OpenStreetMap, and is available on maps and downloadable/reusable KML and GeoJSON files. The code is also in Github, so you could set-up your own version for another country if you like. There are still some of the layers that aren&#8217;t working because the underlying data isn&#8217;t being extracted from OpenStreetMap properly. But I&#8217;m very glad that, after well over six months with it completely broken, the web site basically works again!


guid: http://tom.acrewoods.net/?p=821
url: http://tomchance.org/2013/01/06/openecomaps-halfway-back/
title: OpenEcoMaps halfway back
published: 2013-01-06 19:27:32
fetched: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.548476
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:55.831300
updated_at: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.598247
summary:
  For almost a year now, my pet project OpenEcoMaps has been broken. The vagaries of unreliable XAPI servers meant the system couldn&#8217;t download OpenStreetMap data to create all the KML files, and (I think) some changes to OpenLayers meant the web maps also stopped working. It has taken me a long time to work up the energy to fix these. Today I can happily say one half of the system is now working again, and the underlying code is much improved. OpenEcoMaps KML files, and now GeoJSON files, are being created again. Hooray! I switched from XAPI to the Overpass API; grabbed JSON which enabled me to write a more powerful function to turn this into usable objects (for example building a complete Python object for an allotment merging data from relevant nodes, ways and relations); wrote a new library to create GeoJSON files; refactored everything else to fit with&#8230;<div class="more-link-wrapper"><a class="more-link" href="http://tomchance.org/2013/01/06/openecomaps-halfway-back/">Read More<span class="screen-reader-text">OpenEcoMaps halfway back</span></a></div>


guid: http://tom.acrewoods.net/?p=794
url: http://tomchance.org/2012/11/08/spotting-problems-with-osm-gbs-web-service/
title: Fixing problems with OSM-GB’s web service
published: 2012-11-08 19:33:21
fetched: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.548476
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:55.834041
updated_at: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.600968
summary:
  The OpenStreetMap GB project aims to measure and improve the quality of OSM data in Great Britain, cleaning it up to get rid of silly little data errors, and to make this cleaned up version available in formats that local and central government types are used to. I have been exploring whether I could use the Web Features Service as an easier source for landuse data (see my previous blogs on making a map of London&#8217;s green spaces and analysing Southwark&#8217;s landuse, which both required a somewhat complicated process to get the data set). In the process I&#8217;ve found it&#8217;s actually a great way to identify gaps and problems in our data. Browse around the map on the OpenStreetMap homepage and you might think we have an impressive coverage of residential landuse, playing fields and parks. But probe around with the WFS and you can spot all sorts of missing&#8230;<div class="more-link-wrapper"><a class="more-link" href="http://tomchance.org/2012/11/08/spotting-problems-with-osm-gbs-web-service/">Read More<span class="screen-reader-text">Fixing problems with OSM-GB&#8217;s web service</span></a></div>


guid: http://tom.acrewoods.net/?p=773
url: http://tomchance.org/2012/11/02/analysing-southwarks-natural-geography/
title: Analysing Southwark’s natural geography
published: 2012-11-02 08:14:41
fetched: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.548476
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:55.836896
updated_at: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.603672
summary:
  Following my map of London&#8217;s green and blue infrastructure, I have been working on some analysis of the land uses. I was inspired and encouraged to try this by Liliana&#8217;s interesting work called &#8220;imagining all of Southwark&#8220;. Lili and Ari have managed to get the council to release lots of data on properties and car parking, and they are producing analysis of this data by postal code area and by street. They haven&#8217;t managed to get anything on land uses, so I thought, why not produce this with OpenStreetMap data? A few evenings later, here is the result shared on Google docs (direct link) covering the eight postal code areas that between them cover most of the borough (SE1, SE5, SE15, SE16, SE17, SE21, SE22, SE24): What the data means The &#8220;summary&#8221; worksheet shows the total land area, expressed in hectares (10,000 m2), for various different types of land coverage.&#8230;<div class="more-link-wrapper"><a class="more-link" href="http://tomchance.org/2012/11/02/analysing-southwarks-natural-geography/">Read More<span class="screen-reader-text">Analysing Southwark&#8217;s natural geography</span></a></div>


guid: http://tom.acrewoods.net/?p=765
url: http://tomchance.org/2012/10/26/londons-natural-geography/
title: London’s natural geography
published: 2012-10-26 18:57:27
fetched: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.548476
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:55.839694
updated_at: 2019-10-26 15:00:11.606456
summary:
  I&#8217;ve been playing around with open data from OpenStreetMap and Natural England to make a pretty map of &#8220;green and blue infrastructure&#8221; in London. Here&#8217;s the result: You can download a PDF version suitable for printing here: natural_london. I&#8217;m pretty happy with the result, my first real attempt to produce something useful with QGIS. The data I used was: OpenStreetMap shapefiles for most features from Geofabrik, supplemented by&#8230; Manually retrieved commons and marshes using the Overpass API (not yet present in Geofabrik shapefiles) Natural England shapefiles for orchards, deciduous woodlands and sites of special scientific interest Ordnance Survey Boundary-Line shapefiles for the Greater London and London borough boundaries There&#8217;s no reason the Natural England data couldn&#8217;t be manually added to OpenStreetMap, giving us a complete dataset of natural features. I just chose to get on and do it this way rather than wait, or try to add all the data across areas&#8230;<div class="more-link-wrapper"><a class="more-link" href="http://tomchance.org/2012/10/26/londons-natural-geography/">Read More<span class="screen-reader-text">London&#8217;s natural geography</span></a></div>


guid: http://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/?p=2468
url: https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2017/11/22/leedsadultlearning-co-uk/
title: LeedsAdultLearning.co.uk
published: 2017-11-22 14:00:06
fetched: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.039093
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:56.852729
updated_at: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.299299
summary:
  This year, with Leeds City Council I developed LeedsAdultLearning.co.uk which is a course finder for about 300 courses by the City and run by a number of providers and dozens of venues. It offers a range of first step courses for adults, such as basic IT skills, ESOL, caring and crafts. Within the first 24 [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>This year, with Leeds City Council I developed <a href="http://LeedsAdultLearning.co.uk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LeedsAdultLearning.co.uk</a> which is a course finder for about 300 courses by the City and run by a number of providers and dozens of venues. It offers a range of first step courses for adults, such as basic IT skills, ESOL, caring and crafts. Within the first 24 hours of launch it received over 3000 visits, in the first month, it had over 25,000 visits, with the average user spending three minutes on the site.  The code&#8217;s up on my <a href="https://github.com/timwaters/learninginleeds">LearningInLeeds GitHub repository</a>.</p>
  <p><img data-attachment-id="2471" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2017/11/22/leedsadultlearning-co-uk/screenshot-2017-11-22-find-courses-near-you-in-leeds-adult-learning-in-leeds/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-find-courses-near-you-in-leeds-adult-learning-in-leeds.png" data-orig-size="1232,1167" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screenshot-2017-11-22 Find courses near you in Leeds &#8211; Adult Learning in Leeds" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-find-courses-near-you-in-leeds-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-find-courses-near-you-in-leeds-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=660" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2471" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-find-courses-near-you-in-leeds-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=660" alt="Screenshot-2017-11-22 Find courses near you in Leeds - Adult Learning in Leeds" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-find-courses-near-you-in-leeds-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=660 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-find-courses-near-you-in-leeds-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-find-courses-near-you-in-leeds-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=300 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-find-courses-near-you-in-leeds-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=768 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-find-courses-near-you-in-leeds-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=1024 1024w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-find-courses-near-you-in-leeds-adult-learning-in-leeds.png 1232w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px"   /></p>
  <p>The project evolved from a LCC Innovation Lab &#8211; similar to the Leodis project I also worked on. The key idea is that it was designed to be a pilot or prototype project, small in scope and quick to develop, it would aim to be an aspirational example of how the City can work with the Council and open data to make good IT products. The adult education department were fully engaged with the development and design of the project, giving feedback, priorities. This engagement was really welcome and I think the experts say its crucial to any successful agile project. The department didn&#8217;t have any online course finder before so this was bringing something new, and needed to them.</p>
  <p><img data-attachment-id="2472" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2017/11/22/leedsadultlearning-co-uk/screenshot-2017-11-22-accredited-courses-at-swarthmore-college-adult-learning-in-leeds/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-accredited-courses-at-swarthmore-college-adult-learning-in-leeds.png" data-orig-size="1232,1650" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screenshot-2017-11-22 Accredited Courses at Swarthmore College &#8211; Adult Learning in Leeds" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-accredited-courses-at-swarthmore-college-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=224" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-accredited-courses-at-swarthmore-college-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=660" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2472" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-accredited-courses-at-swarthmore-college-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=660" alt="Screenshot-2017-11-22 Accredited Courses at Swarthmore College - Adult Learning in Leeds" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-accredited-courses-at-swarthmore-college-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=660 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-accredited-courses-at-swarthmore-college-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=112 112w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-accredited-courses-at-swarthmore-college-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=224 224w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-accredited-courses-at-swarthmore-college-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=768 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-accredited-courses-at-swarthmore-college-adult-learning-in-leeds.png?w=765 765w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot-2017-11-22-accredited-courses-at-swarthmore-college-adult-learning-in-leeds.png 1232w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px"   /></p>
  <p>It was featured in the <a href="https://www.governmenttechnology.co.uk/news/15092017/new-website-makes-discovering-learning-opportunities-simple">Government Technology News</a> site, the <a href="https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/website-plan-to-help-adults-study-in-leeds-1-8758876">Yorkshire Evening Post</a>, on <a href="https://www.madetelevision.tv/catchup/?c=news&amp;p=x4ug8n&amp;v=x62cicw&amp;pg=2&amp;city=mil">Made in Leeds TV</a>, and was shown on the big screen in Millennium Square.</p>
  <p><a href="https://www.madetelevision.tv/catchup/?c=news&amp;p=x4ug8n&amp;v=x62cicw&amp;pg=2&amp;city=mil"><img data-attachment-id="2470" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2017/11/22/leedsadultlearning-co-uk/screenshot_2017-11-22_13-45-10/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot_2017-11-22_13-45-10.png" data-orig-size="927,444" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screenshot_2017-11-22_13-45-10" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot_2017-11-22_13-45-10.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot_2017-11-22_13-45-10.png?w=660" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2470" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot_2017-11-22_13-45-10.png?w=660" alt="Screenshot_2017-11-22_13-45-10" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot_2017-11-22_13-45-10.png?w=660 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot_2017-11-22_13-45-10.png?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot_2017-11-22_13-45-10.png?w=300 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot_2017-11-22_13-45-10.png?w=768 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshot_2017-11-22_13-45-10.png 927w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px"   /></a></p>
  <h3>Features</h3>
  <ul>
  <li>Automatic imports of courses from Data Mill North (open data site)</li>
  <li>Full text search with support for sounds like and spelling mistakes</li>
  <li>Geographical, near searches</li>
  <li>Bus and walking directions to the start of the course from any point</li>
  <li>Add to calendar links for course start</li>
  <li>Showing courses by topics or categories</li>
  <li>Responsive and mobile friendly.</li>
  <li>Simple CMS admin UI for staff to update text pages, change records etc</li>
  <li>Caching of external API requests, front page and CMS pages</li>
  <li>Recent searches kept</li>
  </ul>
  <h3>Technology</h3>
  <ul>
  <li>Ruby on Rails</li>
  <li>Devise and Active Admin for admin UI</li>
  <li>Postgresql, PostGIS and pg_search for db, geo, full text stuff</li>
  <li>Bootstrap for front end user interface layout, CSS etc</li>
  <li>Transport API, Bing Transit, Mapzen for journey planning and geocoding etc</li>
  </ul>
  <h3>Future</h3>
  <p>The project could be altered for other organisations, and it could be altered to include the whole range of courses on offer for adults across the city region. I think usage metrics would need to be done to see what users actually do on the site, and whether the journey planning is useful. Adding extra information about course duration,  how many times a week / month etc would be good. Making it more mobile friendly could be looked at, including making a mobile only app.</p>


guid: http://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/?p=1498
title: The New Cloud Atlas – Mapping the Physical Infrastructure of the Internet
published: 2016-08-17 09:35:00
fetched: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.039093
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:56.858229
updated_at: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.303428
url:
  https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/

summary:
  Introduction The New Cloud Atlas, (newcloudatlas.org) is a global effort to map each data place that makes up the cloud in an open and accountable way. It&#8217;s a project to find and map each warehouse data centre, each internet exchange, each connecting cable and switch. Anything of any physical significance in the operation of the [&#8230;]

content:
  <h2>Introduction</h2>
  <p><a href="http://newcloudatlas.org" target="_blank">The New Cloud Atlas</a>, (<a href="http://newcloudatlas.org" target="_blank">newcloudatlas.org</a>) is a global effort to map each data place that makes up the cloud in an open and accountable way. It&#8217;s a project to find and map each warehouse data centre, each internet exchange, each connecting cable and switch. Anything of any physical significance in the operation of the cloud should be observed in some way, and recorded for everyone to see and use. Data is stored in OpenStreetMap and users can map things using the on site iD editor with custom telecoms presets for the first time. Map tiles with two styles have been produced and have now made visible this hidden infrastructure. <a href="http://newcloudatlas.org" target="_blank">http://newcloudatlas.org</a></p>
  <p>The New Cloud Atlas, named after the nineteenth collaborative scientific data collection project, is about understanding and making visible the hidden &#8220;Cloud&#8221;. Although most of these telecoms features are in the open and in plain sight, many are missing from open datasets or may be considered sensitive. Telecoms infrastructure has immense importance in connectivity and power in our connected world  &#8211; the more connected a place is the more benefits it has. Indeed the lines of fibre optic backbone have become the new ley lines of the 21st Century powering the forces behind a new Psychogeography of places.</p>
  <p>A bit about the name: The First Cloud Atlas was published in 1896 by the Permanent Committee of the first International Meterological Congress. Cloud weather observatories around the world were able to share consistent observations of the clouds and observe weather systems whose scale stretched over national boundaries. The publication of the International Cloud Atlas represented a move beyond national concerns and boundaries to an international perspective.</p>
  <p>In addition to its important role in the predicting the weather, the vision is a surprisingly early call for infrastructural globalism and worldwide collaboration:</p>
  <blockquote cite="1873 report from the first International Meteorological Conference"><p>&#8220;If there be any branch of science in which work on a uniform system can be especially useful and advantageous, that branch is the inquiry into laws of weather, which, from its very nature, can only be prosecuted with a hope of success by means of very extensive observations embracing large areas, in fact, we might almost say, extending over the whole surface of the globe”</p></blockquote>
  <h2>Site</h2>
  <p>The site shows frequently updated tiles generated from OpenStreetMap(OSM) data, details about the project and a custom OSM editor for making it easier to add map features. Here are some screenshots.</p>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_1551" style="width: 952px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1551" data-attachment-id="1551" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-12-33/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-12-33.png" data-orig-size="942,694" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screen Shot 2016-08-12 at 21.12.33" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-12-33.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-12-33.png?w=660" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1551" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-12-33.png?w=660" alt="Screen Shot 2016-08-12 at 21.12.33" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-12-33.png?w=660 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-12-33.png?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-12-33.png?w=300 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-12-33.png?w=768 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-12-33.png 942w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px"   /><p id="caption-attachment-1551" class="wp-caption-text">Map, Transparent Tiles, Markers, Legend</p></div>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_1559" style="width: 952px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1559" data-attachment-id="1559" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-16-25/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-16-25.png" data-orig-size="942,694" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screen Shot 2016-08-12 at 21.16.25" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-16-25.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-16-25.png?w=660" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1559" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-16-25.png?w=660" alt="Screen Shot 2016-08-12 at 21.16.25" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-16-25.png?w=660 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-16-25.png?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-16-25.png?w=300 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-16-25.png?w=768 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-16-25.png 942w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px"   /><p id="caption-attachment-1559" class="wp-caption-text">Cloud X-Ray Style, with scale independent(ish) building polygons</p></div>
  <p>The Cloud X-Ray style, shown above was partially inspired by Kosmtik&#8217;s data inspector style, and it shows polygons that are enlarged at low zooms. Polygons should appear to be the same size on the screen as you zoom in. It gives a sci-fi cartography, but I find it very useful finding clusters of mapped features, as all features are shown at all zoom levels.</p>

  <a href='https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-18-35/#main'><img width="110" height="150" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-18-35.png?w=110&#038;h=150" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-18-35.png?w=110 110w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-18-35.png?w=220 220w" sizes="(max-width: 110px) 100vw, 110px" data-attachment-id="1567" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-18-35/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-18-35.png" data-orig-size="942,1279" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screen Shot 2016-08-12 at 21.18.35" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-18-35.png?w=221" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-18-35.png?w=660" /></a>
  <a href='https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-17-42/#main'><img width="150" height="111" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-17-42.png?w=150&#038;h=111" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-17-42.png?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-17-42.png?w=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" data-attachment-id="1564" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-17-42/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-17-42.png" data-orig-size="942,694" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screen Shot 2016-08-12 at 21.17.42" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-17-42.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-17-42.png?w=660" /></a>

  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_media-10" style="width: 1098px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-media-10" data-attachment-id="1570" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-21-00/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-21-00.png" data-orig-size="1088,747" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screen Shot 2016-08-12 at 21.21.00" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-21-00.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-21-00.png?w=660" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1570" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-21-00.png?w=660" alt="Screen Shot 2016-08-12 at 21.21.00.png" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-21-00.png?w=660 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-21-00.png?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-21-00.png?w=300 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-21-00.png?w=768 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-21-00.png?w=1024 1024w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-21-00.png 1088w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px"   /><p id="caption-attachment-media-10" class="wp-caption-text">Custom iD Editor with Telecoms Presets</p></div>
  <p>Note: that you can also edit in JOSM or Vespucci OSM Editors using these presets here: <a href="https://simonpoole.github.io/new-cloud-atlas-preset/" target="_blank">https://simonpoole.github.io/new-cloud-atlas-preset/</a></p>
  <h2>Background</h2>
  <p>The New Cloud Atlas is a project initiated by experimental media technologist, artist and designer <a href="http://bendalton.noii.net/" target="_blank">Ben Dalton</a> with the design and research studio of <a href="http://www.afjdstudio.net/" target="_blank">Amber Frid-Jimenez</a> and <a href="http://www.afjdstudio.net/" target="_blank">Joe Dahmen</a>, and myself. Ben writes about the project &#8211; with the main idea that it&#8217;s about understanding what the Internet actually is in physical terms, rather than as something that remains clouded and mysterious:</p>
  <blockquote><p>The first appearance of the internet cloud was in network diagrams. The cloud symbol was used to stand in for complexity. The cloud embodied something of the way that the internet functions. The internet was designed to be &#8216;end-to-end&#8217;, so computers are meant to be able to connect to each other without interference as the message passes through a network of interconnections. Only the end points are meant to matter. The clouds here represent &#8216;something in the middle that is too complex to draw here&#8217;, a kind of neutral space through which information passes. It is an act of simplification, but it also contains an implicit statement that &#8216;the cloud will look after itself&#8217; that this thing is going to carry on being there.</p>
  <p>Beclouding is deliberately making something more confusing, in order to obfuscate or conceal its meaning. The use of the cloud has shifted in digital systems. The idea that &#8216;this is too complicated to think about&#8217; has been moved front and centre and converted into a business model, shedding its innocence along the way. Through a sleight of hand, the cloud sometimes appears as a platform, and sometimes a material. This narrative rests on the idea that the services are to be trusted, and they can take care of themselves on your behalf. We trust them with our emails and our childhood photographs and our meeting plans and whatever else we use the cloud for. In this new definition of the cloud, there is a statement that &#8216;this is too complex to deconstruct or critique&#8217;. You shouldn&#8217;t try to look in to the cloud and see what&#8217;s there. It&#8217;s made up of vapour, and it&#8217;s not to be interrogated. Better to simply observe it from a distance and admire it at sunset.</p>
  <p>Once the domain of national governments, information infrastructure is increasingly constructed, operated, and maintained by major multinational corporations. These corporations, which include Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, have a similar vested interest in maintaining control over of the flow of goods and information once exercised by national governments, but a reach at once more extensive and less transparent.</p></blockquote>
  <h3>Psychogeography</h3>
  <p>Regular readers may know of my interest in Psychogeography. The British Psychogeography of the 90s employed Ley Lines and &#8220;Magico-Marxism&#8221; using the language of the occult to explain the unknown forces of power at work in space and in places. I&#8217;m developing the idea that the new lines of power in the 21st Century are of Information &#8211; and the actual lines of light that transmit these bits of data, and the buildings that house them. More about that in walk or talk later on this year!</p>
  <p>Another more obvious connection with psychogeography is the hidden in plain sight angle. These passageways of the internet are often marked, on manhole covers, in mobile phone masts, in big buildings in light industrial estates, but they are utterly overlooked. They may travel along the margins, along canals or train tracks. They are also sited in classic psychogeographical &#8220;liminal&#8221; spaces &#8211; beaches, margins of rural and urban, wasteland, on top of tower buildings etc.</p>
  <h4>OpenStreetMap and the Telecoms WikiProject</h4>
  <p>OpenStreetMap allows anything that exists and can be verified to be mapped. There is no notability rule that Wikipedia has, for example. So it allows manhole covers to be mapped in detail, it allows telephone lines and the assorted street cabinet boxes that crowd our pavements. You might get feedback as to how to map these features and you might get funny comments about why these features are being mapped (and indeed, mapping with OpenStreetMap is voluntary!) but pretty much all OSM mappers will agree that these features shouldn&#8217;t be excluded.</p>

  <a href='https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/28548716445_93e3d32017_o/#main'><img width="150" height="92" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548716445_93e3d32017_o.jpg?w=150&#038;h=92" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548716445_93e3d32017_o.jpg?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548716445_93e3d32017_o.jpg?w=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" data-attachment-id="1765" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/28548716445_93e3d32017_o/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548716445_93e3d32017_o.jpg" data-orig-size="344,212" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;4&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon PowerShot SX220 HS&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1466737267&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;5&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;160&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.0025&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}" data-image-title="28548716445_93e3d32017_o" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548716445_93e3d32017_o.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548716445_93e3d32017_o.jpg?w=344" /></a>
  <a href='https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/28511089626_27b90c56cd_k-2/#main'><img width="150" height="107" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28511089626_27b90c56cd_k1.jpg?w=150&#038;h=107" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28511089626_27b90c56cd_k1.jpg?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28511089626_27b90c56cd_k1.jpg?w=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" data-attachment-id="1766" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/28511089626_27b90c56cd_k-2/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28511089626_27b90c56cd_k1.jpg" data-orig-size="584,416" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;3.1&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon PowerShot SX220 HS&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1466865121&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;5&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;100&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.004&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}" data-image-title="28511089626_27b90c56cd_k" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28511089626_27b90c56cd_k1.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28511089626_27b90c56cd_k1.jpg?w=584" /></a>

  <p>Telecoms features in OpenStreetMap haven&#8217;t been well mapped before. This is both good and bad in that the taxonomy (or folksonomy to be more accurate)  &#8211; the tags that describe these features -have not been standardized. We have the opportunity to define the tags, or at least standardize some of them to be more consistent across similar telecoms infrastructure features.</p>
  <p>I started <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Telecoms" target="_blank">WikiProject Telecoms</a> on the OSM Wiki, so please go there to see how to map and tag features &#8211; and if you are a telecoms, mapping or tagging specialist please suggest better ways to map these features! <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Telecoms" target="_blank">https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Telecoms</a></p>
  <p>The current features being rendered in the New Cloud Atlas map are:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>Data Centres</li>
  <li>Telephone Exchanges</li>
  <li>Manhole covers</li>
  <li>Telephone poles and wires</li>
  <li>Submarine cables etc</li>
  <li>Telecoms towers, masts, and antennae</li>
  <li>Street Cabinets</li>
  </ul>
  <p>Underground features may be more difficult to map &#8211; so we are relying on manhole covers which often show what its use and who operates the cable underneath (in the UK at least) &#8211; and those markings sprayed by utility companies, and some data imports. If you don&#8217;t know where an underground cable goes its probably best to leave it out.</p>
  <p>You might have noticed that many of the options include sound and heat for the street cabinets. One of the side effects of today&#8217;s modern fibre optic street cabinets is that they are often installed with more power needs than copper wire ones &#8211; and so they need a fan. Often the cabinets are warm to the touch and sometimes they make a quite loud drone sound. This type of data can be useful, I have heard, to people who are vision impaired. Sound and touch can help orientate people in space.</p>
  <p><strong>Update:</strong> There is a <a href="https://simonpoole.github.io/new-cloud-atlas-preset/" target="_blank">JOSM Preset and a Vespucci Preset</a> that <a href="https://github.com/simonpoole/new-cloud-atlas-preset" target="_blank">Simon Poole developed</a></p>
  <h4>Open Data / Secrecy etc</h4>
  <p>It&#8217;s probably worth talking a little bit about the privacy and secrecy issues. Although the project isn&#8217;t about getting releases of data from companies and governments, and it&#8217;s not about uncovering the secret installations, it is about collaboratively mapping the world. Almost all of the information that will make up the New Cloud Atlas will be found in the field or in public information sources.</p>
  <p>You may be reminded of a story in 2003 (2 years after 9/11) of <a href="https://twitter.com/SeanGorman" target="_blank">Sean Gorman</a>&#8216;s PhD dissertation that <a href="http://seclists.org/isn/2003/Jul/28" target="_blank">the US Government wanted to make classified</a> as although it contained only publicly available information (about the Internet connections in the US) he analyzed the data to identify the weak links &#8211; weaknesses that, for example, a disaster could take out or a terrorist could exploit.  Officials in the US Govt said that his dissertation should be burnt! Sean successfully graduated and started a mapping company with the DHS as clients. (I actually ended up working there at FortiusOne / GeoIQ several years after that for a bit). Now of course open data and open analysis is encouraged and promoted by governments (and following this trend check out Sean&#8217;s new startup <a href="http://timbr.io/">Timbr.io</a>).</p>
  <p>You may also recall stories about how many national mapping agencies removed military bases (such as Aldermaston, or Greenham Common in the UK) from their paper maps &#8211; even when these bases were signed from the motorways and major roads and had nice big clear signs outside the fences.  A relic from the Cold War, perhaps. It appears to me that even in this current year the Ordnance Survey mislabels the Menwith Hill USAF/RAF Listening Base in North Yorkshire as just &#8220;Menwith Camp&#8221; with no indication of it&#8217;s real name, activity nor landuse (as compared to OpenStreetMap for example).</p>
  <p>At this point, if you are curious, we should evoke the classic 1996 Wired Article by Neal Stephenson: <a href="http://Mother Earth Mother Board" target="_blank">Mother Earth Mother Board</a> <a href="http://Mother Earth Mother Board" target="_blank">http://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/</a> It&#8217;s essential if you are interested in reading more about the geo political and technology of international internet cable laying. It&#8217;s also a great read in general.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <h4>Liverpool Walk / Workshop</h4>
  <p>Ben and I ran a series of walks and workshops at FACT in June 2016. <a href="http://www.fact.co.uk/whats-on/current/cloud-dowsing-hunting-for-the-hidden-internet.aspx" target="_blank">Cloud Dowsing Hunting for the Hidden Internet</a> and <a href="http://www.fact.co.uk/whats-on/current/mapping-the-new-cloud-atlas.aspx" target="_blank">Mapping the New Cloud Atlas</a></p>

  <a href='https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-54/#main'><img width="140" height="150" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-54.png?w=140&#038;h=150" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-54.png?w=140 140w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-54.png?w=280 280w" sizes="(max-width: 140px) 100vw, 140px" data-attachment-id="1581" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-54/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-54.png" data-orig-size="1000,1070" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screen Shot 2016-08-12 at 21.26.54" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-54.png?w=280" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-54.png?w=660" /></a>
  <a href='https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-32/#main'><img width="100" height="150" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-32.png?w=100&#038;h=150" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-32.png?w=100 100w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-32.png?w=200 200w" sizes="(max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" data-attachment-id="1582" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-32/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-32.png" data-orig-size="1000,1500" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screen Shot 2016-08-12 at 21.26.32" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-32.png?w=200" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-12-at-21-26-32.png?w=660" /></a>

  <p>We used <a href="http://fieldpapers.org/atlases/4deh45t9" target="_blank">FieldPapers</a> to give to participants and mappers and went around the streets of Liverpool.</p>

  <a href='https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/snapshots_32771099_field-paper-32771099/#main'><img width="150" height="118" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/snapshots_32771099_field-paper-32771099.jpg?w=150&#038;h=118" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/snapshots_32771099_field-paper-32771099.jpg?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/snapshots_32771099_field-paper-32771099.jpg?w=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" data-attachment-id="1706" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/snapshots_32771099_field-paper-32771099/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/snapshots_32771099_field-paper-32771099.jpg" data-orig-size="3385,2668" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="snapshots_32771099_field-paper-32771099" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/snapshots_32771099_field-paper-32771099.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/snapshots_32771099_field-paper-32771099.jpg?w=660" /></a>
  <a href='https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/snapshots_5boz14k6_field-paper-5boz14k6/#main'><img width="150" height="118" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/snapshots_5boz14k6_field-paper-5boz14k6.jpg?w=150&#038;h=118" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/snapshots_5boz14k6_field-paper-5boz14k6.jpg?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/snapshots_5boz14k6_field-paper-5boz14k6.jpg?w=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" data-attachment-id="1707" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/snapshots_5boz14k6_field-paper-5boz14k6/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/snapshots_5boz14k6_field-paper-5boz14k6.jpg" data-orig-size="3387,2668" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="snapshots_5boz14k6_field-paper-5boz14k6" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/snapshots_5boz14k6_field-paper-5boz14k6.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/snapshots_5boz14k6_field-paper-5boz14k6.jpg?w=660" /></a>

  <p>Here we are near the main telephone exchange and data centre looking for manhole covers, cabinets and antennae, that&#8217;s me pointing.</p>
  <p><img data-attachment-id="1690" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/13391350_1053402384736248_1279453524_n/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/13391350_1053402384736248_1279453524_n.jpg" data-orig-size="1080,1080" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="13391350_1053402384736248_1279453524_n" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/13391350_1053402384736248_1279453524_n.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/13391350_1053402384736248_1279453524_n.jpg?w=660" class="alignnone  wp-image-1690" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/13391350_1053402384736248_1279453524_n.jpg?w=586&#038;h=586" alt="13391350_1053402384736248_1279453524_n" width="586" height="586" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/13391350_1053402384736248_1279453524_n.jpg?w=586&amp;h=586 586w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/13391350_1053402384736248_1279453524_n.jpg?w=150&amp;h=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/13391350_1053402384736248_1279453524_n.jpg?w=300&amp;h=300 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/13391350_1053402384736248_1279453524_n.jpg?w=768&amp;h=768 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/13391350_1053402384736248_1279453524_n.jpg?w=1024&amp;h=1024 1024w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/13391350_1053402384736248_1279453524_n.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 586px) 100vw, 586px" /></p>
  <p>You can view the photos I took on the Flickr Album <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chippee/sets/72157671540933095" target="_blank">https://www.flickr.com/photos/chippee/sets/72157671540933095</a></p>

  <a href='https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/28548695195_044b37b1bc_z/#main'><img width="113" height="150" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548695195_044b37b1bc_z.jpg?w=113&#038;h=150" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548695195_044b37b1bc_z.jpg?w=113 113w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548695195_044b37b1bc_z.jpg?w=226 226w" sizes="(max-width: 113px) 100vw, 113px" data-attachment-id="1698" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/28548695195_044b37b1bc_z/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548695195_044b37b1bc_z.jpg" data-orig-size="480,640" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="28548695195_044b37b1bc_z" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548695195_044b37b1bc_z.jpg?w=225" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548695195_044b37b1bc_z.jpg?w=480" /></a>
  <a href='https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/28548721165_92209edbf3_z/#main'><img width="150" height="113" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548721165_92209edbf3_z.jpg?w=150&#038;h=113" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548721165_92209edbf3_z.jpg?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548721165_92209edbf3_z.jpg?w=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" data-attachment-id="1699" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/28548721165_92209edbf3_z/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548721165_92209edbf3_z.jpg" data-orig-size="640,480" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="28548721165_92209edbf3_z" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548721165_92209edbf3_z.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/28548721165_92209edbf3_z.jpg?w=640" /></a>
  <a href='https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/27929874304_de5c4307ac_z/#main'><img width="150" height="113" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/27929874304_de5c4307ac_z.jpg?w=150&#038;h=113" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/27929874304_de5c4307ac_z.jpg?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/27929874304_de5c4307ac_z.jpg?w=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" data-attachment-id="1700" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/27929874304_de5c4307ac_z/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/27929874304_de5c4307ac_z.jpg" data-orig-size="640,480" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="27929874304_de5c4307ac_z" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/27929874304_de5c4307ac_z.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/27929874304_de5c4307ac_z.jpg?w=640" /></a>
  <a href='https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/27926305234_91233e870b_z/#main'><img width="150" height="113" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/27926305234_91233e870b_z.jpg?w=150&#038;h=113" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/27926305234_91233e870b_z.jpg?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/27926305234_91233e870b_z.jpg?w=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" data-attachment-id="1701" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/the-new-cloud-atlas-mapping-the-physical-infrastructure-of-the-internet/27926305234_91233e870b_z/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/27926305234_91233e870b_z.jpg" data-orig-size="640,480" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="27926305234_91233e870b_z" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/27926305234_91233e870b_z.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/27926305234_91233e870b_z.jpg?w=640" /></a>

  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <h2>Development Notes</h2>
  <p>Code for the site is on github: <a href="https://github.com/timwaters/new_cloud_atlas" target="_blank">https://github.com/timwaters/new_cloud_atlas</a></p>
  <p>Mapnik / Kosmtik Style file and processing notes also on github: <a href="https://github.com/timwaters/cloud_mapping" target="_blank">https://github.com/timwaters/cloud_mapping</a></p>
  <h4>Mapnik X-Ray Style</h4>
  <p>Of possible interest to mapnik style geeks could be the use of the scale denominator and PostGIS ST_Scale commands to scale up building polygons so that they appear to be the same size regardless of the zoom. If anyone wants to fix this to make it work better, please let me know!</p>
  <pre>select st_translate(st_scale(way, (!scale_denominator! * 0.00028) - (5 - z(!scale_denominator!)) ,
   (!scale_denominator! * 0.00028) - (5 - z(!scale_denominator!)) ), 
  st_x(st_centroid(way))*(1-( (!scale_denominator! * 0.00028) - (5 - z(!scale_denominator!)) )), 
  st_y(st_centroid(way))*(1-( (!scale_denominator! * 0.00028) - (5 - z(!scale_denominator!)) ))) as way,
   building AS type FROM planet_osm_polygon WHERE (building='data_center' ) AS data",</pre>
  <h4></h4>
  <h4>OSM Tile Generation</h4>
  <p>Tiles are kept up to date at around 15 minutes with the central OSM database. Occasionally a full planet import is done. I think I could use Lua scripting to ensure that the database remains lean. The system uses TileStache to enable the UTFGrids for the popups. Essentially we filter out a lot of stuff from the OSM database:</p>
  <ol>
  <li>Convert an osm.pbf file to an o5m file
  <pre>./osmconvert  planet-latest.osm.pbf -o=planet.o5m</pre>
  </li>
  <li> Filter the o5m file to an .osm file
  <pre>./osmfilter planet.o5m --parameter-file=cloud_mapping/osmfilter_params.txt &gt; planet.filtered.osm</pre>
  </li>
  <li>Import the .osm file into the database using the custom osm2pgsql Style
  <pre> osm2pgsql --slim -d gis planet.filtered.osm -S cloud_mapping/default.style</pre>
  </li>
  <li>Set up replication using Osmosis and osm2pgsql to get changes from OSM db
  <pre>osmosis --read-replication-interval  --simplify-change --write-xml-change changes.osc.gz
  osm2pgsql -d gis -S default.style -s -C 800 -a changes.osc.gz -e10-19 -o expire_e10-19.list</pre>
  <h2></h2>
  </li>
  </ol>
  <h2><a href="http://newcloudatlas.org/" target="_blank">http://newcloudatlas.org/</a></h2>


guid: http://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/?p=1218
title: Colliding The Mental Maps of Edinburgh with Mapwarper.net
published: 2016-04-22 10:31:48
fetched: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.039093
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:56.862289
updated_at: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.306650
url:
  https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/colliding-the-mental-maps-of-edinburgh-with-mapwarper-net/

summary:
  Last autumn I popped up to Edinburgh from the North of England for State of the Map Scotland conference. Together with Edinburgh College of Art in Evolution House participants took part in series of workshops &#8220;Map.Makars&#8221; I took part in a memory map of the city. The rules were: no looking at other maps, the [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>Last autumn I popped up to Edinburgh from the North of England for State of the Map Scotland conference. Together with Edinburgh College of Art in Evolution House participants took part in series of workshops <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_Scotland_2015/Day_5#Workshop_1_:_Getting_Crafty_with_Map.Makars" target="_blank">&#8220;Map.Makars&#8221;<br />
  </a><br />
  I took part in a memory map of the city. The rules were: no looking at other maps, the map should include the venue, the castle, the train station. We drew, from memory the city on large pieces of paper. <a href="http://www.livingwithdragons.com/2015/10/the-highlights-of-scotland" target="_blank">Gregory</a> scanned/photographed these and put these on mapwarper.net to stretch them to fit. he then combined these together with an interactive and animated transparency control to create the <strong>Hand Drawn Map Collider &#8220;<a href="http://www.livingwithdragons.com/maps/nomap-map/" target="_blank">No-map Map</a>&#8220;</strong> Give it a whirl! <a href="http://www.livingwithdragons.com/maps/nomap-map/" target="_blank">http://www.livingwithdragons.com/maps/nomap-map/ </a></p>
  <p><img data-attachment-id="1239" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/colliding-the-mental-maps-of-edinburgh-with-mapwarper-net/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112611/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112611.png" data-orig-size="1149,667" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screenshot from 2016-04-22 11:26:11" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112611.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112611.png?w=660" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1239" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112611.png?w=660" alt="Screenshot from 2016-04-22 11:26:11.png" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112611.png?w=660 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112611.png?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112611.png?w=300 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112611.png?w=768 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112611.png?w=1024 1024w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112611.png 1149w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px"   /></p>
  <p>My map, in case you were wondering was possibly the least accurate of them, coming from furthest away! <a href="http://mapwarper.net/maps/10907" target="_blank">http://mapwarper.net/maps/10907</a></p>
  <p><a href="http://mapwarper.net/maps/10907" target="_blank"><img data-attachment-id="1244" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/colliding-the-mental-maps-of-edinburgh-with-mapwarper-net/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112800/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112800.png" data-orig-size="538,420" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screenshot from 2016-04-22 11:28:00" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112800.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112800.png?w=538" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1244" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112800.png?w=660" alt="Screenshot from 2016-04-22 11:28:00.png" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112800.png 538w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112800.png?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/screenshot-from-2016-04-22-112800.png?w=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 538px) 100vw, 538px"   /></a></p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>


guid: http://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/?p=734
title: A Digital Gazetteer of Places for the Library of Congress and the NYPL
published: 2015-01-19 12:00:00
fetched: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.039093
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:56.866132
updated_at: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.309789
url:
  https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/a-digital-gazetteer-of-places-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-nypl/

summary:
  I&#8217;m proud to tell you that the project I worked on last year with Topomancy for the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library has just been released to the Internet. It&#8217;s an open source, fast, temporal enabled, versioned gazetteer using open data. It also works as a platform for a fully featured [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>I&#8217;m proud to tell you that the project I worked on last year with Topomancy for the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library has just been released to the Internet. It&#8217;s an open source, fast, temporal enabled, versioned gazetteer using open data. It also works as a platform for a fully featured function-laden historical gazetteer.</p>
  <p>You can check out the official release at the <a title="https://github.com/LibraryOfCongress/gazetteer/" href="https://github.com/LibraryOfCongress/gazetteer/" target="_blank">Library of Congress&#8217;s GitHub</a> page, and for issues, documentation and development branches on <a title="https://github.com/topomancy/gazetteer" href="https://github.com/topomancy/gazetteer" target="_blank">Topomancy&#8217;s Gazetteer project</a> site.</p>
  <p>Here is an introduction to the project giving an overview and discussion of the challenges and listing the features of this software application. Enjoy!</p>
  <p>DEMO: Head over to <strong><a title="http://loc.gazetteer.us/" href="http://loc.gazetteer.us/" target="_blank">http://loc.gazetteer.us/</a> </strong>for the Digital Gazetteer &#8211; a more global gazetteer and to <strong><a title="http://nypl.gazetteer.us/" href="http://nypl.gazetteer.us/" target="_blank">http://nypl.gazetteer.us/</a></strong> for the NYPL&#8217;s  NYC focused historic gazetteer. If you want to try out the conflation, remediation and administrative roles, let us know at <em>team@topomancy.com</em></p>
  <h2>Introduction, Overview, Features</h2>
  <p>A gazetteer is a geographic dictionary sometimes found as an index to an atlas. It&#8217;s a geographic search engine for named places in the world. This application is a temporal gazetteer with data source remediation, relations between places and with revisions which works with many different data sources. It&#8217;s fast, written in Python and uses ElasticSearch as a database. The application was primarily written as a Digital Gazetteer for the Library of Congress&#8217;s search and bibliographic geographic remediation needs and was also developed for the New York Public Library&#8217;s Chronology of Place project. It is currently being used in production by the Library of Congress to augment their search services. The software is MIT licensed.</p>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_735" style="width: 670px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/1_screen.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-735" data-attachment-id="735" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/a-digital-gazetteer-of-places-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-nypl/1_screen/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/1_screen.png" data-orig-size="1009,513" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Fig 1. Library of Congress Gazetteer" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/1_screen.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/1_screen.png?w=660" class="size-large wp-image-735" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/1_screen.png?w=660&#038;h=336" alt="Fig 1. Library of Congress Gazetteer" width="660" height="336" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/1_screen.png?w=660&amp;h=336 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/1_screen.png?w=150&amp;h=76 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/1_screen.png?w=300&amp;h=153 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/1_screen.png?w=768&amp;h=390 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/1_screen.png 1009w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-735" class="wp-caption-text">Fig 1. Library of Congress Gazetteer</p></div>
  <h2>Architecture</h2>
  <p>* JSON API<br />
  * Backbone.js frontend<br />
  * Django<br />
  * ElasticSearch as revision enabled document store<br />
  * PostGIS</p>
  <h2>Data Model</h2>
  <p>* Simple data model.<br />
  * Core properties, name, type, geometry<br />
  * Alternate Names, (incl. language and local, colloq etc)<br />
  * Administrative hierarchy<br />
  * Timeframe<br />
  * Relations between places (conflation, between geography and between time, etc<br />
  * Edit History, versioning, rollbacks, reverts</p>
  <h2>Features</h2>
  <h3>Search</h3>
  <p>* Text search (with wildcard, AND and OR support &#8211; Lucene query syntax)<br />
  * Temporal search<br />
  * Search according to data source and data type<br />
  * Search within a geographic bounding box<br />
  * Search within the geography of another Place.<br />
  * GeoJSON and CSV results<br />
  * Search can consider alternate names and administrative boundaries, and address details.<br />
  * API search of historical tile layers<br />
  * Server side dynamic simplification option for complex polygon results</p>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_736" style="width: 670px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/2_screen.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-736" data-attachment-id="736" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/a-digital-gazetteer-of-places-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-nypl/2_screen/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/2_screen.png" data-orig-size="1024,512" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="2_screen" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/2_screen.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/2_screen.png?w=660" class="wp-image-736 size-large" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/2_screen.png?w=660&#038;h=330" alt="Fig 2. Gazetteer Text Search" width="660" height="330" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/2_screen.png?w=660&amp;h=330 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/2_screen.png?w=150&amp;h=75 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/2_screen.png?w=300&amp;h=150 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/2_screen.png?w=768&amp;h=384 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/2_screen.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-736" class="wp-caption-text">Fig 2. Gazetteer Text Search</p></div>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_738" style="width: 670px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/3_screen.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-738" data-attachment-id="738" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/a-digital-gazetteer-of-places-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-nypl/3_screen/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/3_screen.png" data-orig-size="1008,515" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Fig 3. Temporal Search" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/3_screen.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/3_screen.png?w=660" class="size-large wp-image-738" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/3_screen.png?w=660&#038;h=337" alt="Fig 3. Temporal Search" width="660" height="337" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/3_screen.png?w=660&amp;h=337 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/3_screen.png?w=150&amp;h=77 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/3_screen.png?w=300&amp;h=153 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/3_screen.png?w=768&amp;h=392 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/3_screen.png 1008w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-738" class="wp-caption-text">Fig 3. Temporal Search</p></div>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_739" style="width: 670px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/4_geograph.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-739" data-attachment-id="739" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/a-digital-gazetteer-of-places-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-nypl/4_geograph/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/4_geograph.png" data-orig-size="928,546" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Fig 4. geographic search" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/4_geograph.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/4_geograph.png?w=660" class="size-large wp-image-739" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/4_geograph.png?w=660&#038;h=388" alt="Fig 4. geographic search" width="660" height="388" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/4_geograph.png?w=660&amp;h=388 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/4_geograph.png?w=150&amp;h=88 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/4_geograph.png?w=300&amp;h=177 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/4_geograph.png?w=768&amp;h=452 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/4_geograph.png 928w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-739" class="wp-caption-text">Fig 4. geographic search</p></div>
  <h3>Place</h3>
  <p>* Place has alternate names and administrative boundaries<br />
  * Similar Features search (similar names, distance, type etc)<br />
  * Temporal data type with fuzzy upper and lower bounds.<br />
  * Display of any associated source raster tile layer (e.g. historical map)<br />
  * Full vector editing interface for edit / creation.<br />
  * Creation of composite places from union of existing places.<br />
  * Full revision history of changes, rollback and rollforward.</p>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_740" style="width: 670px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/5_altnames.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-740" data-attachment-id="740" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/a-digital-gazetteer-of-places-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-nypl/5_altnames/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/5_altnames.png" data-orig-size="703,448" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Fig 5. Alternate Names" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/5_altnames.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/5_altnames.png?w=660" class="size-large wp-image-740" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/5_altnames.png?w=660&#038;h=421" alt="Fig 5. Alternate Names" width="660" height="421" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/5_altnames.png?w=660&amp;h=421 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/5_altnames.png?w=150&amp;h=96 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/5_altnames.png?w=300&amp;h=191 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/5_altnames.png 703w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-740" class="wp-caption-text">Fig 5. Alternate Names</p></div>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_741" style="width: 670px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/6_screen.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-741" data-attachment-id="741" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/a-digital-gazetteer-of-places-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-nypl/6_screen/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/6_screen.png" data-orig-size="1003,509" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Fig 6. Similar Names" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/6_screen.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/6_screen.png?w=660" class="size-large wp-image-741" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/6_screen.png?w=660&#038;h=335" alt="Fig 6. Similar Names" width="660" height="335" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/6_screen.png?w=660&amp;h=335 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/6_screen.png?w=150&amp;h=76 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/6_screen.png?w=300&amp;h=152 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/6_screen.png?w=768&amp;h=390 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/6_screen.png 1003w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-741" class="wp-caption-text">Fig 6. Similar Names</p></div>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_742" style="width: 670px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/7_screen.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-742" data-attachment-id="742" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/a-digital-gazetteer-of-places-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-nypl/7_screen/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/7_screen.png" data-orig-size="995,441" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Fig 7. Vector Editing" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/7_screen.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/7_screen.png?w=660" class="size-large wp-image-742" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/7_screen.png?w=660&#038;h=293" alt="Fig 7. Vector Editing" width="660" height="293" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/7_screen.png?w=660&amp;h=293 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/7_screen.png?w=150&amp;h=66 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/7_screen.png?w=300&amp;h=133 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/7_screen.png?w=768&amp;h=340 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/7_screen.png 995w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-742" class="wp-caption-text">Fig 7. Vector Editing</p></div>
  <h3>Relations between places</h3>
  <p>These are:<br />
  * Conflates (A is the same place as B)<br />
  * Contains (A contains B spatially)<br />
  * Replaces (A is the same as B but over time has changed status, temporal)<br />
  * Subsumes (B is incorporated into A and loses independent existence, temporal)<br />
  * Comprises (B comprises A if A contains B, along with C,D and E)</p>
  <p>We will delve into these relationship concepts later</p>
  <h3>Site Admin</h3>
  <p>* GeoDjango administrative pages<br />
  * Administrative Boundary operations<br />
  * Batch CSV Import of places for create / Update<br />
  * Edit feature code definitions<br />
  * Edit groups and users and roles etc<br />
  * Edit layers (tile layers optionally shown for some features)<br />
  * Add / Edit data origin definitions</p>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_743" style="width: 670px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/8_screen.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-743" data-attachment-id="743" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/a-digital-gazetteer-of-places-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-nypl/8_screen/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/8_screen.png" data-orig-size="688,464" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Fig 8. feature code edition" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/8_screen.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/8_screen.png?w=660" class="size-large wp-image-743" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/8_screen.png?w=660&#038;h=445" alt="Fig 8. feature code edition" width="660" height="445" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/8_screen.png?w=660&amp;h=445 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/8_screen.png?w=150&amp;h=101 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/8_screen.png?w=300&amp;h=202 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/8_screen.png 688w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-743" class="wp-caption-text">Fig 8. feature code edition</p></div>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_744" style="width: 670px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/9_screen.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-744" data-attachment-id="744" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/a-digital-gazetteer-of-places-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-nypl/9_screen/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/9_screen.png" data-orig-size="863,353" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Fig 9. Django origin edition" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/9_screen.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/9_screen.png?w=660" class="size-large wp-image-744" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/9_screen.png?w=660&#038;h=270" alt="Fig 9. Django origin edition" width="660" height="270" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/9_screen.png?w=660&amp;h=270 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/9_screen.png?w=150&amp;h=61 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/9_screen.png?w=300&amp;h=123 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/9_screen.png?w=768&amp;h=314 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/9_screen.png 863w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-744" class="wp-caption-text">Fig 9. Django origin edition</p></div>
  <h2>Background, Requirements and Challenges</h2>
  <h3>Library of Congress and Bibliographic Remediation</h3>
  <p>The Library has lots of bibliographic metadata, lots of geographic information, much of it historical, almost all of it is unstructured.<br />
  For example, they have lots of metadata about books, where it was published, the topics, subjects etc. They want to try and improved the quality of the geo information associated with the metadata, and to augment site search.</p>
  <p>So the library needs an authoritative list of places. The Library fully understands the needs for authoritative lists &#8211; they have authority files for things, ideas, places, people, files etc, but no centralised listing of them, and where there are geographic records there may be no actual geospatial information about them.</p>
  <h3>Initial Challenges</h3>
  <p>So we start with a simple data model, where a named location on the Earth&#8217;s surface has a name, a type and a geometry. All very simple right? But actually it&#8217;s a complex problem. Take the name of a place, what name to use? What happens if a place has multiple names, and what happens if it has multiple records to describe the same place? Taxonomies are also a large concern, for example establishing a set schema for every different type of feature on the earth is not trivial!</p>
  <p>What&#8217;s the geometry of a place? Is it a point, is it a polygon, and at what scale? For administrative datasets, it&#8217;s often impossible to get a good detailed global administrative dataset. Often in many places the data is not there. Timeframe and temporal gazetteers are an another large area for research (see OpenHistoricalMap.org if this intrigues you!). But the way we describe places in time is very varied, for example &#8220;in the 1880&#8217;s&#8221; or &#8220;mid 19th Century&#8221; or &#8220;1 May 2012 at 3pm&#8221;. What about places which are vague or composed of other places, like &#8220;The South&#8221; (of the US) &#8211; how would a gazetteer handle these? And the relationships between places is another very varied research topic.</p>
  <h3>Approach</h3>
  <p>So we think the project has tried to address these challenges. For names, the system can accept multiple additional alternate names, and conflation enables the fixing of multiple records together so that the results shows the correct authoritative results. The Digital Gazetteer allows places to have any type of geometry (e.g. point, line, polygon) where all the database needs is a centroid to make search work. For temporal support, places have datestamp for start and end dates but crucially there is in addition fuzzy start and ends specified in days. This enables a place, for example to have a fuzzy start date (sometime in the year 1911) and a clear end date (23 May, 1945). For &#8220;The US South&#8221; example &#8211; composite places were created. The system generates the union of the composite places and makes a new one. The component places still exist &#8211; they just have a relationship with their siblings and with their new parent composite place. This brings us to how the Digital Gazetteer handles relations between places.</p>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_745" style="width: 670px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/10_composite.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-745" data-attachment-id="745" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/a-digital-gazetteer-of-places-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-nypl/10_composite/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/10_composite.png" data-orig-size="694,503" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Fig 10. Composite Place" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/10_composite.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/10_composite.png?w=660" class="size-large wp-image-745" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/10_composite.png?w=660&#038;h=478" alt="Fig 10. Composite Place" width="660" height="478" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/10_composite.png?w=660&amp;h=478 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/10_composite.png?w=150&amp;h=109 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/10_composite.png?w=300&amp;h=217 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/10_composite.png 694w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-745" class="wp-caption-text">Fig 10. Composite Place</p></div>
  <h3>Relationships</h3>
  <p>Let&#8217;s look a bit more in detail about the relationship model. Basically the relationships between places help in conflation (reducing duplicate records) and in increasing search accuracies. The five relationships are as follows:</p>
  <p>* Conflates<br />
  * Contains<br />
  * Replaces<br />
  * Subsumes<br />
  * Comprises</p>
  <h3>Conflates</h3>
  <p>This is the most common relationship between records initially. It effectively is an ontological statement that the place in one record is the same as described in another record, that entries A and B are the same place. It&#8217;s a spatial or a name type of relation. For example, if we had 5 records for Statue of Liberties, and all 4 were conflated to the one record, when you searched for the statue you&#8217;d get the one record, but with a link to each of the other four. Conflates hides the conflated record from search results.</p>
  <h4>Contains</h4>
  <p>Contains is a geographical relationship. Quite simply, Place A contains Place B. So for example, the town of Brighton would contain the Church St. Matthews.</p>
  <h4>Replaces</h4>
  <p>Replaces is mainly a temporal relation, where one place replaces another place if the other place has significantly changed status, name, type or boundary. For example, the building representing the Council Offices of the town from 1830-1967 is replaced by a bank.</p>
  <h4>Subsumes</h4>
  <p>Subsumes is mainly a temporal relation. Where a place A becomes incorporated into another place B and loses independent existence. For example, the ward of Ifield which existed from 1780 to 1890 becomes subsumed into the ward of Crawley.</p>
  <h4>Comprises</h4>
  <p>Comprises is primarily a spatial or name relation. Place A comprises place B along with place C,D and E. This relation creates composite places, which inherit the geometries of the component places. For example, &#8220;The US South&#8221; can be considered a composite place. This place is comprised of Virginia, Alabama etc. Virginia in this case comprises &#8220;the US South&#8221;, and the composite place &#8220;The US South&#8221; has the union of the geometry of all the places it is comprised by.</p>
  <h2>Data Sources</h2>
  <p>OpenStreetMap (OSM), Geonames, US Census Tiger/Line, Natural Earth, Historical Marker Database (HMDB), National Historical GIS (NHGIS), National Register of Historic Places Database (NRHP) and Library of Congress Authority Records</p>
  <h3>Further Challenges</h3>
  <p>Automatic Conflation</p>
  <p>There remains two main areas for future development and research &#8211; Automatic Conflation and Search Ranking. Since there are multiple datasets, there will of course be the same record for the same place. The challenge is how to automatically find the same place from similar records by some kind of search distance. For example, by distance from each other, distance geographically, and in terms of name and place type. Tricky to get right, but the system would be able to undo any of the robots mistakes. Further information about this topic can be found on the GitHub wiki: <a title="https://github.com/topomancy/gazetteer/wiki/Conflation" href="https://github.com/topomancy/gazetteer/wiki/Conflation" target="_blank">https://github.com/topomancy/gazetteer/wiki/Conflation</a></p>
  <h3>Search Ranking</h3>
  <p>By default the gazetteer uses full text search which also takes into account alternate names and administrative boundaries, but there is a need to float up the more relevant places in the search results. We can also sort by distance from the search centre if doing a search within geographic bounds, which is used for helping find similar places for conflation. We could probably look at weighting results based on place type, population and area, although population and area for many urban areas in the world may not be available. One of the most promising areas of research is using Wikipedia request logs as a proxy for importance &#8211; places could be more important if they are viewed on Wikipedia more than other places.</p>
  <h2>Further Issues</h2>
  <p>Some other issues which I haven&#8217;t got space to go into here include: synchronising changes up and downstream to and from the various services and datasets. Licensing of the datasets could be looked at especially if they are being combined. What level of participation in the conflation and remediation steps should a gazetteer have, which depends on where the gazetteer is based and who it is being used for.</p>
  <h1>NYPL Chronology Of Place</h1>
  <p>I mentioned at the beginning of the post that the New York Public Library (NYPL) was also involved with the development of the Gazetteer. That project was called The Chronology of Place, and as the name suggests is more temporal in nature. But it&#8217;s also more focused geographically. Whereas the LoC are interested in the US and the World as a whole, the NYPL&#8217;s main focus is the City of New York. They wanted to deep dive into each building of the city, exploring the history and geography of buildings, streets and neighbourhoods.</p>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_746" style="width: 670px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/11_nypl.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-746" data-attachment-id="746" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/a-digital-gazetteer-of-places-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-nypl/11_nypl/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/11_nypl.png" data-orig-size="1009,512" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Fig 11. NYPL Chronology of Place" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/11_nypl.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/11_nypl.png?w=660" class="size-large wp-image-746" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/11_nypl.png?w=660&#038;h=335" alt="Fig 11. NYPL Chronology of Place" width="660" height="335" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/11_nypl.png?w=660&amp;h=335 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/11_nypl.png?w=150&amp;h=76 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/11_nypl.png?w=300&amp;h=152 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/11_nypl.png?w=768&amp;h=390 768w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/11_nypl.png 1009w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-746" class="wp-caption-text">Fig 11. NYPL Chronology of Place</p></div>
  <p>Thus the level of detail was more fine grained, and is reflected in some custom default cartography in the web application client. A nondescript building in a street in a city for example are not usually considered a &#8220;place&#8221; worthy of a global gazetteer but for the NYPL each building was significant. Also, the NYPL has extensive access to historical maps via the NYPL Map Warper which Topomancy developed for them, and around a hundred thousand digitized vector buildings from these historical map atlases. This data, along with data from the city were able to be added to the system to augment the results. Additional data sources include the Census&#8217;s Historical Township boundary datasets, NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission Landmarks and NYC Building Footprints.</p>
  <p>There were two additional features added to the application for the NYPL&#8217;s Chronology of Place. The first was expanding the data model to include street addresses, so that a building with no name can be used, and the second was to display raster tile layers (often from historical maps) for specific features. Thus,the building features which were digitized from the historical maps were able to be viewed alongside the source raster map that they came from.</p>
  <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_747" style="width: 670px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/12_screen.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-747" data-attachment-id="747" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/a-digital-gazetteer-of-places-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-nypl/12_screen/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/12_screen.png" data-orig-size="684,458" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Fig 12. Custom/Historical layers shown" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/12_screen.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/12_screen.png?w=660" class="size-large wp-image-747" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/12_screen.png?w=660&#038;h=442" alt="Fig 12. Custom/Historical layers shown" width="660" height="442" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/12_screen.png?w=660&amp;h=442 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/12_screen.png?w=150&amp;h=100 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/12_screen.png?w=300&amp;h=201 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/12_screen.png 684w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-747" class="wp-caption-text">Fig 12. Custom/Historical layers shown</p></div>


guid: http://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/?p=640
url: https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/state-of-the-map-europe-2014-pure-openstreetmap/
title: State of the Map Europe 2014 – Pure OpenStreetMap.
published: 2014-06-19 18:57:53
fetched: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.039093
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:56.869196
updated_at: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.312986
summary:
  Karlsruhe State of the Map Europe 2014 was in the German city of Karlsruhe. The city was a planned city &#8211; designed and built around 1715 &#8211; pre motor car, but with wide avenues, and half of the city seems to be a park. It&#8217;s also famous for being the home of the Karlsruhe Addressing Scheme &#8211; an [&#8230;]

content:
  <h1>Karlsruhe</h1>
  <p><a href="http://www.sotm-eu.org/" target="_blank">State of the Map Europe 2014</a> was in the German city of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlsruhe" target="_blank">Karlsruhe</a>. The city was a planned city &#8211; designed and built around 1715 &#8211; pre motor car, but with wide avenues, and half of the city seems to be a park. It&#8217;s also famous for being the home of the <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Karlsruhe_Schema" target="_blank">Karlsruhe Addressing Scheme</a> &#8211; an example of a folksonomy tagging convention that everyone pointed to and adopted, due to the great mappers there &#8211; including the folks from <a href="http://geofabrik.de" target="_blank">Geofabrik.de</a> who also organised the conference. Here are some notes from the conference:</p>
  <h1><strong>Nature of the conference</strong></h1>
  <p>The European conference seemed much more intimate with a focus on developer and contributors  &#8211; compared to the US Conference which I think had more end users and people sent there by their bosses for their company. Pretty much every single session was on topic (except for the closing buzzword laden keynote!)  &#8211; and as such there were no enlightening talks about psychogeography, general historical mapping, or other geospatial software. It was pure OSM.</p>
  <p>All the <a href="http://www.sotm-eu.org/en/program" target="_blank">talks are online</a> and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx9HXUNf0fa-43uQVyzWmGg" target="_blank">video recordings are on youtube</a> and I encourage you to view them.</p>
  <h2><strong>3D maps</strong></h2>
  <p>3D Maps, such as <a href="https://mapzen.com/vector-map" target="_blank">Mapzen</a> and <a href="http://osmbuildings.org/?lat=52.52111&amp;lon=13.40988&amp;zoom=16" target="_blank">OSMBuildings</a> were prominent &#8211; and both showed off some very creative ways of representing 3D maps.</p>
  <h2><strong>Geocoder and Gazetteers</strong></h2>
  <p>The only track in the conference &#8211; this was full of gazetteers with an announcement from <a href="http://geocoder.opencagedata.com/" target="_blank">OpenCage</a> and MapZen &#8211; all appear to be using ElasticSearch &#8211; same as we (Topomancy) did last year for the NYPL and Library of Congress. <a href="http://loc.gazetteer.us/" target="_blank">Check out gazetteer here</a>.</p>
  <h2><strong>Other stuff</strong></h2>
  <p><strong>Trees</strong> &#8211; Jerry did a talk about mapping trees &#8211; about how they were represented in historical maps previously, and how we can use SVG symbols to display woods and trees in a better way. Jerry lead an expedition and workshop on the morning of the hack day to show participants the different habitats, surface types and variance in the environment that mappers could take into consideration.</p>
  <p><strong>Mapbox WebGL</strong> &#8211; Constantine, a European engineer of Mapbox did a fascinating talk about the complexities of the technical challenges with vector tiles and 3D maps. I really enjoyed the talk.</p>
  <p><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/screenshot-190614-194329.png"><img id="i-681" class="size-full wp-image" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/screenshot-190614-194329.png?w=650" alt="Image" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/screenshot-190614-194329.png?w=650 650w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/screenshot-190614-194329.png?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/screenshot-190614-194329.png?w=300 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/screenshot-190614-194329.png 714w" sizes="(max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px" /></a></p>
  <p><strong><a href="http://opengeofiction.net/#map=11/-31.4547/176.9108" target="_blank">OpenGeoFiction</a> </strong>&#8211; using the OSM stack to create fictional worlds  &#8211; not fantasy or science fiction, but amazing experiments in amateur planning, utopian visions and creative map making. <a href="http://opengeofiction.net/#map=11/-31.4547/176.9108" target="_blank">OpenGeoFiction.net</a></p>
  <blockquote><p>The fictional world of Opengeofiction is thought to be in modern times. So it doesn&#8217;t have orcs or elves, but rather power plants, motorways and housing projects. But also picturesque old towns, beautiful national parks and lonely beaches.</p></blockquote>
  <p>I love this project!</p>
  <p><strong>Vector Tiles</strong> &#8211; Andy Allan talked about his new vector tile software solution <a href="http://www.thunderforest.com/" target="_blank">ThunderForest</a> &#8211; being one of the only people to know the ins and outs of how Mapbox do the Mapnik / TileMill vector magic. <a href="http://www.thunderforest.com/" target="_blank">ThunderForest</a> powers the cycle map. Vector maps has lots of advantages and I think we&#8217;d probably use it for OpenHistoricalMap purposes at some stage. <a href="http://www.gravitystorm.co.uk/andy/" target="_blank">Contact Andy</a> for your vector mapping and online cartographic needs!</p>
  <p><strong>POI Checker</strong> &#8211; from the same house as WheelMap.org comes <a href="http://poichecker.de/" target="_blank">POI Checker</a> &#8211; it allows organisations to compare their data with data in OSM  &#8211; and gives a very neat diff view of Points of Interests. This could be a good project to follow.</p>
  <h2><strong>Historical Stuff</strong></h2>
  <p><strong>OpenHistoricalMap</strong> There were a few things about historical maps in the conference, although in my opinion less than at any other SOTM previously. I did a lightning talk about OpenHistoricalMap and completely failed to mention the cool custom <a href="http://leatherwood.herokuapp.com" target="_blank">UK centric version of the NYPL&#8217;s Building Inspector</a>.</p>
  <p><strong>Opening Keynote</strong>  &#8211; this was peppered with the history of the city and gave a number of beautiful historical map examples. Watch the video.</p>
  <p><strong><a href="http://maproulette.org/" target="_blank">Map Roulette</a> v2</strong> &#8211; Serge gave a talk about the new version of <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/MapRoulette" target="_blank">Map Roulette</a>  &#8211; it is being customised to be able to run almost any custom task on the system. We chatted a the hack day to see if the tasks from the Building Inspector could be a good fit into the new Map Roulette &#8211; I will look into this!</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>


guid: http://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/?p=574
url: https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/leeds-data-thing-maps-and-hackdays/
title: Leeds Data Thing, Maps and Hackdays
published: 2013-04-29 14:38:56
fetched: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.039093
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:56.871594
updated_at: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.315287
summary:
  Leeds Data Thing is a new group started in Leeds  (not to be confused with Leeds Ruby Thing!). I spoke at the first event (read the write up from Rebecca) about Geospatial visualisations and  OpenStreetMap: Here are the slides: Since then there has been a few other events as part of Big Data Week &#8211; including a load [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><a href="http://www.leedsdatathing.co.uk/" target="_blank">Leeds Data Thing</a> is a new group started in Leeds  (not to be confused with <a href="http://leedsrubything.org/" target="_blank">Leeds Ruby Thing</a>!).</p>
  <div style="width: 622px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img title="First Leeds Data Thing" alt="10 points if you can spot me" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.leedsdatathing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/5c1df2de811811e28dba22000a1f97e5_7.jpg" width="612" height="612" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Picture taken from <a href="http://www.leedsdatathing.co.uk/events/leeds-data-things-first-event-a-success/" rel="nofollow">http://www.leedsdatathing.co.uk/events/leeds-data-things-first-event-a-success/</a></p></div>
  <p>I spoke at <a href="http://www.leedsdatathing.co.uk/event/leeds-data-thing-7/" target="_blank">the first event</a> (read <a href="http://www.leedsdatathing.co.uk/events/leeds-data-things-first-event-a-success/" target="_blank">the write up from Rebecca</a>) about Geospatial visualisations and  OpenStreetMap: Here are <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/chippy/leeds-data-thing-openstreetmap-and-other-geo-visualization-stuff" target="_blank">the slides:</a></p>
  <iframe src='https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/16807282' width='660' height='541' allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen></iframe>
  <p>Since then there has been a few other events as part of <a href="http://bigdataweek.com/" target="_blank">Big Data Week</a> &#8211; including a <a href="http://www.leedsdatathing.co.uk/category/data-in-a-day/" target="_blank">load of great short talks</a>.</p>
  <p>This weekend there was a data hackday at the UK&#8217;s NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care in the centre of Leeds.</p>
  <p><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ldc.png"><img data-attachment-id="575" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/leeds-data-thing-maps-and-hackdays/ldc/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ldc.png" data-orig-size="500,299" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}" data-image-title="leeds data thing challenge" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ldc.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ldc.png?w=500" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-575" alt="hipster photo" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ldc.png?w=660" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ldc.png 500w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ldc.png?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ldc.png?w=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px"   /></a></p>
  <p>There&#8217;s a wealth of data on their website , but it was given to us as a mysql database, and we were able to enter remotely. On the first day I poked around the data and had a thought.</p>
  <h2><strong>Hackdays</strong></h2>
  <p>I often spend the first part of any hackday wondering what to do, and twiddling thumbs. I find that hackdays become for me a type of busman&#8217;s holiday &#8211; and this hackday was particularly geographical in nature. Most of the entries had some kind of data on map component. I think that these types of analyses, whilst being very smart and interesting &#8211; and may be exactly what the judges are looking for, may not exactly stretch the unexpected or &#8220;the hack&#8221; in the data.</p>
  <p>Fortunately there was plenty of latitude for exploring things laterally. The most interesting dataset was listing the chemicals and drugs each practice spent money on &#8211; but I couldn&#8217;t find much to do with it.   What caught my eye was the dataset listing the names of the doctors surgeries, practices, medical centres. If I think about my neighbourhood I can pass about half a dozen doctors in a very small area. Leeds is well covered (or perhaps just my area is!) . I was reminded of James Joyce&#8217;s quote about being unable to cross Dublin without passing a pub. Perhaps the same can be said for Leeds and doctors!  The names of the surgeries were also interesting. Names such as:</p>
  <blockquote>
  <div id="file-gistfile1-txt-LC31">Chapeloak Surgery</div>
  <div id="file-gistfile1-txt-LC32">The Avenue Surgery</div>
  <div id="file-gistfile1-txt-LC33">Dr Ca Hicks&#8217; Practice</div>
  <div>The Dekeyser Group Practice<br />
  The Highfield Medical Centre<br />
  Chapeltown Family Surgery</div>
  </blockquote>
  <p>Wonder if the more &#8220;leafy&#8221; the name, the more &#8220;leafy&#8221; the neighbourhood it was in? Perhaps the more grandiose sounding practices had more patients? Perhaps the smaller sounding ones had better patient satisfaction reviews?</p>
  <p>At the venue, it appeared that I was the only one to be using Linux on the desktop and so the wifi did not work &#8211; so I had a bit over one hour to put something together. Decided to go with the concept of &#8220;Leeds is covered&#8221; and wanted something showing the labels of the practices over the areas where they were. Filling out the map, so to speak.  The hack was called &#8220;Tim&#8217;s One Hour Data Challenge&#8221; and here is the end result:</p>
  <p><img class="alignnone" alt="Leeds is covered" src="https://i0.wp.com/i.imgur.com/AfNJhRX.png" width="800" height="558" /></p>


guid: http://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/?p=493
url: https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2010/11/25/wherecampuk-2010-recap/
title: WherecampUK 2010 Recap
published: 2010-11-25 15:27:19
fetched: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.039093
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:56.873965
updated_at: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.317632
summary:
  Last week I journeyed down on the train to Nottingham to go to WhereCampUK &#8211; an unconference for all things &#8220;geo&#8221; &#8211; but it was only a few months since the similarly named WhereCampEU of (which I never actually wrote something about) down in London. Before I share some of the best bits, here&#8217;s some [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>Last week I journeyed down on the train to Nottingham to go to WhereCampUK  &#8211; an unconference for all things &#8220;geo&#8221; &#8211;  but it was only a few months since the similarly named <a href="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/wherecampeu-is-a-go-march-12-13-london/">WhereCampEU</a> of (which I never actually wrote something about) down in London.  Before I share some of the best bits, here&#8217;s some of the similarities and differences.</p>
  <p>* Less international folks</p>
  <p>* Less big geo personalities and keynotes</p>
  <p>* More OSM</p>
  <p>* No T-Shirts</p>
  <p>* More beer &#8211; we drank a large pub dry, literally. The next day, the landlord swore at me for pissing off their regulars.</p>
  <p>* More cake</p>
  <p>* Cheaper and quicker to run, setup and organise.</p>
  <p>For more pointers in how to run an unconference, check out <a href="http://blog.stevecoast.com/">Steve Coast</a>&#8216;s <a href="http://blog.stevecoast.com/how-i-ran-a-successful-unconference-in-6-hour">latest post</a>, where he writes about what he did for Wherecamp in Denver.  <a href="http://blog.stevecoast.com/how-i-ran-a-successful-unconference-in-6-hour">How I ran a successful unconference in 6 hours and you can too</a>.</p>
  <p>Overall, the event was great.</p>
  <p>I ran two sessions. The main one was &#8220;<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/chippy/psychogeography-at-geekup-leeds">What is Psychogeography</a>&#8220;. The best part of this was sending all participants out with directions in twos and threes, for 10 mins before lunch. They had directions such as &#8220;left left right&#8221;, &#8220;follow someone&#8221;, &#8220;ask where the centre is, follow that direction, ask again&#8221;, &#8220;find hidden portals&#8221;, &#8220;find fairies&#8221;, &#8220;hear something, take a photo&#8221;.</p>
  <p>I also quickly slotted in the <a href="http://maps.nypl.org">NYPL Warper</a> presentation, and included this slide. You get 20 points if you know what this refers to!</p>
  <p><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/benkler-hah.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="494" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2010/11/25/wherecampuk-2010-recap/benkler-hah/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/benkler-hah.jpg" data-orig-size="635,552" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}" data-image-title="benkler-hah" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/benkler-hah.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/benkler-hah.jpg?w=635" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-494" title="benkler-hah" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/benkler-hah.jpg?w=300&#038;h=260" alt="" width="300" height="260" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/benkler-hah.jpg?w=300&amp;h=260 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/benkler-hah.jpg?w=598&amp;h=520 598w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/benkler-hah.jpg?w=150&amp;h=130 150w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p>I also mentioned the words &#8220;neogeography&#8221; for the first time in the conference, and that was at 3:30pm, which says quite a bit about the use of the term.</p>
  <p>Talks I liked were:</p>
  <p>* Vernacular Geography &amp; Informal Placenames</p>
  <p>* Geo Games</p>
  <p>* Education and mobile maps</p>
  <p>* Augmented Reality roundup</p>
  <p>* How streets get names</p>
  <p>* Peoples Collection Wales</p>
  <p>* Haptic Navigation</p>
  <p>* OSM Talks including &#8211; Potlatch 2</p>
  <p>* Gregory Mahler&#8217;s &#8211; I&#8217;m a Psycho Mapper!</p>
  <p>* OSGEO</p>
  <p>﻿</p>


guid: http://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/?p=473
url: https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/whoots-a-small-wms-to-tile-proxy-wms-in-potlatch/
title: WhooTS a small wms to tile proxy – WMS in Potlatch
published: 2010-07-15 22:04:26
fetched: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.039093
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:56.876620
updated_at: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.320422
summary:
  WhooTS is a small and simple wms to tiles proxy / redirect system. Essentially it enables the use of WMS in applications that only accept Tiles (google / Openstreetmap scheme) &#8211; WMS is now in Potlatch! How to use it? http://whoots.mapwarper.net/tms/z/x/y/{layer}/http://path.to.wms.server Example: a mapwarper map: http://whoots.mapwarper.net/tms/!/!/!/2013/http://warper.geothings. net/maps/wms/2013 viewing it in Potlatch, the OpenStreetMap editor: http://www.openstreetmap.org/edit?lat=40.73658&#38;lon=-73.87108&#38;zoom=17 [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><a href="http://whoots.mapwaper.net">WhooTS</a> is a small and simple wms to tiles proxy / redirect system.<br />
  <img class="alignnone" title="whoots mapwarper" src="https://i2.wp.com/whoots.mapwarper.net/whoots_tiles.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="213" /><br />
  Essentially it enables the use of WMS in applications that only accept Tiles (google / Openstreetmap scheme) &#8211; WMS is now in Potlatch!</p>
  <p>How to use it?</p>
  <p><strong><a href="http://whoots.mapwarper.net/tms/z/x/y/" rel="nofollow">http://whoots.mapwarper.net/tms/z/x/y/</a>{layer}/http://path.to.wms.server</strong></p>
  <p>Example:</p>
  <p>a mapwarper map:</p>
  <pre>http://whoots.mapwarper.net/tms/!/!/!/2013/http://warper.geothings.
  net/maps/wms/2013</pre>
  <p>viewing it in Potlatch, the OpenStreetMap editor:</p>
  <div><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;line-height:normal;font-size:small;"></p>
  <pre><a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/edit?lat=40.73658&amp;lon=-73.87108&amp;zoom=17&amp;tileurl=http://whoots.mapwarper.net:80/tms/!/!/!/870/http://maps.nypl.org/warper/layers/wms/870"><span style="color:#000000;">http://www.openstreetmap.org/edit?lat=40.73658&amp;lon=-73.87108&amp;zoom=17
  &amp;tileurl=http://whoots.mapwarper.net:80/tms/!/!/!/870/http://maps.nypl.org/warper/layers/wms/870</span></a></pre>
  <p></span></div>
  <div>
  <p>Using a mapserver WMS request, with one layer:</p>
  <p><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;line-height:normal;font-size:small;"> </span></p>
  <pre><a href="http://hypercube.telascience.org/cgi-bin/mapserv?map=/home/ortelius/haiti/haiti.map&amp;request=getMap&amp;service=wms&amp;version=1.1.1&amp;format=image/jpeg&amp;srs=epsg:4326&amp;exceptions=application/vnd.ogc.se_inimage&amp;layers=HAITI&amp;"><span style="color:#000000;">http://hypercube.telascience.org/cgi-bin/mapserv?map=/home/ortelius/
  haiti/haiti.map&amp;request=getMap&amp;service=wms&amp;version=1.1.1&amp;format=image/jpeg
  &amp;srs=epsg:4326&amp;exceptions=application/vnd.ogc.se_inimage&amp;layers=HAITI&amp;</span></a></pre>
  </div>
  <p>Goes to:</p>
  <div><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;line-height:normal;font-size:small;"></p>
  <pre><a href="http://whoots.mapwarper.net:80/tms/!/!/!/HAITI/http://hypercube.telascience.org/cgi-bin/mapserv?map=/home/ortelius/haiti/haiti.map"><span style="color:#000000;">http://whoots.mapwarper.net/tms/!/!/!/HAITI/http://hypercube.telascience.org/cgi-bin/
  mapserv?map=/home/ortelius/haiti/haiti.map</span></a></pre>
  <p></span></div>
  <p>Caveats:</p>
  <p>Its&#8217;s quite simple, does not do any caching, it just redirects a tile url to an equivalent WMS request. It would only work with WMS servers that accept EPSG:900913 projections, and at the moment, it outputs OSM / Google Tile scheme, not a proper TMS tile scheme.</p>
  <p>It&#8217;s written in Ruby with the Sinatra micro web application framework. The code is available on GitHub too. <a href="http://github.com/timwaters/whoots">http://github.com/timwaters/whoots</a></p>


guid: http://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/?p=447
url: https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/settle-mapping-party-may-2010/
title: Settle Mapping Party, Sat 15th May
published: 2010-04-30 17:05:46
fetched: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.039093
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:56.878929
updated_at: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.322608
summary:
  Here follows a blog post that&#8217;s written like a press release, sorry. A group of volunteers from around the North of England on Saturday 15th May 2010, will attempt to map the entire North Yorkshire town, from every street, bridge, footpath and chip shop &#8211; in order to create a free and open map of the [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><em>Here follows a blog post that&#8217;s written like a press release, sorry.<br />
  </em></p>
  <p>A group of volunteers from around the North of England on Saturday 15th May 2010, will attempt to map the entire North Yorkshire town, from every street, bridge, footpath and chip shop &#8211; in order to create a free and open map of the town. All welcome, no experience or technology required!</p>
  <p><a href="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/settle1.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="450" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/settle-mapping-party-may-2010/settle-2/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/settle1.jpg" data-orig-size="459,574" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}" data-image-title="settle" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/settle1.jpg?w=240" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/settle1.jpg?w=459" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-450" title="settle" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/settle1.jpg?w=660" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/settle1.jpg 459w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/settle1.jpg?w=120 120w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/settle1.jpg?w=240 240w" sizes="(max-width: 459px) 100vw, 459px"   /></a></p>
  <p>The Association for Geographic Informations Northern Group and the OpenStreetMap Foundation are running a mapping party &#8211; a cross between an informal fieldtrip and a hands on workshop. OpenStreetMap is the wikipedia of maps &#8211; it&#8217;s open, free and anyone can edit and contribute.</p>
  <p>Organiser Tim Waters said: “OSM aims to create free geographic data, like street maps, that can be used by anyone, anywhere, and over the Saturday we aim to have a complete map of the streets of Settle and many other features in the town.”</p>
  <p>With the announcement of the Ordnance Survey releasing a lot of mid scale mapping data for free, the chances of having a top notch detailed map is greater than ever. By making a free and open map, anyone can edit and correct details, making sure the map stays up to date and relevant. It&#8217;s also free to copy and change and distribute, which is impossible to do with almost every other map.</p>
  <p>Anyone and everyone is welcome to attend, families and children are also welcome! No previous experience needed, and no GPS units needed either. GPS units will be available for people to borrow, but people can contribute a lot by using a pen and paper. It&#8217;s an open organisation with no membership requirements.</p>
  <p>People will start assembling at 10 &#8211; 10:30 a.m at Ye Olde Naked Man cafe in Settle&#8217;s central Market Place, and spend the morning mapping the area. Then they will come back and have some lunch, meeting at 1pm at Thirteen Cafe Bar and either head out again to fill in the gaps, or start editing their notes into the map system. The day comes to an end around half 3pm to 5pm, where volunteers recap on the days mapping, and have a natter over a pint of beer</p>
  <p>More information to sign up:</p>
  <p><a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Settle_Mapping_Party">http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Settle_Mapping_Party</a></p>
  <p><a href="http://www.agi.org.uk/north/">http://www.agi.org.uk/north/</a></p>


guid: http://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/?p=440
url: https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/osm-slides-at-agi-north/
title: OSM Slides At AGI North.
published: 2010-04-16 13:15:16
fetched: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.039093
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:56.881241
updated_at: 2019-10-26 23:00:13.325112
summary:
  Yesterday for the AGI Northern Group I talked about OpenStreetMap, with a focus on how to use, contribute. About the tools, services and people that surround the project. There were two talks, an OSM talk and a MapAction talk. We had a good turn out. It touched upon the new Ordnance Survey OpenData and it&#8217;s [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>Yesterday for the <a href="http://calendar.agi.org.uk/ViewItem.html?integral=0&amp;detail=0&amp;cal_item_id=657&amp;dtwhen=2455302&amp;style_sheet=userStyle.css&amp;checkafter=1271422281299">AGI Northern Group</a> I talked about OpenStreetMap, with a focus on how to use, contribute. About the tools, services and people that surround the project. There were two talks, an OSM talk and a <a href="http://www.mapaction.org/">MapAction</a> talk. We had a good turn out.</p>
  <p><img data-attachment-id="441" data-permalink="https://thinkwhere.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/osm-slides-at-agi-north/haiti_extract/#main" data-orig-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/haiti_extract.jpg" data-orig-size="766,511" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}" data-image-title="haiti_extract" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/haiti_extract.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/haiti_extract.jpg?w=660" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-441" title="haiti_extract" src="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/haiti_extract.jpg?w=660" alt="" srcset="https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/haiti_extract.jpg?w=660 660w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/haiti_extract.jpg?w=150 150w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/haiti_extract.jpg?w=300 300w, https://thinkwhere.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/haiti_extract.jpg 766w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px"   /></p>
  <p>It touched upon the new Ordnance Survey OpenData and it&#8217;s impact on OSM, and how we may change the way map in the UK, and then I talked about Haiti too &#8211; how what we did &#8220;changed disaster response forever&#8221; &#8211; but only briefly as Anne-Marie Frankland from MapAction gave a great presentation about her work in Haiti, she was one of the first to deploy to the area. Really astonishing and inspiring work they did over there. Hope to be able to see those slides later.</p>
  <p>In case you were wondering, MapAction send volunteers out at the very early days of a crisis to provide mapping support and services to responders. <a href="http://www.mapaction.org/deployments/depldetail/192.html">During Haiti</a> they produced maps, installed data on GPS devices, trained search and rescue teams how to use them, produced search and rescue sector maps, locational awareness maps, helped identify locations for camps, and a whole host of other things, with not much sleep.</p>
  <p>My slides can be found here: <a href="http://geothings.net/presentations/osm_agi_north_april2010.ppt">http://geothings.net/presentations/osm_agi_north_april2010.ppt</a></p>
  <p>and<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/chippy/openstreetmap-using-tools-services-hows-its-changed-humanitarian-response"> also at slideshare.net</a> and below</p>
  <iframe src='https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/3747852' width='660' height='541' allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen></iframe>


guid: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/state-of-the-map-2019-part-1-highways
url: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/state-of-the-map-2019-part-1-highways
title: The State of the Map Scotland 2019 - Part 1 Highways
updated: 2019-01-24 23:17:54
published: 2019-01-24 23:17:54
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.007272
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.218609
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.218609
summary:
  It's been a while, but I though it would be interesting to have a look at how the map in Scotland is looking at the start of 2019. Hopefully this will be a series of posts over the next few weeks looking at different aspects of the map. I've been organised enough to download the Scotland extract on the 1st January. I also have a set of data up to the 30th September 2015, so I can look at progress over the last 2 and quarter years. First up is Highways: And listed by length: highway 2019 km Oct 2015 % change track 36439.04 25883.02 40.8 unclassified 17577.05 19022.80 -7.6% service 15228.94 10134.13 50.27% residential 14795.73 14311.34 3.38% path 10078.21 7350.05 37.12 % tertiary 9635.97 8564.57 12.51 % footway 9393.48 7888.44 19.08 % primary 7632.37 7557.44 0.99% secondary 7423.45 7416.27 0.10 % trunk 3609.15 3553.73 1.56% cycleway 2079.69 1810.81 14.85% motorway 863.83 827.14 4.44 % motorway_link 241.17 219.95 9.65 % trunk_link 155.97 145.52 7.18 % road 131.84 316.48 -58.34% steps 118.65 88.80 33.61% proposed 114.39 122.88 -6.91% pedestrian 103.90 70.01 48.41% construction 97.87 253.78 -61.44% bridleway 73.26 77.59 -5.58% primary_link 46.28 37.13 24.65% bus_stop 29.57     living_street 27.96 15.95 15.95% raceway 16.61 13.75 20.80% secondary_link 10.28 8.92 15.25% tertiary_link 5.84 8.50 -31.29% abandoned 4.15 3.30 25.76% no 2.63 2.20 19.55% corridor 0.78     disused 0.44     escape 0.10 0.10 0.00% services 0.05 0.57 -91.23% layby 0.04 0.34 -88.24% crossing 0.02     dismantled 0.02     TOTAL 135 938 115 707 17% To start with, lets look at the roads. As has been the case for a number of years mapping the main road network in Scotland was completed a number of years ago, and the recent changes have been related to some big construction projects such as the Queensferry Crossing, M8 Upgrades and the Queensferry Crossing All motorways in Scotland, red shows the new Motorways The only road type showing a drop in length is unclassified. This is largely down to improvements in the classifications of roads, in particular to tertiary Service Roads in Scotland We've also seen a big increase in Service roads, it's worth noting that a number of these have been added by Amazon Logistics - they seem to be adding just the last little bit connecting roads to buildings, the service road from road to the house or the office. These edits definitly have been rocky at times, such as the removal of a car park, just mapped based on out of imagery. In general I've very happy to see commerical edits, but as this shows new mappers need to be properly trained on how to asses the general state of the map especially before removing things. Paths Tracks and Cycleways - New highways are shown in red I've very pleased to see big increases, in the mapping of tracks and paths as well as the increase in cycleways although I think these are largely fine tuning of tagging of paths. Hopefully it won't be long until we have full coverage of all paths and tracks and these will be much more stable. Finally we have the long tail of tags, of these highway=road, which is really a placeholder and shouldn't be used still has far too many entries so for the moment, I've made a list of these to work through - https://github.com/osm-scotland/scotland-issues/issues/4) if anyone wants to help then jump in, let me know if you need permission for the github link. The same thing applies to highway=no; These have mostly been used where a highway has been removed. This is useful as it signals to remote mappers (such as the amazon logistics folks above) that the road has been removed. However once the imagery updates having these no longer makes sense. In case any one wants to look at these, I've made a list at: https://github.com/osm-scotland/scotland-issues/issues/5 Hopefully I'll be getting a part 2 out in the next few weeks.

content:
  <p>It's been a while, but I though it would be interesting to have a look at
  how the map in Scotland is looking at the start of 2019. Hopefully this will be 
  a series of posts over the next few weeks looking at different aspects of the map.</p>

  <p>I've been organised enough to download the Scotland extract on the 1st January.
  I also have a set of data up to the 30th September 2015, so I can look at 
  progress over the last 2 and quarter years.</p>

  <p>First up is Highways:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2019-01-24-sotm1/scotland_highways_grey.png" alt="" /></p>

  <p>And listed by length:</p>

  <table>
    <thead>
      <tr>
        <th>highway</th>
        <th>2019 km</th>
        <th>Oct 2015</th>
        <th>% change</th>
      </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>track</td>
        <td>36439.04</td>
        <td>25883.02</td>
        <td>40.8</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>unclassified</td>
        <td>17577.05</td>
        <td>19022.80</td>
        <td>-7.6%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>service</td>
        <td>15228.94</td>
        <td>10134.13</td>
        <td>50.27%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>residential</td>
        <td>14795.73</td>
        <td>14311.34</td>
        <td>3.38%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>path</td>
        <td>10078.21</td>
        <td>7350.05</td>
        <td>37.12 %</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>tertiary</td>
        <td>9635.97</td>
        <td>8564.57</td>
        <td>12.51 %</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>footway</td>
        <td>9393.48</td>
        <td>7888.44</td>
        <td>19.08 %</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>primary</td>
        <td>7632.37</td>
        <td>7557.44</td>
        <td>0.99%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>secondary</td>
        <td>7423.45</td>
        <td>7416.27</td>
        <td>0.10 %</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>trunk</td>
        <td>3609.15</td>
        <td>3553.73</td>
        <td>1.56%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>cycleway</td>
        <td>2079.69</td>
        <td>1810.81</td>
        <td>14.85%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>motorway</td>
        <td>863.83</td>
        <td>827.14</td>
        <td>4.44 %</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>motorway_link</td>
        <td>241.17</td>
        <td>219.95</td>
        <td>9.65 %</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>trunk_link</td>
        <td>155.97</td>
        <td>145.52</td>
        <td>7.18 %</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>road</td>
        <td>131.84</td>
        <td>316.48</td>
        <td>-58.34%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>steps</td>
        <td>118.65</td>
        <td>88.80</td>
        <td>33.61%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>proposed</td>
        <td>114.39</td>
        <td>122.88</td>
        <td>-6.91%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>pedestrian</td>
        <td>103.90</td>
        <td>70.01</td>
        <td>48.41%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>construction</td>
        <td>97.87</td>
        <td>253.78</td>
        <td>-61.44%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>bridleway</td>
        <td>73.26</td>
        <td>77.59</td>
        <td>-5.58%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>primary_link</td>
        <td>46.28</td>
        <td>37.13</td>
        <td>24.65%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>bus_stop</td>
        <td>29.57</td>
        <td> </td>
        <td> </td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>living_street</td>
        <td>27.96</td>
        <td>15.95</td>
        <td>15.95%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>raceway</td>
        <td>16.61</td>
        <td>13.75</td>
        <td>20.80%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>secondary_link</td>
        <td>10.28</td>
        <td>8.92</td>
        <td>15.25%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>tertiary_link</td>
        <td>5.84</td>
        <td>8.50</td>
        <td>-31.29%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>abandoned</td>
        <td>4.15</td>
        <td>3.30</td>
        <td>25.76%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>no</td>
        <td>2.63</td>
        <td>2.20</td>
        <td>19.55%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>corridor</td>
        <td>0.78</td>
        <td> </td>
        <td> </td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>disused</td>
        <td>0.44</td>
        <td> </td>
        <td> </td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>escape</td>
        <td>0.10</td>
        <td>0.10</td>
        <td>0.00%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>services</td>
        <td>0.05</td>
        <td>0.57</td>
        <td>-91.23%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>layby</td>
        <td>0.04</td>
        <td>0.34</td>
        <td>-88.24%</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>crossing</td>
        <td>0.02</td>
        <td> </td>
        <td> </td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>dismantled</td>
        <td>0.02</td>
        <td> </td>
        <td> </td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>TOTAL</td>
        <td>135 938</td>
        <td>115 707</td>
        <td>17%</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>

  <p>To start with, lets look at the roads. As has been the case for a number of years
  mapping the main road network in Scotland was completed a number of years ago,
  and the recent changes have been related to some big construction projects such
  as the Queensferry Crossing, M8 Upgrades and the Queensferry Crossing</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2019-01-24-sotm1/scotland_motorways_2015vs2018.png" alt="" />
  <em>All motorways in Scotland, red shows the new Motorways</em></p>

  <p>The only road type showing a drop in length is unclassified. This is largely down
  to improvements in the classifications of roads, in particular to
  <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway=tertiary?uselang=en-GB">tertiary</a></p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2019-01-24-sotm1/scotland_service_roads.png" alt="" />
  <em>Service Roads in Scotland</em></p>

  <p>We've also seen a big increase in Service roads, it's worth noting that 
  a number of these have been added by Amazon Logistics - they seem to be adding
  just the last little bit connecting roads to buildings, the service road from 
  road to the house or the office. These edits definitly have been rocky at times, such as 
  the <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/61074110">removal of a car park, just mapped</a>
  based on out of imagery. In general I've very happy to see commerical edits, but
  as this shows new mappers need to be properly trained on how to asses the general
  state of the map especially before removing things.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2019-01-24-sotm1/scotland_paths_tracks_cycleways.png" alt="" />
  <em>Paths Tracks and Cycleways - New highways are shown in red</em></p>

  <p>I've very pleased to see big increases, in the mapping of tracks and
  paths as well as the increase in cycleways although I think these are largely 
  fine tuning of tagging of paths. Hopefully it won't be long until we have full 
  coverage of all paths and tracks and these will be much more stable.</p>

  <p>Finally we have the long tail of tags, of these highway=road, which is 
  really a placeholder and shouldn't be used still has far too many entries so for
  the moment, I've made a list of these to work through - <a href="https://github.com/osm-scotland/scotland-issues/issues/4">https://github.com/osm-scotland/scotland-issues/issues/4)</a>
  if anyone wants to help then jump in, let me know if you need permission 
  for the github link.</p>

  <p>The same thing applies to highway=no; These have mostly been used where a highway
  has been removed. This is useful as it signals to remote mappers (such as the 
  amazon logistics folks above) that the road has been removed. However once the 
  imagery updates having these no longer makes sense. In case any one wants to 
  look at these, I've made a list at: 
  <a href="https://github.com/osm-scotland/scotland-issues/issues/5">https://github.com/osm-scotland/scotland-issues/issues/5</a></p>

  <p>Hopefully I'll be getting a part 2 out in the next few weeks.</p>


guid: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/john-muir-way
url: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/john-muir-way
title: John Muir Way
updated: 2014-05-28 22:21:00
published: 2014-05-28 22:21:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.007272
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.222878
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.222878
summary:
  So the John Muir Way has been open since the 21st of April, this long distance route is a Coast to Coast route between Helensburgh in the West from where John Muir setoff to the United States where he inspired the conservation movement and the creation of it's national parks. To Dunbar on the East Coast where he was born and grew uo. We've covered most of the route in OpenStreetMap for while. But until recently we've had a tiny, gap missing. I was trying to figure out getting over to do it when I saw: @chrisfl @fozy81 to map that gap took 2 trains 1 to Helensburgh a 9 miles walk then train from Balloch. Great day pic.twitter.com/5GcJ2jp5At&mdash; Martin McMahon (@mazscot) May 22, 2014 So with some not insignificant effort, we now have the complete route mapped, these can easily be seen by looking at a raw view of either the walking route http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/49215 or the cycling route http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3619145 on OpenStreetMap, but where OSM comes into it's own is the ability to actually do things with the data, so to kick things off I've created a set of GPX files of the route. These contain the full walking or cycling route and are suitable to be loaded into your GPS or phone app as aids to navigating the route. cycling.gpx walking.gpx Map wise, as always I'm disapointed to see the otherwise very nice John Muir Way website using google maps rather than an OpenStreetMap based map: There are also tools such as Relation Analyser - http://ra.osmsurround.org/analyzeRelation?relationId=3619145 Interestingly this shows cycling distance as 206km and the walking distance as 213km while the route is offically 215 km (I guess they rounded up)

content:
  <p>So the <a href="http://johnmuirway.org/">John Muir Way</a> has been open since the 21st of April, this long distance route is a Coast to Coast route
  between Helensburgh in the West from where John Muir setoff to the United States where he inspired the 
  conservation movement and the creation of it's national parks. To Dunbar on the East Coast where he was born
  and grew uo.</p>

  <p>We've covered most of the route in OpenStreetMap for while. But until recently we've had a tiny, gap missing. I was trying
  to figure out getting over to do it when I saw:</p>

  <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/chrisfl">@chrisfl</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/fozy81">@fozy81</a>  to map that gap took 2 trains 1 to Helensburgh a 9 miles walk then train from Balloch. Great day <a href="http://t.co/5GcJ2jp5At">pic.twitter.com/5GcJ2jp5At</a></p>&mdash; Martin McMahon (@mazscot) <a href="https://twitter.com/mazscot/statuses/469358588750999552">May 22, 2014</a></blockquote>
  <script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

  <p>So with some not insignificant effort, we now have the complete route mapped, these can easily be seen by looking at a 
  raw view of either the walking route http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/49215
  or the cycling route http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3619145 on OpenStreetMap, but where OSM comes into it's own 
  is the ability to actually do things with the data, so to kick things off I've created a set of GPX files of the route.</p>

  <p>These contain the full walking or cycling route and are suitable to be loaded into your GPS or phone app as aids to navigating the 
  route.</p>

  <ul>
    <li>
      <p><a href="/post-assets/2014-05-28-john-muir-way/cycling.gpx">cycling.gpx</a></p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <p><a href="/post-assets/2014-05-28-john-muir-way/walking.gpx">walking.gpx</a></p>
    </li>
  </ul>

  <p>Map wise, as always I'm disapointed to see the otherwise very nice John Muir Way website using google maps rather than an OpenStreetMap 
  based map:</p>

  <div id="map" style="width:100%; height:300px; border:0px;">

  </div>

  <p>There are also tools such as Relation Analyser - http://ra.osmsurround.org/analyzeRelation?relationId=3619145 
  Interestingly this shows cycling distance as 206km and the walking distance as 213km while the route is offically 215 km (I guess they rounded up)</p>

  <script type="text/javascript">
  // initialize the map on the "map" div with a given center and zoom
      var map = new L.Map('map', {
        center: new L.LatLng(56.01319,-4.68119),
        zoom: 13
      });

      // create a new tile layer
      var tileUrl = 'http://{s}.tile.thunderforest.com/cycle/{z}/{x}/{y}.png',
      layer = new L.TileLayer(tileUrl, {maxZoom: 18});

      // add the layer to the map
      map.addLayer(layer);
  </script>


guid: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/android-apps-for-mapping
url: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/android-apps-for-mapping
title: Android apps for mapping
updated: 2014-03-28 00:09:00
published: 2014-03-28 00:09:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.007272
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.225798
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.225798
summary:
  So with a mapping party coming at the weekend. I thought that it was about time that I start this series of posts that I've been planning for a while, so hopefully here is part 1 Android applications for collecting data. ## Tracking, OSM Tracker # One of the key apps, is something that can track where you are, providing a record of where you've been and allowing you to upload it to the OpenStreetMap website. OSM's heritage is built around collecting data using a GPS, and it still remains a powerfull way of mapping an area without requiring other sources. And we actually are all carrying a GPS device around with us in our pocket it is very easy to do. I use OSM Tracker it's a simple app, and does it well, as well as recording a GPS trail, it also allows you to take pictures, and display the track on a map. Use is really simple, start a new track: Once it is running, it displays the currently GPS Position, shortcuts for taking a picture, and noting various features: It is also possible to view the track on a map, this is really useful for checking the current area mapped, and seeing where you've been: Finally, it's possible to tag save and upload the track: Editing, Vespucci Editing is generally done as after mapping on a computer, but it can be really helpful to be able to make some changes from your phone, especially once you're more experienced, I would recommend using Vespucci, Vespucci is getting better and better all the time, and does a really good job editing using the touch interface. This isn't necessary a beginners tool, but a good tool that continues to improve that's definitly worth looking at. When you click on the map, it allows you to choose what item you wish to edit, which is a good solution to the problem of never being able to select accurately enough with your finger. Geometries can then we tweaked as neccessary. Although I tend to use it to make small changes such as editing tags rather than big edits, it's a powerfull tool that only gets better. Data Gathering Accessibilty, Wheelmap Wheelmap is a great example of a simple data gathering app. The wheelchair app collects accessibilty information as well as some simple addressing information to be displayed on the Wheelmap Site Addressing, Keypadmapper As we have mapped a significant proportion of the road network, there is now a big push to collect addressing data Keypadmapper is a simple app to collect addressing data as you move down the road simply enter the numbers as you pass them. Later the address points can be loaded into JOSM for adding into OpenStreetMap. So a quick summary of the apps: Tracking: OSM Tracker Editing: Vespucci Accessibilty: Wheelmap Addressing: Keypadmapper Please let me know what I've missed in the comments below!

content:
  <p>So with a <a href="http://attending.io/events/localtivate-mapping-day">mapping party</a>
  coming at the weekend.  I thought that it was about time that I start this
  series of posts that I've been planning for a while, so hopefully here is part
  1 Android applications for collecting data.</p>

  <p>## Tracking, OSM Tracker #</p>

  <p>One of the key apps, is something that can track where you are, providing a
  record of where you've been and allowing you to upload it to the OpenStreetMap
  website. OSM's heritage is built around collecting data using a GPS, and it still 
  remains a powerfull way of mapping an area without requiring other sources. And 
  we actually are all carrying a GPS device around with us in our pocket it is
  very easy to do.</p>

  <p>I use <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.guillaumin.android.osmtracker">OSM Tracker</a>
  it's a simple app, and does it well, as well as recording a GPS trail, it also 
  allows you to take pictures, and display the track on a map.</p>

  <p>Use is really simple, start a new track:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping/OSMTracker_1.png" alt="" /></p>

  <p>Once it is running, it displays the currently GPS Position, shortcuts for taking a picture, and noting various features:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping/OSMTracker_2.png" alt="" /></p>

  <p>It is also possible to view the track on a map, this is really useful for checking the current area mapped, and seeing where you've been:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping/OSMTracker_3.png" alt="" /></p>

  <p>Finally, it's possible to tag save and upload the track:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping/OSMTracker_4.png" alt="" /></p>

  <h2 id="editing-vespucci">Editing, Vespucci</h2>

  <p>Editing is generally done as after mapping on a computer, but it can be really helpful to be able to make some changes from your phone, especially once you're more
  experienced, I would recommend using <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.blau.android">Vespucci</a>, 
  Vespucci is getting better and better all the time, and does a really good job editing using the touch interface. This isn't necessary a beginners tool, 
  but a good tool that continues to improve that's definitly worth looking at.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping/vespucci_1.png" alt="" /></p>

  <p>When you click on the map, it allows you to choose what item you wish to edit, which is a good solution to the problem of never being able to select accurately enough with
  your finger. Geometries can then we tweaked as neccessary.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping/vespucci_3.png" alt="" /></p>

  <p>Although I tend to use it to make small changes such as editing tags rather than big edits, it's a powerfull tool that only gets better.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping/vespucci_2.png" alt="" /></p>

  <h2 id="data-gathering">Data Gathering</h2>

  <h3 id="accessibilty-wheelmap">Accessibilty, Wheelmap</h3>

  <p><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wheelmap.android.online">Wheelmap</a> is a great example of a simple data gathering app.
  The wheelchair app collects accessibilty information as well as some simple addressing information to be displayed on the <a href="http://wheelmap.org/en/">Wheelmap Site</a></p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping/wheelmap_1.png" alt="" />
  <img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping/wheelmap_2.png" alt="" /></p>

  <h3 id="addressing-keypadmapper">Addressing, Keypadmapper</h3>

  <p>As we have mapped a significant proportion of the road network, there is now a big push to collect addressing data
  <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.enaikoon.android.keypadmapper3">Keypadmapper</a> is a simple app to collect addressing data as 
  you move down the road simply enter the numbers as you pass them. Later the address points can be loaded into <a href="https://josm.openstreetmap.de/">JOSM</a> for adding into
  OpenStreetMap.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping/keypadmapper.png" alt="" /></p>

  <p>So a quick summary of the apps:</p>

  <ul>
    <li>Tracking: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.guillaumin.android.osmtracker">OSM Tracker</a></li>
    <li>Editing: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.blau.android">Vespucci</a></li>
    <li>Accessibilty: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wheelmap.android.online">Wheelmap</a></li>
    <li>Addressing: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.enaikoon.android.keypadmapper3">Keypadmapper</a></li>
  </ul>

  <p>Please let me know what I've missed in the comments below!</p>


guid: http://chrisfleming.org//android/android-apps-for-mapping-parties
url: http://chrisfleming.org//android/android-apps-for-mapping-parties
title: Android Apps for mapping parties
updated: 2014-03-23 21:09:00
published: 2014-03-23 21:09:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.007272
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.228486
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.228486
summary:
  So with a mapping party coming up next weekend. I thought that it was about time that I start this series of posts that I've been planning for a while, so hopefully here is part Android Apps ## Tracking # One of the key apps, is something that can track where you are, providing a record of where you've been and allowing you to upload it to the OpenStreetMap website. I use OSM Tracker it's a simple app, and does it well, as well as recording a GPS trail, it also allows you to take pictures, and display the track on a map. Use is really simple, start a new track: Once it is running, it displays the currently GPS Position, shortcuts for taking a picture, and noting various features: It is also possible to view the track on a map, this is really useful for checking the current area mapped, and seeing where you've been: Finally, it's possible to tag save and upload the track: Editing Editing is generally done as after mapping on a computer, but it can be really helpful to be able to make some changes from your phone, especially once you're more experiences, I would recommend using Vespucci, Vespucci is getting better and better all the time, and does a really good job editing using the touch interface. When you click on the map, it allows you to choose what item you wish to edit, which is a good solution to the problem of never being able to select accuratly enough with your finger. Geometries can then we tweaked as neccessary. Although I tend to use it to make small changes sich as tags rather than big edits. Data Gathering Accessibility https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wheelmap.android.online Addressing https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.enaikoon.android.keypadmapper3

content:
  <p>So with a <a href="http://attending.io/events/localtivate-mapping-day">mapping party</a>
  coming up next weekend.  I thought that it was about time that I start this
  series of posts that I've been planning for a while, so hopefully here is part</p>
  <ol>
    <li>Android Apps</li>
  </ol>

  <p>## Tracking #</p>

  <p>One of the key apps, is something that can track where you are, providing a
  record of where you've been and allowing you to upload it to the OpenStreetMap
  website.</p>

  <p>I use <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.guillaumin.android.osmtracker">OSM Tracker</a>
  it's a simple app, and does it well, as well as recording a GPS trail, it also 
  allows you to take pictures, and display the track on a map.</p>

  <p>Use is really simple, start a new track:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping-parties/OSMTracker_1.png" alt="" /></p>

  <p>Once it is running, it displays the currently GPS Position, shortcuts for taking a picture, and noting various features:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping-parties/OSMTracker_2.png" alt="" /></p>

  <p>It is also possible to view the track on a map, this is really useful for checking the current area mapped, and seeing where you've been:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping-parties/OSMTracker_3.png" alt="" /></p>

  <p>Finally, it's possible to tag save and upload the track:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2014-03-23-android-apps-for-mapping-parties/OSMTracker_4.png" alt="" /></p>

  <h2 id="editing">Editing</h2>

  <p>Editing is generally done as after mapping on a computer, but it can be really helpful to be able to make some changes from your phone, especially once you're more
  experiences, I would recommend using <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.blau.android">Vespucci</a>, 
  Vespucci is getting better and better all the time, and does a really good job editing using the touch interface.</p>

  <p>When you click on the map, it allows you to choose what item you wish to edit, which is a good solution to the problem of never being able to select accuratly enough with
  your finger. Geometries can then we tweaked as neccessary.</p>

  <p>Although I tend to use it to make small changes sich as tags rather than big edits.</p>

  <h2 id="data-gathering">Data Gathering</h2>

  <h3 id="accessibility">Accessibility</h3>

  <p>https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wheelmap.android.online</p>

  <h3 id="addressing">Addressing</h3>
  <p>https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.enaikoon.android.keypadmapper3</p>


guid: http://chrisfleming.org//housekeeping/switch-to-octopress
url: http://chrisfleming.org//housekeeping/switch-to-octopress
title: Switch to Octopress
updated: 2013-04-08 22:42:00
published: 2013-04-08 22:42:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.007272
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.231379
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.231379
summary:
  So almost as often as I post, I rewrite the site. This time I have switched it to Octopress. This is the 3rd blogging engine, I've used I don't get enough hits to justify the performance need of a static site, but it has the advantage of being one less wordpress site to maintain, and for me writting posts using markdown in vim is a definite win. I have also taken the oportunity to switch to a small cluster I've setup using ByteMark's BigV Also a change, the code for this site is all on github. The commit history provides a nice history of the work and changes I've made to the standard Octopress site. This is largely in area's of the category handling, and removing the banner. I may base some future posts on this.

content:
  <p>So almost as often as I post, I rewrite the site. This time I have switched it to <a href="http://octopress.org">Octopress</a>. This is the 3rd blogging engine, I've used</p>

  <figure class="image-caption center">
    <a class="image-popup" href="/post-assets/2010-01-21-new-year-new-blog-probably-the-same-old-story/website_before.png">
      <img class="caption" src="/post-assets/2010-01-21-new-year-new-blog-probably-the-same-old-story/website_before.png" width="100%" height="100%" title="" alt="" />
    </a>
    <figcaption class="caption-text">
      
    </figcaption>
  </figure>

  <figure class="image-caption center">
    <a class="image-popup" href="/post-assets/2010-01-21-new-year-new-blog-probably-the-same-old-story/website_new.png">
      <img class="caption" src="/post-assets/2010-01-21-new-year-new-blog-probably-the-same-old-story/website_new.png" width="100%" height="100%" title="" alt="" />
    </a>
    <figcaption class="caption-text">
      
    </figcaption>
  </figure>

  <figure class="image-caption center">
    <a class="image-popup" href="/post-assets/2013-04-08-switch-to-octopress/site_screenshot_octopress_310.jpg">
      <img class="caption" src="/post-assets/2013-04-08-switch-to-octopress/site_screenshot_octopress_310.jpg" width="100%" height="100%" title="" alt="" />
    </a>
    <figcaption class="caption-text">
      
    </figcaption>
  </figure>

  <p>I don't get enough hits to justify the performance need of a static site, but it has the advantage of being one less wordpress site to maintain, and for me writting posts using 
  markdown in vim is a definite win.</p>

  <p>I have also taken the oportunity to switch to a small cluster I've setup using <a href="http://bigv.io/">ByteMark's BigV</a></p>

  <p>Also a change, the <a href="https://github.com/chrisfleming/octopress">code for this site</a> is all on github. The <a href="https://github.com/chrisfleming/octopress/commits/master">commit history</a> 
  provides a nice history of the work and changes I've made to the standard Octopress site. This is largely in area's of the category handling, and removing the banner. I may base some future posts on this.</p>


guid: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/osm-talk-for-esk-valley-rotary-club
url: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/osm-talk-for-esk-valley-rotary-club
title: OSM Talk for Esk Valley Rotary Club
updated: 2013-01-18 00:34:59
published: 2013-01-18 00:34:59
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.007272
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.234229
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.234229
summary:
  I had the plesure of doing a talk for the Rotary Club of Esk Valley this Tuesday, the talk was based on the talk I gave at SoTM Scotland,  with some of the more detailed information removed and some more introductory material added. So this posting is to cover some of the new stuff I covered or at least meant to cover. I started with an introduction to OpenStreetMap briefly touching on the licencing terms and then lot of examples, such as cyclestreets for cycle planning, foursquare, ski maps, and not forgetting the Gaelic Map. I then moved on to talk about HOT's Humanitarian Work, borrowing lots of material from a previous HOT presentation. After some talk about quality and contributors, I showed how to create an account and some slides on starting to use potlatch. I moved on to talk about phone apps. The full list for Android and iOS on the OSM wiki is quite intimidating so I wanted to give some specific suggestions to help get people started. Simplest of all and working on both platforms is wheelmap.orgWhich provides a really simple interface to allow users to add accessibility information to existing places in OSM. To add or edit POI's on iOS there really is a simple choice, Pushpin a really nice simple well though out interface. On Android, I recommend  Vespucci, it's not as simple as pushpin but does allow a lot more to be edited on the go. For more advanced mapping users may want to collect tracks. For Android I had lots of apps to choose from: and I would recommend OSMtracker, it collects the GPS track and also allows some POI's to be noted on the go. The choice was much more limited on iOS and in the end I couldn't quickly find a free app, so I find myself recommending OSMTrack which costs a mere 69p as is ideal as it can upload directly into OSM as well as supporting offline data. and that was it, I had already talked far too long and so it was time to finsh up and go to questions. We had some good questions, about using OSM for teaching, one of the users had already installed wheelmap and was adding information. Someone also asked if we had Kevock Road, so I took a deep breath and entered it into the search box. and I was very happy to find the road was there and we had lots of details around it. A big thanks to the Club for inviting me out and being such a good audience.

content:
  <p><img src="/post-assets/2013-01-18-osm-talk-for-esk-valley-rotary-club/jan_2013_talk.001.jpg" alt="OpenStreetMap: An Introduction; Rotary Club of Esk Valley, 15 January 2012" /></p>

  <p>I had the plesure of doing a talk for the <a href="http://www.rotary-ribi.org/clubs/homepage.php?ClubID=1868">Rotary Club of Esk Valley </a>this Tuesday, the talk was based on the <a href="http://www.chrisfleming.org/osm/state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/">talk I gave at SoTM Scotland,</a>  with some of the more detailed information removed and some more introductory material added. So this posting is to cover some of the new stuff I covered or at least meant to cover.</p>

  <p>I started with an introduction to <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetMap</a> briefly touching on the <a href="http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/summary/">licencing terms</a> and then lot of examples, such as <a href="http://www.cyclestreets.net/">cyclestreets </a>for cycle planning, <a href="http://blog.foursquare.com/2012/02/29/foursquare-is-joining-the-openstreetmap-movement-say-hi-to-pretty-new-maps/">foursquare</a>, <a href="http://openpistemap.org/?lat=56.8831&amp;lon=-3.4034&amp;zoom=14&amp;layers=BTTTT">ski maps</a>, and not forgetting the <a href="http://osmalba.org/">Gaelic Map</a>.</p>

  <p>I then moved on to talk about <a href="http://hot.openstreetmap.org/">HOT</a>'s Humanitarian Work, borrowing lots of material from a <a href="http://www.averillpark.net/OSM/HOT/">previous HOT presentation</a>.</p>

  <p>After some talk about quality and contributors, I showed how to create an account and some slides on starting to use potlatch. I moved on to talk about phone apps. The full list for <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Android">Android</a> and <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Apple_iOS">iOS</a> on the OSM wiki is quite intimidating so I wanted to give some specific suggestions to help get people started.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2013-01-18-osm-talk-for-esk-valley-rotary-club/jan_2013_talk.058.jpg" alt="wheelmap.org screenshot" /></p>

  <p>Simplest of all and working on both platforms is <a href="http://wheelmap.org/">wheelmap.org</a>Which provides a really simple interface to allow users to add accessibility information to existing places in OSM.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2013-01-18-osm-talk-for-esk-valley-rotary-club/jan_2013_talk.059.jpg" alt="Pushpin App Screenshot" /></p>

  <p>To add or edit POI's on iOS there really is a simple choice, <a href="http://pushpinosm.org/">Pushpin</a> a really nice simple well though out interface.
  <img src="/post-assets/2013-01-18-osm-talk-for-esk-valley-rotary-club/jan_2013_talk.060.jpg" alt="Vespucci Screenshot" /></p>

  <p>On Android, I recommend  <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.blau.android">Vespucci</a>, it's not as simple as pushpin but does allow a lot more to be edited on the go.</p>

  <p>For more advanced mapping users may want to <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Beginners_Guide_1.2">collect tracks</a>. For Android I had lots of apps to choose from:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2013-01-18-osm-talk-for-esk-valley-rotary-club/jan_2013_talk.061.jpg" alt="OSM Tracker App" /></p>

  <p>and I would recommend<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.guillaumin.android.osmtracker"> OSMtracker</a>, it collects the GPS track and also allows some POI's to be noted on the go.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2013-01-18-osm-talk-for-esk-valley-rotary-club/jan_2013_talk.062.jpg" alt="OSM4iPhone Screenshot" /></p>

  <p>The choice was much more limited on iOS and in the end I couldn't quickly find a free app, so I find myself recommending <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/osmtrack/id295625255?mt=8">OSMTrack</a> which costs a mere 69p as is ideal as it can upload directly into OSM as well as supporting offline data.</p>

  <p>and that was it, I had already talked far too long and so it was time to finsh up and go to questions.</p>

  <p>We had some good questions, about using <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Education">OSM for teaching</a>, one of the users had already installed wheelmap and was adding information.</p>

  <p>Someone also asked if we had Kevock Road, so I took a deep breath and entered it into the search box.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2013-01-18-osm-talk-for-esk-valley-rotary-club/kevlock_road.png" alt="" />
  and I was very happy to find the road was there and we had lots of details around it.</p>

  <p>A big thanks to the Club for inviting me out and being such a good audience.</p>


guid: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/state-of-the-map-scotland-2012-the-state-of-scotland
url: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/state-of-the-map-scotland-2012-the-state-of-scotland
title: State of the Map Scotland 2013 - The State of Scotland
updated: 2012-10-25 11:37:41
published: 2012-10-25 11:37:41
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.007272
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.237165
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.240958
summary:
  Once again, this year, I had the pleasure of presenting the opening at our now, not so little State of the Map Scotland Conference, which was held at Inspace on the 19th and 20th October 2012. When I started to write this talk, I wasn't sure where it was going to end up, I found it interesting and I hope that you do to. For me one of the most exciting trends, over the last year is seeing OpenStreetMap appearing invarious places: (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xerones/131963343/) the switch2osm, 2012 started with an announcement by nestoria that they were moving over OSM. Triggered  by the ever improving quality of OSM, as well as google looking at charging, it was great to see this long term support switch to using our map. Another example is is foursquare.  I was amazed when I opened the site at the prominence given to the map on the foursquare homepage. This shouldn't be a surprise, given the nature of the site but I don't think  a google map would have  made the landing page here. It was also interesting to watch the foursquare community, I think overall OSM has gained visibility and exposure from this change (citation needed) Flickr has  continued to have some OSM maps and improve those maps, despite a new deal yahoo has to switch to Nokia maps, has continued to have some OSM maps.  I would love to see  OSM as a layer across flickr's maps, the Nokia maps are a big improvement but are still aimed at car drivers and so still miss lots of places where photo's might be taken. Hopefully we will see  more OSM on flickr in the future. Finally as a more personal example of a switch2osm. I switched my parents B&amp;B in Kent  over to use OSM. This change was a little overdue, but for me is a milestone on my journey with OSM, I first discovered OpenStreetMap when I was trying to locate local attractions when I first added a google map to this site, back around 2006. I wasn't surprised by the detail on the Sissinghurst page, as I mapped this myself. but in fact zoomed in, almost every page such as this one for Bodiam Castle has lots of the little bits of detail, such as the moat, ticket office and car park (not shown here). A lot of this is now possible, because more and more companies are starting to provide services around OSM. As I said last year: Rightly or wrongly OSM is currently setup largely as a data provider - so it's really great to see these other "consumer" facing options and websites appear as the more people see OSM the better our data becomes even if only a ting percentage of these can be converted into mappers. Obviously better information and simpler tools may help to lower the entry barrier in the future. The biggest recent impact has been from mapbox: Also a big shout out to the Stamen map styles and tiles: such as the toner style above or the acclaimed watercolour style that I used on the first slide. While we're on styles, we can't ignore the continuous improvement's to the OSM "house" style: The cycle map style: ] public transport style: ] and mapquest style ] again mapquest open provides a great example of a complete web mapping site, with search and routing. So provides a potential OSM powered  google maps replacement. So last year we did a comparison between the OS Locator dataset and OSM using the ITO Analysis tool, by region. I've added this years data into the table. Place 2012 OS Locator 2012 “Missing” 2012 Roads 11 to 12 change   position           Edinburgh 4 4,760 4784 0 9 100 -&gt; 99.81 Midlothian 6 1,180 1193 0 9 100 -&gt; 99.25 Clackmannanshire 1 817 819 5 0 99.27 -&gt; 100 South Lanarkshire 5 5432 5491 73 34 98.55 -&gt; 99.38 West Dunbartonshire 9 1,233 1236 18 15 98.54 -&gt; 98.79 Shetland Islands 8 309 311 6 3 98.06 -&gt; 99.04 Stirling 12 1,361 1370 29 37 97.58 -&gt; 97.30 East Ayrshire 16 2039 2052 50 64 97.50 -&gt; 96.83 Glasgow City 1 6758 6761 171 0 97.44 -&gt; 100% West Lothian 15 2030 2038 48 59 97.44 -&gt; 96.96% Inverclyde 13 1239 1240 32 34 97.42 -&gt; 97.26% Na H Eileanan An Iar 10 298 297 5 4 97.32 -&gt; 98.98% East Lothian 11 1343 1353 33 32 97.10 -&gt; 97.19% North Ayrshire 14 2180 2189 63 63 97.06 -&gt; 98.08% Dundee City 20 2223 2229 65 76 97.03 -&gt; 96.55% Angus 18 1877 1878 57 59 96.91 -&gt; 96.81 South Ayrshire 22 1803 1809 61 69 96.45 -&gt; 96.08 Argyll And Bute 21 1400 1403 50 48 96.43 -&gt; 96.58 Monmouthshire 17 1529 1538 52 48 96.34 -&gt; 96.81 Fife 23 5607 5627 217 228 95.93 -&gt; 95.75 Scottish Borders 24 1890 1902 78 79 95.77 -&gt; 95.74 East Renfrewshire 27 1323 1328 57 60 95.62 -&gt; 95.41 Aberdeen City 1 2772 2774 125 0 95.27 -&gt; 100 Highland 28 3443 3483 535 388 84.05 -&gt; 88.46 Aberdeenshire 25 3886 3936 626 167 83.63 -&gt; 95.73 Renfrewshire 26 2447 1378 430 60 82.18 -&gt; 95.41 Perth and Kinross 19 2409 2424 478 79 79.91 -&gt; 96.45 Dumfries And Galloway 7 2556 2580 586 22 76.53 -&gt; 99.15 Moray 29 1545 1581 366 226 75.92 -&gt; 85.45 The first thing that struck me as that in both Edinburgh and Midlothian the total number of roads has increased, but we've missed some so we're not longer at 100%. There have been some fantastic, improvements Glasgow was missing 171 roads last year and these have been accounted for. Dumfries And Galloway was bottom of the list last year and it's now in 7th, as has Aberdeen City. There are also some places such as Na H Eileanan An Iar; also known as the Outer Hebredies which are looking quite static. So what does that all add up to? In 2011, we  were shown as having 4316 Roads that hadn't been accounted for, so 93% match. When I looked a few days ago, we only  don't align on 1972 missing roads, or a 95% match. So what are these missing streets? I started by looking at the 9 roads highlighted in Edinburgh. The first stop are these Roads in Kirkliston, we seem to have one of these roads, but are missing the name, the other two roads are shown in OSM as under construction as below. So the conclusion is probably a draw on this one, it looks like neither OS Locator or OSM have the full picture, but a visit is needed. The next example is around Edinburgh Airport OSM Shows Almond Avenue, but OS Locator Almond drive. A visit here will need to take place to confirm who is right. Again it looks like some new houses here have led to some new developments that we don't yet have. This one was quite simple the Lane and the footpath should be joined, so I fixed this myself. I think that this one is a new development, that needs visiting. Again this one in Newhaven is probably a new development, that needs visiting. Interestingly in the few days since I gave this presentation, some of these have been fixed, by changes such as this one: "Added missing street names from ITO in Kirkliston" and this "Added initial layout of new housing development in Newburgh, Edinburgh.". I really hope that these were done with local knowledge especially as adding the through road through Kirkliston doesn't looks like the kind of road layout that would be permitted as it would allow a rat run through a residential area. Anyway, we have evidence that OS Locator data can't always be relied upon. Already in Edinburgh 2.2% of roads in Edinburgh do not match what OS Locator shows. Glasgow, 1.4 % and looking at one of the other places at 100%, Kings's Lynn shows 7.4% out. This is really a warning, we should be using this as a datasource to help us know where to map, but this data cannot be relied upon. Something else was causing me concern, and that was in the Outer Hebrides. It also helps that I've holidayed and mapped here (or should it be the other way round) and so have lots of photos :) There weren't many changes in 2011 of 298 roads we were missing 5 and in 2012 the total roads is 297 and we're missing 4. So first thing, I thought that I would look at the last modification data of a selection of the objects: This wasn't quite what I expected, so  far this year there has been a lot of activity. And so I thought I would break down into months: So the basic level is quite small, but with a big peak in June and July. Looking in detail at June I saw, most of the changes: we're made by a single user, brianboru. I was very happy to see that he had been there and  and some of the information is surveyed on the ground with lots of detailed tracing of terrain, helping to fill in the map, so I thought I would see what else this user was up to? So he's from Birmingham, and by the looks of things he like I holidayed and did a ton of mapping and tracing whilse on holiday. But once I ignored the holiday based tracing binges, there is a steady background work by seumas, and looking at his page, I was again very pleased to see that he does live on the Island. and busy doing some mapping of shops, pubs, chippies and some paths: This was really for me the Golden Road, to be honest I didn't expect to find a local mapper living on the edge of the country, but here he is. So how much data do we have: Overall the breakdown over Scotland is: ]he uncompressed XML weighs in at 1.2G on disk, consisting of nearly 6 million nodes, nearly 500 000 ways and 5000 relations. I also ran this against a dump from before the licence change, and we have grown significantly since then, by over 600 000 nodes, and  30 000 ways. So we are well above the numbers from before the change, and thanks to the hard work of the community in Scotland to get local mappers on board and also to mitigate against loss I don't think we had any big problems. What's in a name? We have 36 660 named nodes and 134 724 named ways. Place? 6807 of these are places, from Cities down to Hamlets and localities. So how long are the ways: The table above lists the top 20 way types by length. The total, motorway length in OSM shows as 827km compares well with the total motorway length in wikipedia (once I remembered that OSM will have ways for both directions) We have 4 226km of paths, I suspefct there are a lot more in Scotland. We're up to 1 645 km of cycleway, and additionally cycling is permitted on a further 1000km of footways and paths. We have 53 km of steps, I wouldn't want to climb those all at once. There is also the longtail of the list: Somewhere we have 30m of broken bridge (not the one pictured), 10 km of racing track and 1 099m of train platforms. all made possible by OSM's flexable tagging system: and the 1776 users who have contributed! Last year I asked the question. I still don't think we have a really good answer to that question, but whatever we do, we must Tell People. It's the only way of improving the map.

content:
  <p>Once again, this year, I had the pleasure of presenting the opening at our now, not so little State of the Map Scotland Conference, which was held at <a href="http://inspace.mediascot.org/">Inspace</a> on the 19th and 20th October 2012.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.001.jpg" alt="The State of Scotland 2012, State of the Map Scotland, Edinburgh, @chrisfl, #sotmscot" /></p>

  <p>When I started to write this talk, I wasn't sure where it was going to end up, I found it interesting and I hope that you do to.</p>

  <p>For me one of the most exciting trends, over the last year is seeing OpenStreetMap appearing invarious places:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.002.jpg" alt="2012 started as the year of switch2osm" /></p>

  <p>(photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/xerones/131963343/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/xerones/131963343/</a>)</p>

  <p>the <a href="http://switch2osm.org/">switch2osm</a>, 2012 started with an announcement by <a href="http://www.nestoria.co.uk/">nestoria</a> that they were moving over OSM.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.003.jpg" alt="nestoria website" /></p>

  <p><a href="http://blog.nestoria.co.uk/tag/openstreetmap">Triggered  by the ever improving quality of OSM</a>, as well as google looking at charging, it was great to see this long term support switch to using our map.</p>

  <p>Another example is is <a href="https://foursquare.com/">foursquare. </a></p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.004.jpg" alt="foursquare website" /></p>

  <p>I was amazed when I opened the site at the prominence given to the map on the foursquare homepage. This shouldn't be a surprise, given the nature of the site but I don't think  a google map would have  made the landing page here.</p>

  <p>It was also interesting to watch the foursquare community, I think overall OSM has gained visibility and exposure from this change (citation needed)</p>

  <p>Flickr has  <a href="http://code.flickr.com/blog/2012/07/11/designing-an-osm-map-style/">continued to have some OSM maps</a> and improve those maps, despite a new deal yahoo has to switch to Nokia maps, has <a href="http://code.flickr.com/blog/2012/07/11/designing-an-osm-map-style/">continued to have some OSM maps. </a></p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.005.jpg" alt="iflickr map, showing Beijing" /></p>

  <p>I would love to see  OSM as a layer across flickr's maps, the Nokia maps are a big improvement but are still aimed at car drivers and so still miss lots of places where photo's might be taken. Hopefully we will see  more OSM on flickr in the future.</p>

  <p>Finally as a more personal example of a switch2osm. I switched my parents <a href="http://www.bullfarmoast.co.uk/">B&amp;B in Kent </a> over to use OSM.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.006.jpg" alt="B&amp;B at Bull Farm Oast, map page" /></p>

  <p>This change was a little overdue, but for me is a milestone on my journey with OSM, I first discovered OpenStreetMap when I was trying to locate local attractions when I first added a google map to this site, back around 2006.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.007.jpg" alt="Sissinghurst Castle information page." /></p>

  <p>I wasn't surprised by the detail on the <a href="http://www.bullfarmoast.co.uk/attractions/Sissinghurst_Castle">Sissinghurst page</a>, as I mapped this myself.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.008.jpg" alt="Bodiam Castle information page" /></p>

  <p>but in fact zoomed in, almost every page such as this one for <a href="http://www.bullfarmoast.co.uk/attractions/Bodiam_Castle">Bodiam Castle</a> has lots of the little bits of detail, such as the moat, ticket office and car park (not shown here).</p>

  <p>A lot of this is now possible, because more and more companies are starting to provide services around OSM. As I said last year:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.009.jpg" alt="OSM Database Server" /></p>

  <p>Rightly or wrongly <strong>OSM is currently setup largely as a data provider - </strong>so it's really great to see these other "consumer" facing options and websites appear as the more people see OSM the better our data becomes even if only a ting percentage of these can be converted into mappers. Obviously better information and simpler tools may help to lower the entry barrier in the future.</p>

  <p>The biggest recent impact has been from <a href="http://mapbox.com/">mapbox:</a></p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.010.jpg" alt="Mapbox website" /></p>

  <p>Also a big shout out to the <a href="http://maps.stamen.com/">Stamen</a> map styles and tiles:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.011.jpg" alt="Black and White map of Glasgow Center" /></p>

  <p>such as the toner style above or the acclaimed watercolour style that I used on the first slide.</p>

  <p>While we're on styles, we can't ignore the continuous improvement's to the OSM "house" style:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.012.jpg" alt="OpenStreetMap - showing Aberdeen" /></p>

  <p>The cycle map style:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.013.jpg" alt="OpenStreetMap, cyclemap style, low zoom showing lots of scotland" />]</p>

  <p>public transport style:
  <img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.014.jpg" alt="OSM Website, public transport style, centered on Glasgow." />]</p>

  <p>and mapquest style
  <img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.015.jpg" alt="Openstreetmap website, showing mapquest style centered on Glasgow" />]</p>

  <p>again <a href="http://open.mapquest.co.uk/">mapquest open</a> provides a great example of a complete web mapping site, with search and routing. So provides a potential OSM powered  google maps replacement.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.016.jpg" alt="So What about the streets" /></p>

  <p>So last year we did a comparison between the OS Locator dataset and OSM using the ITO Analysis tool, by region. I've added this years data into the table.</p>

  <table>
    <thead>
      <tr>
        <th>Place</th>
        <th>2012</th>
        <th>OS Locator</th>
        <th>2012</th>
        <th>“Missing”</th>
        <th>2012 Roads</th>
        <th>11 to 12 change</th>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <th> </th>
        <th>position</th>
        <th> </th>
        <th> </th>
        <th> </th>
        <th> </th>
        <th> </th>
      </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Edinburgh</td>
        <td>4</td>
        <td>4,760</td>
        <td>4784</td>
        <td>0</td>
        <td>9</td>
        <td>100 -&gt; 99.81</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Midlothian</td>
        <td>6</td>
        <td>1,180</td>
        <td>1193</td>
        <td>0</td>
        <td>9</td>
        <td>100 -&gt; 99.25</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Clackmannanshire</td>
        <td>1</td>
        <td>817</td>
        <td>819</td>
        <td>5</td>
        <td>0</td>
        <td>99.27 -&gt; 100</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>South Lanarkshire</td>
        <td>5</td>
        <td>5432</td>
        <td>5491</td>
        <td>73</td>
        <td>34</td>
        <td>98.55 -&gt; 99.38</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>West  Dunbartonshire</td>
        <td>9</td>
        <td>1,233</td>
        <td>1236</td>
        <td>18</td>
        <td>15</td>
        <td>98.54 -&gt; 98.79</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Shetland Islands</td>
        <td>8</td>
        <td>309</td>
        <td>311</td>
        <td>6</td>
        <td>3</td>
        <td>98.06 -&gt; 99.04</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Stirling</td>
        <td>12</td>
        <td>1,361</td>
        <td>1370</td>
        <td>29</td>
        <td>37</td>
        <td>97.58 -&gt; 97.30</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>East Ayrshire</td>
        <td>16</td>
        <td>2039</td>
        <td>2052</td>
        <td>50</td>
        <td>64</td>
        <td>97.50 -&gt; 96.83</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Glasgow City</td>
        <td>1</td>
        <td>6758</td>
        <td>6761</td>
        <td>171</td>
        <td>0</td>
        <td>97.44 -&gt; 100%</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>West Lothian</td>
        <td>15</td>
        <td>2030</td>
        <td>2038</td>
        <td>48</td>
        <td>59</td>
        <td>97.44 -&gt; 96.96%</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Inverclyde</td>
        <td>13</td>
        <td>1239</td>
        <td>1240</td>
        <td>32</td>
        <td>34</td>
        <td>97.42 -&gt; 97.26%</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Na H Eileanan An Iar</td>
        <td>10</td>
        <td>298</td>
        <td>297</td>
        <td>5</td>
        <td>4</td>
        <td>97.32 -&gt; 98.98%</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>East Lothian</td>
        <td>11</td>
        <td>1343</td>
        <td>1353</td>
        <td>33</td>
        <td>32</td>
        <td>97.10 -&gt; 97.19%</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>North Ayrshire</td>
        <td>14</td>
        <td>2180</td>
        <td>2189</td>
        <td>63</td>
        <td>63</td>
        <td>97.06 -&gt; 98.08%</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Dundee City</td>
        <td>20</td>
        <td>2223</td>
        <td>2229</td>
        <td>65</td>
        <td>76</td>
        <td>97.03 -&gt; 96.55%</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Angus</td>
        <td>18</td>
        <td>1877</td>
        <td>1878</td>
        <td>57</td>
        <td>59</td>
        <td>96.91 -&gt; 96.81</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>South Ayrshire</td>
        <td>22</td>
        <td>1803</td>
        <td>1809</td>
        <td>61</td>
        <td>69</td>
        <td>96.45 -&gt; 96.08</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Argyll And Bute</td>
        <td>21</td>
        <td>1400</td>
        <td>1403</td>
        <td>50</td>
        <td>48</td>
        <td>96.43 -&gt; 96.58</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Monmouthshire</td>
        <td>17</td>
        <td>1529</td>
        <td>1538</td>
        <td>52</td>
        <td>48</td>
        <td>96.34 -&gt; 96.81</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Fife</td>
        <td>23</td>
        <td>5607</td>
        <td>5627</td>
        <td>217</td>
        <td>228</td>
        <td>95.93 -&gt; 95.75</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Scottish Borders</td>
        <td>24</td>
        <td>1890</td>
        <td>1902</td>
        <td>78</td>
        <td>79</td>
        <td>95.77 -&gt; 95.74</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>East Renfrewshire</td>
        <td>27</td>
        <td>1323</td>
        <td>1328</td>
        <td>57</td>
        <td>60</td>
        <td>95.62 -&gt; 95.41</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Aberdeen City</td>
        <td>1</td>
        <td>2772</td>
        <td>2774</td>
        <td>125</td>
        <td>0</td>
        <td>95.27 -&gt; 100</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Highland</td>
        <td>28</td>
        <td>3443</td>
        <td>3483</td>
        <td>535</td>
        <td>388</td>
        <td>84.05 -&gt; 88.46</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Aberdeenshire</td>
        <td>25</td>
        <td>3886</td>
        <td>3936</td>
        <td>626</td>
        <td>167</td>
        <td>83.63 -&gt; 95.73</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Renfrewshire</td>
        <td>26</td>
        <td>2447</td>
        <td>1378</td>
        <td>430</td>
        <td>60</td>
        <td>82.18 -&gt; 95.41</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Perth and Kinross</td>
        <td>19</td>
        <td>2409</td>
        <td>2424</td>
        <td>478</td>
        <td>79</td>
        <td>79.91 -&gt; 96.45</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Dumfries And Galloway</td>
        <td>7</td>
        <td>2556</td>
        <td>2580</td>
        <td>586</td>
        <td>22</td>
        <td>76.53 -&gt; 99.15</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>Moray</td>
        <td>29</td>
        <td>1545</td>
        <td>1581</td>
        <td>366</td>
        <td>226</td>
        <td>75.92 -&gt; 85.45</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>

  <p>The first thing that struck me as that in both Edinburgh and Midlothian the total number of roads has increased, but we've missed some so we're not longer at 100%.</p>

  <p>There have been some fantastic, improvements Glasgow was missing 171 roads last year and these have been accounted for. Dumfries And Galloway was bottom of the list last year and it's now in 7th, as has Aberdeen City.</p>

  <p>There are also some places such as Na H Eileanan An Iar; also known as the Outer Hebredies which are looking quite static.</p>

  <p>So what does that all add up to?</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.019.jpg" alt="2011, 4316 Roads Missing from OSM Compared to OS, Scotland was 93% Complete. In 2012, 1972 Roads Missing. Scotland 95% Complete" /></p>

  <p>In 2011, we  were shown as having 4316 Roads that hadn't been accounted for, so 93% match.</p>

  <p>When I looked a few days ago, we only  don't align on 1972 missing roads, or a 95% match.</p>

  <p>So what are these missing streets? I started by looking at the 9 roads highlighted in Edinburgh.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.020.jpg" alt="ITO Analysis Map, showing missing new estate road names," /></p>

  <p>The first stop are these Roads in <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=55.95985&amp;lon=-3.40179&amp;zoom=17&amp;layers=M">Kirkliston</a>, we seem to have one of these roads, but are missing the name, the other two roads are shown in OSM as under construction as below.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.021.jpg" alt="OSM Map showing &quot;missing streets&quot; as roads under contruction." /></p>

  <p>So the conclusion is probably a draw on this one, it looks like neither OS Locator or OSM have the full picture, but a visit is needed.</p>

  <p>The next example is around <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=55.944719016552&amp;lon=-3.36523085832596&amp;zoom=17">Edinburgh Airport</a></p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.022.jpg" alt="ITO Analysis Map, OSM shows Almond Avenue and OSM shows Almond Drive" /></p>

  <p>OSM Shows Almond Avenue, but OS Locator Almond drive. A visit here will need to take place to confirm who is right.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.023.jpg" alt="ITO Map, showing missing road" /></p>

  <p>Again it looks like some new houses here have led to some new developments that we don't yet have.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.024.jpg" alt="ITO Map, showing new estate" /></p>

  <p>This one was quite simple the Lane and the footpath should be joined, so I fixed this myself.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.025.jpg" alt="ITO Map" /></p>

  <p>I think that this one is a new development, that needs visiting.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.026.jpg" alt="ITO Map" /></p>

  <p>Again this one in Newhaven is probably a new development, that needs visiting.</p>

  <p>Interestingly in the few days since I gave this presentation, some of these have been fixed, by changes such as this one: <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/changeset/13611107">"Added missing street names from ITO in Kirkliston"</a> and this "<a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/187296573/history">Added initial layout of new housing development in Newburgh, Edinburgh.</a>". I really hope that these were done with local knowledge especially as adding the through road through Kirkliston doesn't looks like the kind of road layout that would be permitted as it would allow a rat run through a residential area.</p>

  <p>Anyway, we have evidence that OS Locator data can't always be relied upon.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.027.jpg" alt="How accurate is OS data? In Edinburgh 2.2% of names don't match, in Glasgow 1.4% of names don't match. Worst case in the UK, in King's Lynn and West Norfolkm 7.4% don't match." /></p>

  <p>Already in Edinburgh 2.2% of roads in Edinburgh do not match what OS Locator shows.</p>

  <p>Glasgow, 1.4 % and looking at one of the other places at 100%, Kings's Lynn shows 7.4% out. This is really a warning, we should be using this as a datasource to help us know where to map, but this data cannot be relied upon.</p>

  <p>Something else was causing me concern, and that was in the Outer Hebrides.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.028.jpg" alt="How are we doing in Remote Places, like the Outer Hebrides" /></p>

  <p>It also helps that I've holidayed and mapped here (or should it be the other way round) and so have lots of photos :)</p>

  <p>There weren't many changes in 2011 of 298 roads we were missing 5 and in 2012 the total roads is 297 and we're missing 4.</p>

  <p>So first thing, I thought that I would look at the last modification data of a selection of the objects:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.029.jpg" alt="2006, 971, 2007: 10499, 2008: 2967, 2009: 7015, 2010: 61878, 2011: 8698, 2012: 26600" /></p>

  <p>This wasn't quite what I expected, so  far this year there has been <em>a lot</em> of activity.</p>

  <p>And so I thought I would break down into months:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.030.jpg" alt="" /></p>

  <p>So the basic level is quite small, but with a big peak in June and July.</p>

  <p>Looking in detail at June I saw, most of the changes:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.031.jpg" alt="" /></p>

  <p>we're made by a single user, brianboru. I was very happy to see that he had been there and  and some of the information is surveyed on the ground with lots of detailed tracing of terrain, helping to fill in the map, so I thought I would see what else this user was up to?</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.032.jpg" alt="" /></p>

  <p>So he's from Birmingham, and by the looks of things he like I holidayed and did a ton of mapping and tracing whilse on holiday.</p>

  <p>But once I ignored the holiday based tracing binges, there is a steady background work by seumas, and looking at his page, I was again very pleased to see that he does live on the Island.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.033.jpg" alt="" /></p>

  <p>and busy doing some mapping of shops, pubs, chippies and some paths:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.034.jpg" alt="" /></p>

  <p>This was really for me the Golden Road, to be honest I didn't expect to find a local mapper living on the edge of the country, but here he is.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.035.jpg" alt="" /></p>

  <p>So how much data do we have:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.036.jpg" alt="Cat - WHAT DO WE HAVE?" /></p>

  <p>Overall the breakdown over Scotland is:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.037.jpg" alt="1.2G of XML, 5 847 127 Nodes, 483 990 Ways, 5086 Relation Compared to before the license change, 5 206 480 Nodes, 451 091 Ways, 4844 Relations" /></p>

  <p>]he uncompressed XML weighs in at 1.2G on disk, consisting of nearly 6 million nodes, nearly 500 000 ways and 5000 relations.</p>

  <p>I also ran this against a dump from before the licence change, and we have grown significantly since then, by over 600 000 nodes, and  30 000 ways. So we are well above the numbers from before the change, and thanks to the hard work of the community in Scotland to get local mappers on board and also to mitigate against loss I don't think we had any big problems.</p>

  <p>What's in a name?</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.0381.jpg" alt="36 660 named nodes and 134 724 named ways" /></p>

  <p>We have 36 660 named nodes and 134 724 named ways.</p>

  <p>Place?</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.0391.jpg" alt="6807 Names Places" /></p>

  <p>6807 of these are places, from Cities down to Hamlets and localities.</p>

  <p>So how long are the ways:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.040.jpg" alt="" />
  The table above lists the top 20 way types by length.</p>

  <p>The total, motorway length in OSM shows as 827km compares well with the total motorway length in wikipedia (once I remembered that OSM will have ways for both directions)</p>

  <p>We have 4 226km of paths, I suspefct there are a lot more in Scotland.</p>

  <p>We're up to 1 645 km of cycleway, and additionally cycling is permitted on a further 1000km of footways and paths.</p>

  <p>We have 53 km of steps, I wouldn't want to climb those all at once.</p>

  <p>There is also the longtail of the list:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.041.jpg" alt="" /></p>

  <p>Somewhere we have 30m of broken bridge (not the one pictured), 10 km of racing track and 1 099m of train platforms.</p>

  <p>all made possible by OSM's flexable tagging system:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.042.jpg" alt="" /></p>

  <p>and the 1776 users who have contributed!</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.0431.jpg" alt="List of *all* contributors in Scotland" /></p>

  <p>Last year I asked the question.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.044.jpg" alt="How do we extend the community?" /></p>

  <p>I still don't think we have a really good answer to that question, but whatever we do, we must Tell People.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.045.jpg" alt="Tell people, OSM is not like fight club, Tell your sister mother brother, Tell your friends and enemies, Show everyone you meet, Go out your way to tell strangers" /></p>

  <p>It's the only way of improving the map.</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-10-25-state-of-the-map-scotland-2013-the-state-of-scotland/main_presentation.046.jpg" alt="Thank you. Follow me @chrisfl on twitter or @OSMScotland" /></p>


guid: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/new-lanark-mapping-party
url: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/new-lanark-mapping-party
title: New Lanark Mapping Party
updated: 2012-03-05 12:38:06
published: 2012-03-05 12:38:06
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.007272
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.244571
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.244571
summary:
  I've just finished my map updates from the New Lanark Mapping Party this weekend. I'm pretty sure that this has been the best attended of our mapping parties with more new people than old, I didn't do a count but easily over 20. New Lanark itself, is a World Heritage Site was originally founded in 1786 as Cotton Mills and Housing for the workers, it's an early example of planned urban development and the business itself was run with consideration for the well being of the workers and lead the way in reform, socialism and welfare. But the wikipedia article covers this, and is well worth a read. The area either side of the cycle is the Scottish Wildlife Trust's Falls of Clyde a nature reserve The day started with a quick get together, where we choose our slices of the area to map, with Bob and Tim taking the new mappers around the village and because the mapping party was sponsored by The Central Scotland Green Network Community Fund  I picked a green area with other side of the Clyde, without quite realising how far it was to get to a bridge to cross…. This didn't matter as the the morning's rain cleared and the sun came out, the scenery was quite special. although parts of the area had been mapped in advance, there were lots of details to add: as well as the obligatory danger signs: and closed roads, which Dair - seen running out had already covered. In all we covered 11km of mostly footpaths, I was glad of the lack of tree cover at the moment which meant that I could vastly improve area's such as this windy downhill: and some more urban mapping: By the time we got back, we had missed lunch but it was good to see everyone busy processing the afternoon's work:

content:
  <p>I've just finished my map updates from the <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapping_Party/New_Lanark">New Lanark Mapping Party</a> this weekend. I'm pretty sure that this has been the best attended of our mapping parties with more new people than old, I didn't do a count but easily over 20.</p>

  <p>New Lanark itself, is a World Heritage Site was originally founded in 1786 as Cotton Mills and Housing for the workers, it's an early example of planned urban development and the business itself was run with consideration for the well being of the workers and lead the way in reform, socialism and welfare. But the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Lanark">wikipedia article</a> covers this, and is well worth a read.</p>

  <p>The area either side of the cycle is the Scottish Wildlife Trust's <a href="http://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/reserve/falls-of-clyde/">Falls of Clyde a nature reserve</a></p>

  <figure class="image-caption center">
    <a class="image-popup" href="/post-assets/2012-03-05-new-lanark-mapping-party/map2.png">
      <img class="caption" src="/post-assets/2012-03-05-new-lanark-mapping-party/map2.png" width="100%" height="100%" title="" alt="" />
    </a>
    <figcaption class="caption-text">
      
    </figcaption>
  </figure>

  <p>The day started with a quick get together, where we choose our slices of the area to map, with Bob and Tim taking the new mappers around the village and because the mapping party was sponsored by <a href="http://www.centralscotlandgreennetwork.org/">The Central Scotland Green Network Community Fund</a>  I picked a green area with other side of the Clyde, without quite realising how far it was to get to a bridge to cross….</p>

  <p>This didn't matter as the the morning's rain cleared and the sun came out, the scenery was quite special.</p>

  <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61663261@N00/6952363439/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7202/6952363439_ec6bd7d121.jpg" alt="Falls of Clyde." /></a></p>

  <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61663261@N00/6806265398/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7059/6806265398_4a0d174666.jpg" alt="Forest." /></a></p>

  <p>although parts of the area had been mapped in advance, there were lots of details to add:</p>

  <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61663261@N00/6806253372/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7202/6806253372_eeca3921ee_m.jpg" alt="Seats" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61663261@N00/6806262524/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7041/6806262524_a81be1d683_m.jpg" alt="Private Path." /></a></p>

  <p>as well as the obligatory danger signs:</p>

  <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61663261@N00/6806248684/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7063/6806248684_6ed008bb92.jpg" alt="DANGER!" /></a></p>

  <p>and closed roads, which <a href="http://refnum.com/">Dair</a> - seen running out had already covered.</p>

  <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61663261@N00/6806257320/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7070/6806257320_405d19a7c7.jpg" alt="Road Closed." /></a></p>

  <p>In all we covered 11km of mostly footpaths, I was glad of the lack of tree cover at the moment which meant that I could vastly improve area's such as this windy downhill:</p>

  <p><img src="/post-assets/2012-03-05-new-lanark-mapping-party/map-3.png" alt="" /></p>

  <p>and some more urban mapping:</p>

  <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61663261@N00/6952382307/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7188/6952382307_265b09b099_m.jpg" alt="House Number" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61663261@N00/6806268122/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7065/6806268122_e27cc948ff_m.jpg" alt="Street Sign" /></a></p>

  <p>By the time we got back, we had missed lunch but it was good to see everyone busy processing the afternoon's work:</p>

  <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61663261@N00/6806278376/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7203/6806278376_2964edbbc4_m.jpg" alt="Mapping." /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61663261@N00/6952389821/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7208/6952389821_5bece9154c_m.jpg" alt="Mapping." /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61663261@N00/6806272940/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7066/6806272940_559566978f_m.jpg" alt="Mapping." /></a></p>

  <!-- more -->

  <p>In all it was a great success, and a huge thanks go to Tim for doing the hard work of organising the day, sponsorship, venue and publicising the event. There is a <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Workshop/Glasgow2012">mapping workshop in Glasgow</a> on the 17 March and our next social meetup is on the <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Edinburgh#Upcoming_Pub_Meetings">20th March in Edinburgh.</a></p>

  <p>Have a look at the <a href="http://osm.org/go/evcmQfTP">finished map.</a>.</p>


guid: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/sotm-scotland-videos-online
url: http://chrisfleming.org//openstreetmap/sotm-scotland-videos-online
title: SOTM Scotland Video's online
updated: 2011-09-20 13:03:33
published: 2011-09-20 13:03:33
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.007272
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.247216
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.247216
summary:
  &lt;/div&gt; &lt;/div&gt; As well as [Bob](http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Central%20America) doing an introduction to [OSM](http://www.openstreetmap.org) (above), all the video's from the conference, including [my talk](http://www.chrisfleming.org/osm/state-of-the-map-scotland-the-state-of-scotland/) all now up, at: &lt;http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_Of_The_Map_Scotland_2011#Schedule&gt; Hopefully I'll get my slides from the other talk I did, on making my festival map (reused from [WhereCamp EU](http://wherecamp.eu/)) online in the next few days. Finally a big thanks to "the other" Bob from [City Strolls](http://www.citystrolls.com/) for doing the had work of making and editing the video's.

content:
  <div class="flash-video">
  <div>
  <iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xpYPuaf0HYc?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="">
  &lt;/div&gt;
  &lt;/div&gt;


  As well as [Bob](http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Central%20America) doing an introduction to [OSM](http://www.openstreetmap.org) (above), all the video's from the conference, including
  [my talk](http://www.chrisfleming.org/osm/state-of-the-map-scotland-the-state-of-scotland/)
  all now up, at: &lt;http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_Of_The_Map_Scotland_2011#Schedule&gt;

  Hopefully I'll get my slides from the other talk I did, on making my festival map (reused from [WhereCamp EU](http://wherecamp.eu/)) online in the next few days.

  Finally a big thanks to "the other" Bob from [City Strolls](http://www.citystrolls.com/) for doing the had work of making and editing the video's.
  </iframe></div></div>


guid: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/?p=637
url: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/2018/06/slides-from-my-talks
title: Slides from my talks
published: 2018-06-27 20:11:12
fetched: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.567660
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.926317
updated_at: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.603584
summary:
  A few months again, I promised (to myself) to share slides I use when giving talks about OpenStreetMap. The idea is to help other people with resources and inspiration to talk about OpenStreetMap themselves. I present in my own style, which includes simplistic slides that I add verbal overlay to. So to maintain some value, I [&#8230;]


guid: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/?p=627
url: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/2018/01/finding-people-to-bring-to-sotm
title: Finding people to bring to SotM
published: 2018-01-08 19:55:05
fetched: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.567660
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.929191
updated_at: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.605851
summary:
  For a number of years, State of the Map(SotM) has been able to provide scholarship funds to ensure more people attend the global conference. Finding people that might otherwise miss out on our community face-to-face event is not a problem, last year we had over a hundred applications and we were able to bring 15 [&#8230;]


guid: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/?p=619
url: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/2017/10/where-is-openstreetmap-in-2017
title: Where is OpenStreetMap in 2017?
published: 2017-10-18 07:12:09
fetched: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.567660
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.931670
updated_at: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.608125
summary:
  At events I often get asked, &#8220;Gregory, what&#8217;s the big subject or latest thing for OpenStreetMap this year?&#8220;. I tried to cover this when I spoke at GeoData 2017 last Thursday, although perhaps I tried to cover too many other subjects. So here&#8217;s my answer in blog form, your mileage/answers may vary. Continuing to affect lives [&#8230;]


guid: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/?p=604
url: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/2017/03/what-willshould-a-group-for-the-uk-do
title: What will/should a group for the UK do?
published: 2017-03-04 20:01:04
fetched: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.567660
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.933872
updated_at: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.610300
summary:
  In 2007 the OpenStreetMap Foundation(OSMF) was incorporated as a UK company, to support the international OpenStreetMap project and run the services (hardware, website, etc) needed to do that. When individual countries setup their own organisations, and the concept of OSMF local chapters start to become formalised, the question has existed&#8230; should there be an organisation [&#8230;]


guid: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/?p=587
url: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/2016/09/from-haklay-to-slater-book-review-finished
title: From Haklay to Slater (book review finished)
published: 2016-09-28 18:52:58
fetched: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.567660
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.936020
updated_at: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.612859
summary:
  Much appologies for not typing up my remaining book review notes after the overview review and first half of chapters, finally my comments on the second half&#8230; It might be unusual for OpenStreetMap and this book, but Muki Haklay is a name in the project that has been focused on GIS when I was only learning [&#8230;]


guid: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/?p=589
url: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/2016/09/being-a-code-of-conduct-volunteer
title: Being a Code of Conduct volunteer
published: 2016-09-26 14:48:03
fetched: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.567660
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.938306
updated_at: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.615548
summary:
  There was a lot of effort put into organising The State of the Map(SotM) conference, and it was a success. I was one of two Code of Conduct volunteers (for want of a better title). Some would point out I have related experience helping people in conflict, however this kind of role at a conference [&#8230;]


guid: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/?p=574
url: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/2016/05/from-a-to-g
title: From Allan to Gorman (a book review continued)
published: 2016-05-28 17:57:19
fetched: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.567660
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.940517
updated_at: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.617990
summary:
  Continuing from my main review of The Book of OSM, I wanted to share the thoughts I jotted on a scrap of paper as I read the chapters. So onwards, with the first half of interviews in the book. Andy Allan is a name that most OpenStreetMappers have come across. He started with the project [&#8230;]


guid: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/?p=559
url: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/2016/04/review-the-book-of-osm-by-steve-coast
title: Review: The book of OSM by Steve Coast
published: 2016-04-11 21:56:03
fetched: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.567660
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.942824
updated_at: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.620470
summary:
  My summary review&#8230; A book with wonderful content on the history of a vast project called OpenStreetMap(OSM)  it will help you discover the background of OSM which is essential if you wish to understand today&#8217;s OSM. Highly recommended reading for academics starting OpenStreetMap projects and also recommended as an enjoyable light read. Unfortunately the very [&#8230;]


guid: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/?p=550
url: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/2015/11/osmf-election-2015
title: OSMF Election 2015
published: 2015-11-30 13:57:33
fetched: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.567660
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.945031
updated_at: 2019-10-09 08:30:12.622800
summary:
  The OpenStreetMap Foundation is currently holding it&#8217;s annual election for board members, anyone currently a paid-up member of the foundation should have received instrctions on how to vote electronically this year. Sadly none of the board members due to step down are running for re-election (3 must do so each year, usually those who have [&#8230;]


guid: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/?p=541
url: http://www.livingwithdragons.com/2015/10/why-did-you-map-that
title: Why did you map that?
published: 2015-10-29 11:46:10
fetched: 2019-06-20 07:30:11.002155
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:57.947228
updated_at: 2019-06-20 07:30:11.074984
summary:
  Picture the scene: It&#8217;s 2008 and for a year I&#8217;ve been the only one mapping Durham, taking it from just the motorway and river to a detailed geodatabase of roads, footpaths, and even significant buildings before there was aerial imagery to trace from. Then suddenly I notice several amenity=waste_basket nodes while editing. I don&#8217;t notice them on [&#8230;]


guid: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/?p=726
url: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2019/05/09/think-tanks-and-financial-transparency/
title: Think tanks and financial transparency
published: 2019-05-09 12:15:06
fetched: 2019-10-26 00:00:14.424297
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.334940
updated_at: 2019-10-26 00:00:15.282283
summary:
  Last week&#8217;s Question Time introduced one of the panelists, Kate Andrews from the &#8220;Institute of Economic Affairs&#8220;. What an organisation name! It sounds so official. So governmental. So trustworthy &#8230;yeah not so much. The name sounded familiar to me from some recent reading on dodgy think tank funding transparency. It prompted me to look up [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><a title="BBC Question Time show on 2nd May 2019" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0004pyz/question-time-2019-02052019">Last week&#8217;s Question Time</a> introduced one of the panelists, Kate Andrews from the &#8220;<strong>Institute of Economic Affairs</strong>&#8220;. What an organisation name! It sounds so official. So governmental. So trustworthy</p>
  <p>&#8230;yeah not so much.</p>
  <p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0004pyz/question-time-2019-02052019"><img class="size-large wp-image-727 aligncenter" src="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bbc-question-time-2-may-2019-1024x450.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="281" srcset="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bbc-question-time-2-may-2019-1024x450.jpg 1024w, http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bbc-question-time-2-may-2019-300x132.jpg 300w, http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bbc-question-time-2-may-2019-768x338.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /></a></p>
  <p>The name sounded familiar to me from some recent reading on dodgy think tank funding transparency. It prompted me to look up their rankings on <strong><a href="https://www.transparify.org">transparify.org</a></strong>:</p>
  <p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-728" style="border: solid #EEE 1px;" src="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/transparify-uk-think-tanks.jpg" alt="" width="710" height="1075" srcset="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/transparify-uk-think-tanks.jpg 710w, http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/transparify-uk-think-tanks-198x300.jpg 198w, http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/transparify-uk-think-tanks-676x1024.jpg 676w" sizes="(max-width: 710px) 100vw, 710px" /></p>
  <p>I&#8217;ve improved this image from one found <a href="https://www.transparify.org/blog/2018/11/16/pressure-grows-on-uk-think-tanks-that-fail-to-disclose-their-funders">on the transparify blog</a>. You can read much more about how and why transparify have ranked the think tanks on the website. Transparify have zoomed in on the issue of funding transparency because it&#8217;s important. If we are to have these &#8220;think tank&#8221; organisations dedicating themselves to swaying public opinion one way or another, then isn&#8217;t it important to know who is paying them to do it?</p>
  <p>Well maybe it depends how influential they are. It occurs to me that &#8220;think tanks&#8221; exist as part of a fuzzily defined spectrum. An individual can set up a wordpress site and start pumping out blogs and social media posts pushing their political viewpoint. That&#8217;s a wonderfully easy thing to do, and I&#8217;m glad. But then if you name this website &#8220;Institute of X&#8221; and pretend to be an organisation not an individual, then you&#8217;re well on the way to being a &#8220;think tank&#8221;. If some wealthy backer wants to pay you to hire a team, and work on pumping the messages full time, then that <i>is</i> a think tank. It&#8217;s a natural progression to this situation where it feels like there&#8217;s a cost-effective way for wealthy individuals or organisations to buy influence over our politics.</p>
  <p>But it&#8217;s OK. The key remaining barrier is whether we all grant them <i>acceptance and influence</i> (and whether mainstream media do e.g. by inviting them to be panelist on BBC Question Time!). We should be rejecting organisations who fail to disclose exactly what they are, who they are, and who they are funded by. If we don&#8217;t know who is paying the salary of Kate Andrews from the &#8220;Institute of Economic Affairs&#8221;, isn&#8217;t it rather sinister that she has been able to gain such a platform?</p>
  <p>If you saw the show then you may remain unconvinced, after all Kate Andrews was talking a lot of sense on there right? She&#8217;s intelligent, charismatic, and persuasive. I was finding myself agreeing with her even as I was surfing around the transparify website! I was waiting for her to drop a right-wing free-market help-the-rich-get-richer bombshell. She talked on a lot of topics without touching on this, and when it came it was so subtly slipped in at the end of a debate on climate change, that it passed without any cross-examination.</p>
  <p>Maybe that&#8217;s just good politics. Don&#8217;t try to ram your message down people&#8217;s throats. Say <a href="https://comb.io/G3bRa3">things that people agree with</a>, and slip your message in. But I suspect that kind of obfuscation game is a think tank speciality. A while ago I followed a tweet to humanprogress.org, and it&#8217;s bothered me ever since, because again I found myself agreeing with so much of it. I enjoyed these optimistic pro-science articles, but look out! Slipped in there you&#8217;ll find various dubious messages: <i>&#8220;inequality doesn&#8217;t matter&#8221;, &#8220;deforestation isn&#8217;t happening&#8221;, &#8220;fossil fuels are the best energy source&#8221;, &#8220;be happy with your menial existence and help us get richer&#8221;</i>. OK I made that last one up, but the others are all messages in articles on that site, all cunningly tucked between other more enjoyable (and more correct) writing. humanprogress.org is one of many sub-brands of content pumped out by the  American right wing think tank with wealthy backers: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute">Cato Institute</a>.</p>
  <p>But I guess that&#8217;s just dodgy politics as usual, and I&#8217;m criticising Cato Institute based on my own political views. I&#8217;m quite happy to do so, but to be fair, they do OK on financial transparency. Middling score from transparify.</p>
  <p>What <a href="https://www.transparify.org">transparify</a> do so well is to focus on just that one aspect of think tanks, financial transparency, in a non-partisan very objectively measured manner. It&#8217;s possible to do so, and while it won&#8217;t solve all the problems with dodgy think tank politics, it is a great starting point for penetrating the sinister goings on behind these organisations. It should be a clear &#8220;untrustworthy&#8221; red flag if organisations regardless of political flavour, are failing to disclose details of who is backing them financially.</p>
  <p>Which dodgy characters will the BBC be inviting onto Question Time tonight I wonder?</p>


guid: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/?p=718
url: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2019/01/06/counting-game/
title: Counting game
published: 2019-01-06 12:38:32
fetched: 2019-10-26 00:00:14.424297
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.339441
updated_at: 2019-10-26 00:00:15.285071
summary:
  I made a little counting quiz game for my 3 year old to practice his counting: &#62;&#62;&#62; Counting game &#60;&#60;&#60; I&#8217;m hoping some other kids at the &#8220;learning to count&#8221; stage might find this fun. Just click the link to play (not on a phone) Little video of him playing it When we talk about [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>I made a little counting quiz game for my 3 year old to practice his counting:</p>
  <p style="text-align: center;">&gt;&gt;&gt; <b><a href="https://harrywood.co.uk/kids/counting-basic/">Counting game</a></b> &lt;&lt;&lt;</p>
  <p>I&#8217;m hoping some other kids at the &#8220;learning to count&#8221; stage might find this fun. Just click the link to play (not on a phone)</p>
  <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kj63xkCtww"><img class="alignnone wp-image-719 size-full" src="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/counting-game-frame.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="368" srcset="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/counting-game-frame.jpg 500w, http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/counting-game-frame-300x221.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /></a><br />
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kj63xkCtww">Little video of him playing it</a></p>
  <p>When we talk about &#8220;learning to count&#8221;, there&#8217;s actually a couple of quite different skills. Speaking the numbers out loud in sequence &#8220;One&#8230; two&#8230; three&#8221; &#8230;  our lad has been good at this for over a year now, but recently I&#8217;ve been trying to get him to look at a set of objects and tell me how many there are. Not the same kind of &#8220;learning to count&#8221;.</p>
  <p>So far he&#8217;s quite bad at this. It seems like one type of counting skill should help with the other, but sometimes I&#8217;ll point and say &#8220;how many?&#8221; and he&#8217;ll just wave his finger at the objects while counting to ten very quickly. Almost like he&#8217;s too good at the other skill, he&#8217;s not getting the idea of counting objects!</p>
  <p>Naturally my solution to these things is to spend hours coding something. <a href="https://github.com/harry-wood/counting-basic">Here it is on github</a>. It needs a bit more work. In particular this is no use at all on mobile at the moment (or tablet). You need a keyboard to press the number keys. This and a few other <a href="https://github.com/harry-wood/counting-basic/issues">issues listed here</a>.</p>
  <p>Oh and thanks to various people for the open licensed images (credited on page), and thanks to wikimedia commons for helpfully <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=wikimedia+commons+%22white+background%22&amp;client=safari&amp;rls=en&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjeoIvpoN7fAhU1tHEKHRFjCnYQ_AUIDigB&amp;biw=1385&amp;bih=686">naming them &#8220;x white backgound&#8221;</a>.</p>
  <p>If you missed it, check out my previous kids game<strong> <a href="https://harrywood.co.uk/kids/keyboard-letters/">Keyboard Letters</a></strong> (+<a href="https://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2016/09/10/keyboard-letters-game/">previous blog post</a>)</p>


guid: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/?p=704
url: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2018/06/05/space4-openstreetmap-talk/
title: space4 – OpenStreetMap games and engagement talk
published: 2018-06-05 09:40:18
fetched: 2019-10-26 00:00:14.424297
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.343682
updated_at: 2019-10-26 00:00:15.288006
summary:
  I gave the following talk at &#8220;space4&#8221; the other day, at an event called &#8220;Mapping for change &#8211; games and other processes of public engagement&#8220;. My talk was an introduction to OpenStreetMap, which is something I haven&#8217;t done in a while. And I also went into more detail on the different ways of contributing, from [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>I gave the following talk at &#8220;space4&#8221; the other day, at an event called &#8220;<a href="https://www.meetup.com/Mapping-for-Social-and-Political-Change/events/250853293/">Mapping for change &#8211; games and other processes of public engagement</a>&#8220;.</p>
  <p>My talk was an introduction to OpenStreetMap, which is something I haven&#8217;t done in a while. And I also went into more detail on the different ways of contributing, from complicated things like <a href="https://josm.openstreetmap.de">JOSM</a>, right down to the very simple <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Notes">OpenStreetMap Notes</a>.</p>
  <figure id="attachment_706" style="width: 500px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-706 size-full" src="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/openstreetmap-ecosystem-harry-wood.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" srcset="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/openstreetmap-ecosystem-harry-wood.jpg 500w, http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/openstreetmap-ecosystem-harry-wood-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Showing the <a href="#slide10">OpenStreetMap ecosystem diagram</a> (There was also an appearance for my newer <a href="#slide21">workflows summary diagram</a>) &#8211; <a href="https://twitter.com/Wright1Carole/status/1002328158601965570">Photo by Carole Wright</a></figcaption></figure>
  <p>Space4 is a new funky little tech hub place, of which London has many, but exciting for me because it&#8217;s half a mile from where I live! It&#8217;s nice to see Finsbury Park attaining this badge of trendiness, but also it&#8217;s super convenient. I can even cheekily duck out of family commitments to attend an event for an hour as I did on this occasion, although it was I shame I didn&#8217;t get to stick around and chat to anyone. I did get to answer questions, and it seemed like an interesting audience. I&#8217;ll have to try make it along to more events there, perhaps more in this series titled &#8220;<a href="https://www.meetup.com/Mapping-for-Social-and-Political-Change/">Mapping for Social and Political Change</a>&#8220;.</p>
  <p>Below are the slides and transcript, or at least what I intended to say. You can also <a href="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/2018-space4.odp">download the slides in OpenOffice format</a> (34Mb).</p>
  <p>Jump to slide:<br />
  <a href="#slide1">1</a>, <a href="#slide2">2</a>, <a href="#slide3">3</a>, <a href="#slide4">4</a>, <a href="#slide5">5</a>, <a href="#slide6">6</a>, <a href="#slide7">7</a>, <a href="#slide8">8</a>, <a href="#slide9">9</a>, <a href="#slide10">10</a>, <a href="#slide11">11</a>, <a href="#slide12">12</a>, <a href="#slide13">13</a>, <a href="#slide14">14</a>, <a href="#slide15">15</a>, <a href="#slide16">16</a>, <a href="#slide17">17</a>, <a href="#slide18">18</a>, <a href="#slide19">19</a>, <a href="#slide20">20</a>, <a href="#slide21">21</a>, <a href="#slide22">22</a>, <a href="#slide23">23</a>, <a href="#slide24">24</a></p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide1"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img0.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide1">Slide 1</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img0.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>I&#8217;m going to present my introduction to OpenStreetMap and then, in relation to the theme of this evening, I&#8217;ll run through some app and gamification ideas and other ways we try to encourage participation in this project.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide2"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img1.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide2">Slide 2</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img1.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>My day job is another interesting open data initiative at a company called <a href="https://opencorporates.com/">OpenCorporates</a>, but that&#8217;s a whole other talk! I found this job via my interest in open data and OpenStreetMap actually, but for OpenStreetMap I&#8217;m just a spare-time volunteer.</p>
  <p>And that&#8217;s typical actually. It&#8217;s a very volunteer driven initiative. There is a small company called the <a href="https://osmfoundation.org/">OpenStreetMap foundation</a>, but there&#8217;s only one admin assistant employee. OpenStreetMap is a not-for-profit project with lots of passionate volunteers, although commercial use of the data is allowed, and a number of companies provide services around OpenStreetMap.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide3"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img2.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide3">Slide 3</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img2.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>So what is OpenStreetMap? If you&#8217;ve only taken a quick look, you&#8217;ll perhaps have the idea that OpenStreetMap is a competitor to Google maps. It kind of is that, but that&#8217;s really not the whole story.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide4"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img3.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide4">Slide 4</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img3.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>You only have to zoom in on the map and you&#8217;ll start to see that this is a bit different. Here&#8217;s where we are at space4. In many areas there&#8217;s this kind of very rich detailed data, but you can also get the sense, I think, that this is a very human-crafted map.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide5"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img4.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide5">Slide 5</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img4.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>OpenStreetMap is a community of now over 1 million people who have made contributions to the map. It&#8217;s a “mass collaboration”, and engaging <i>many</i> people in participation has been the name of the game really.</p>
  <p>I&#8217;m going to talk more about how we do this, but essentially a key aspect is making the map editing process (which is inherently quite complex) as simple as possible.</p>
  <p>The project is called “Open”StreetMap, not just because it is open to edit, but because we release all the data openly licensed as raw vector data. I&#8217;ll explain that more, but I think when it comes to community engagement, a key motivator is simply seeing an updated map, taking in the changes people make, and showing a new improved map with a rapid turn-around.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide6"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img5.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide6">Slide 6</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img5.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Everything in OpenStreetMap is made up of “nodes” and “ways”. This is what I mean by “vector data”. And then attached this we have “tags”. These name=value pairs.</p>
  <p>This is a simple data model, helping drive simplicity of the editors, but particularly with the tags, it&#8217;s also very flexible and it means you can put your own ideas into OpenStreetMap for things to be represented on the map. The tags are an interesting aspect of OpenStreetMap&#8217;s design which really makes editing simple and fun, even if it means the data is less tidy and usable than it might be. That&#8217;s a bias which OpenStreetMap has. A focus on simple fun contributing.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide7"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img6.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide7">Slide 7</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img6.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>What about <i>using </i>OpenStreetMap?</p>
  <p>Well you can do the Google maps thing of embedding a map on your website. Also you can build interfaces involving clickable markers etc, with OpenStreetMap as the base-map.</p>
  <p><a href="https://www.ox.ac.uk/visitors/map">https://www.ox.ac.uk/visitors/map</a></p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide8"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img7.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide8">Slide 8</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img7.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>But the raw data from OpenStreetMap has allowed developers to do so much more. Here we see&#8230;</p>
  <p>“<a href="http://project-osrm.org/">Open Source Routing Machine</a>” doing route planning across the road network.</p>
  <p>“<a href="http://overpass-api.de/">OverpassAPI</a>” doing flexible queries within the rich tagging data (show me all the pubs in London)</p>
  <p>“<a href="https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/">Nominatim</a>” search system, finding a street. Here we also see it showing the internals of how exactly that search is matched.</p>
  <p>There are endless other examples powerful uses for the low level geo-data.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide9"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img8.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide9">Slide 9</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img8.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Of course one main use is to have a view of the map. But what <i>kind</i> of view? With access to raw geo-data we can create a customised “rendering” of our map view, choosing different types of data to emphasise and different ways of colouring and styling it.</p>
  <p>Top left &#8211; <a href="https://www.thunderforest.com/maps/transport/">Thunderforest Transport Map</a></p>
  <p>Top middle – <a href="http://whitewater.quaker.eu.org/">Quakers Whiterwater map</a></p>
  <p>Top right – <a href="http://hikebikemap.org/">hikeandbikemap.org</a></p>
  <p>Bottom left – <a href="http://www.opensnowmap.org/">OpenSnowmap.org</a></p>
  <p>Bottom right – <a href="http://opencyclemap.org/">OpenCycleMap.org</a></p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide10"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img9.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide10">Slide 10</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img9.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>So the raw geo-data flows out from this central OpenStreetMap database, out through an ecosystem of various tools and services which developers are providing and refining (often as open source), out to many many website and mobile apps.</p>
  <p>If you&#8217;re not a techy developer yourself then this might not seem that exciting, but just think&#8230; by contributing to OpenStreetMap you&#8217;re not only making a view of a map on openstreetmap.org. The data flows out and gets used in a wonderful variety of different ways.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide11"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img10.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide11">Slide 11</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img10.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>So I&#8217;m going to move on now to talk more about the different ways you can contribute to OpenStreetMap.</p>
  <p>I thought I would start with the more complicated ways first, so don&#8217;t be put off. I hope to show you that you can contribute in very very simple ways too.</p>
  <p>But this is the way I often edit OpenStreetMap. It&#8217;s a tool called <a href="https://josm.openstreetmap.de/">JOSM</a>. Here we see the photo mapping feature. There&#8217;s a photo I took of some shops near here, and little icon here shows roughly where I was when took this.</p>
  <p>JOSM is a powerful editor, but actually even if you are just getting started with OpenStreetMap, if you don&#8217;t mind learning new software, I recommend diving in and giving JOSM a try, because ultimately it may give the most satisfying editing experience.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide12"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img11.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide12">Slide 12</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img11.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Most people though, will begin by trying the editor on the website. On openstreetmap.org if you click this “edit” button here, you can edit directly with this tool called “id”. No need to install anything.</p>
  <p>This is simpler than JOSM, though still quite powerful. It&#8217;s easier to get started with.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide13"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img12.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide13">Slide 13</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img12.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Here&#8217;s how you can edit using a smartphone. An app called “<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/app/id592990211">Go Map!!</a>” on iPhone and “<a href="http://vespucci.io/">Vespucci</a>” on android.</p>
  <p>These are simplified editing experiences for mobile, however both of these are what I would call “fully featured” OpenStreetMap editors because you can make edits to the “ways” as well as the “nodes” and “tags”. You can edit the geometry of buildings for example.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide14"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img13.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide14">Slide 14</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img13.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>But if I have to make one app recommendation, it would be this: <a href="https://maps.me/">Maps.ME</a> on iPhone and Android is a really great map <i>viewing</i> app. It looks a bit like google maps, so it will feel familiar. But it&#8217;s OpenStreetMap! Install it now!</p>
  <p>This also lets you download whole countries for use offline, including satnav style routing. It&#8217;s great for using without an internet connection while on holiday. But I use it as a really nice useable map view for getting around all the time.</p>
  <p>Maps.ME does also have editing functionality. This is an example of a simplified feature-limited editor. You can use it to add a missing shop for example, but only basic edits. It&#8217;s not as powerful as Go Map!! or Vespucci.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide15"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img14.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide15">Slide 15</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img14.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>So you can use your gadgets, but I want to stress that gathering data can be as simple as using a pen and paper. Of course you&#8217;ll still need to input your data later using JOSM or “id”, but data collection can be very simple and low tech.</p>
  <p>&#8230;although some people get quite advanced and quite complex with their paper notes!</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide16"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img15.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide16">Slide 16</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img15.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>And here&#8217;s an interesting tool which bridges the gap: <a href="http://fieldpapers.org/">fieldpapers.org</a></p>
  <p>This gives a nice easy way of getting a map printout. It creates an “atlas” of many A4 sheets. Here you see the interface where you&#8217;re arranging a grid of A4 sheets to cover an area of interest.</p>
  <p>The printouts can then be used for noting down more data which needs to be added to the map. If you want to get clever, these can then be scanned in, and a QR code geolocates the scanned images for use within an editor (but you can easily skip that and&#8230; look at the paper!)</p>
  <p>Because the data collection is very low-tech pen &amp; paper, this has been used for humanitarian mapping, with local people in Lubumbashi writing down things like street names, and then the paper brought back to London, where we input the data at a fun mapping event.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide17"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img16.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide17">Slide 17</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img16.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Speaking of humanitarian mapping (this is a whole other area I didn&#8217;t go into) check out the “<a href="https://www.hotosm.org/">Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team</a>”, and a project called “<a href="http://www.missingmaps.org/">Missing Maps</a>” which is having very popular events every month here in London.</p>
  <p>But this is a tool we use to coordinate mapping a lot. The “Tasking Manager” at <a href="https://tasks.hotosm.org/">tasks.hotosm.org</a>. You can see the idea. We divide up an area into a grid. The yellow squares have already been done, and you can acquire a square to work on. It&#8217;s a coordination tool which means we don&#8217;t accidentally work on the same area even if we have a large number of people mapping.</p>
  <p>This is for remote “armchair mapping” where we can sit at home with our laptops and contribute using aerial imagery, to draw around buildings for example.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide18"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img17.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide18">Slide 18</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img17.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Getting more towards “gamification” side of things, this is a tool called “<a href="http://www.maproulette.org/">MapRoulette</a>”. It assigns random little tasks for you to work on (by making edits in the OpenStreetMap data)</p>
  <p>Often the “challenges” are created based on data from external sources. Here for example it&#8217;s showing Police stations in London, where we could be adding some address data, taking the addresses from some government dataset. So we spin the roulette wheel, and we&#8217;re shown a random London police station, and we click to add the address data and then go again!</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide19"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img18.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide19">Slide 19</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img18.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>I wanted to show you a couple of really simple ways of helping OpenStreetMap which don&#8217;t involve learning how to edit.</p>
  <p><a href="https://www.mapillary.com/">Mapillary</a> is a thing you can contribute to, particularly if you drive a lot. You simply set your phone going taking photos as you drive, and these form a thing a bit like Google StreetView.</p>
  <p>But Mapillary works very closely with OpenStreetMap, and allow us to use the images while editing. If we gather enough of these street-level images, it becomes a very powerful supportive tool for OpenStreetMappers. We can easily use it to double-check our data and directly add things like missing shops.</p>
  <p>The app is really easy to use because contributing is very passive. You just sort of set it going, and you can almost forget about it. Later you upload lots of photos.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide20"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img19.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide20">Slide 20</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img19.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Finally this is perhaps the simplest way to contribute OpenStreetMap: A thing we call “<a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Notes">Notes</a>”. Just go to the website and click this button here to add a note. Place a marker and write a textual description of a thing which is missing or needs to be changed on the map. Easy! It doesn&#8217;t even require you to log in.</p>
  <p>Like Mapillary this is a slightly <i>indirect</i> way of helping. It still requires people who know how to edit, to then go and make use of this information to edit the map.</p>
  <p>But this is very much designed to be a very simple way to contribute. It&#8217;s dead easy, although do make sure you zoom in and place the marker precisely, and be as descriptive as you can in the text.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide21"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img20.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide21">Slide 21</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img20.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Here&#8217;s a summary diagram showing different ways of contributing.</p>
  <p>It&#8217;s split into “gathering data” and “inputting data”, because often we do things in those separate stages. The mobile mapping approach using Go Map!! or Vespucci will cut across these, because you can make the edit directly while you are out and about seeing things to add. This is perhaps not as useful as it sounds because, tapping away with your finger to add all of data is very slow. If you&#8217;re adding lots of things, or even if you&#8217;re casually doing some fly-by mapping, I tend to prefer a two stage approach. I snap quick photos on my phone (which are geo-located), and then later at home I view these with JOSM to add the data.</p>
  <p>We also talked about Tasking Manager &amp; MapRoulette. These options at the bottom only involve a data input phase without the need for data gathering. But as with the other projects we&#8217;ve heard about this evening, OpenStreetMap is a great excuse to go out and look at the world! If you like that sort of thing, you may prefer these other modes of contribution.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide22"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img21.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide22">Slide 22</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img21.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Beyond editing tools, we also have a few tools like this which show us stats on our OpenStreetMap editing. This helps make editing fun and engaging, and naturally a little competitive! This is “<a href="http://www.hdyc.neis-one.org/">how did you contribute?</a>”, and on the right a<a href="http://www.missingmaps.org/users/#/"> tool on MissingMaps.org</a> which shows edit stats related to humanitarian mapping with the tasking manager.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide23"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img22.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide23">Slide 23</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img22.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>So that&#8217;s OpenStreetMap!</p>
  <p>Do check out the <a href="https://twitter.com/osmlondon">@OSMLondon twitter account</a> for news of OpenStreetMap events happening here in London.</p>
  <p>Thank you very much!</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide24"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img23.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide24">Slide 24</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/space4/img23.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><i>For my part, I release these slides under the <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 License</a></i></p>
  <p><i>However see the notes on the slides, for other specific attributions.</i></p>
  <p><i>Any standard OSM map images are cc-by-sa2 OpenStreetMap contributors.</i></p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Jump to slide:<br />
  <a href="#slide1">1</a>, <a href="#slide2">2</a>, <a href="#slide3">3</a>, <a href="#slide4">4</a>, <a href="#slide5">5</a>, <a href="#slide6">6</a>, <a href="#slide7">7</a>, <a href="#slide8">8</a>, <a href="#slide9">9</a>, <a href="#slide10">10</a>, <a href="#slide11">11</a>, <a href="#slide12">12</a>, <a href="#slide13">13</a>, <a href="#slide14">14</a>, <a href="#slide15">15</a>, <a href="#slide16">16</a>, <a href="#slide17">17</a>, <a href="#slide18">18</a>, <a href="#slide19">19</a>, <a href="#slide20">20</a>, <a href="#slide21">21</a>, <a href="#slide22">22</a>, <a href="#slide23">23</a>, <a href="#slide24">24</a></p>


guid: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/?p=701
url: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2018/04/16/yak-shaving-and-woolly-jumpers/
title: Yak Shaving and Woolly Jumpers
published: 2018-04-16 20:54:19
fetched: 2019-10-26 00:00:14.424297
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.347119
updated_at: 2019-10-26 00:00:15.290818
summary:
  Photo by Glen MacLarty &#8211; A woolly jumper being knitted (&#8230;probably not from Yak&#8217;s wool) Do all developers know the phrase &#8220;yak shaving&#8221;? Apparently not. I see it being introduced to a new generation of developers here. What does it mean? &#8220;yak shaving&#8221; &#8230;the alternative explanation. You&#8217;re an engineer. You have a problem:  you&#8217;re feeling [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><a title="116_1269" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/glenmaclarty/3664977294/in/photolist-6zRY4G-GkgxuM-bmwHE9-gNXSNn-pgSXN3-bbJer6-ddSwg6-63Kgv-f8NwA2-5nKU6j-mod6pW-5cWBCM-ntbh1Z-5dfrG4-89zMSJ-63Ktoq-qSsx6i-8ZHMRs-4RH2E2-bzrATX-anW4s7-5djLvJ-oMQnSB-bqcnSv-nzNdi4-Uqd5N7-ahUsT6-bpNTLp-7gU3Ws-bpNT1v-7Tg4cv-5dfrvk-ndYafr-f8FH6j-rVYhew-6zRXYJ-DNDhDR-4N85RP-fNVAHE-UhzayW-baJz7r-bf6ckZ-bK4SCx-bBYkwZ-zLD66-fkXqCh-edusQv-4zDhsD-orLyRP-bhY6jg" data-flickr-embed="true"><img src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3345/3664977294_35339ba718.jpg" alt="116_1269" width="500" height="333" /></a><br />
  <em><small><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/glenmaclarty/3664977294/"> Photo by Glen MacLarty</a> &#8211; A woolly jumper being knitted (&#8230;probably not from Yak&#8217;s wool)</small></em></p>
  <p>Do all developers know the phrase &#8220;yak shaving&#8221;? Apparently not. I see it <a href="https://dev.to/dance2die/shaving-yak-4g2m">being introduced to a new generation of developers here</a>.</p>
  <p>What does it mean?</p>
  <h3>&#8220;yak shaving&#8221; &#8230;the alternative explanation.</h3>
  <p>You&#8217;re an engineer. You have a problem:  you&#8217;re feeling a bit cold.</p>
  <ul>
  <li>You could turn up the heating, but you decide it&#8217;s better to find a jumper to put on.</li>
  <li>You find a nylon sweater, but you want to do this properly. You need a woolly jumper.</li>
  <li>You could go out and buy a woolly jumper, but if you&#8217;re going to go to the trouble of heading out to the shops, maybe you should <i>really nail</i> this problem. A really kick-ass solution, would be to <i>knit yourself</i> a good thick woolly jumper.</li>
  <li>You could use some wool you already have, but since you&#8217;ll be spending quite some time on this knitting project, you might as well find some really premium quality wool.</li>
  <li>You could select some nice wool from a shop, but you&#8217;re a thorough sort of person. If it&#8217;s worth finding good wool, you decide it&#8217;s worth going to the source of the supply chain where the wool is produced.</li>
  <li>You could travel to a sheep farm somewhere, but since you&#8217;re going to be travelling, you start researching different types of wool, and discover that the very best type of wool is from the Himalayan yak.</li>
  <li>&#8230;and so it is that you end up on a hillside in the Himalayas, in the baking hot sun   &#8230;shaving a yak.</li>
  </ul>
  <h3>Origins</h3>
  <p>I like this explanation, but it is &#8220;the alternative explanation&#8221;, because I&#8217;ve no idea where it came from! Can&#8217;t find any reference to it on the internet. I <em>think</em> I was taught this by <a href="http://www.gravitystorm.co.uk">Andy Allan</a> while I was working at CloudMade. A few years ago I introduced &#8220;yak shaving&#8221; to workmates at TransportAPI, to much hilarity.</p>
  <p>For the <em>real</em> origins of the &#8220;yak shaving&#8221; phrase, all googles lead to <a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/03/dont_shave_that.html">Seth Godin</a>&#8216;s blog, which references, <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/03/05/yak_shaving.html#trackbacks">Joi Ito&#8217;s blog</a>, which references an O&#8217;Reilly Book on productivity, and [oopse. now that&#8217;s going a bit recursive], but  no there&#8217;s lots of pointers to the <em>real</em> origin, which I find a bit disappointing: A <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mmISldi060">&#8220;Yak Shaving Day&#8221; segment of a Renn &amp; Stimpy episode</a>.</p>
  <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mmISldi060"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-702" src="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/yak-yak-shaving-day-300x188.png" alt="" width="300" height="188" srcset="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/yak-yak-shaving-day-300x188.png 300w, http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/yak-yak-shaving-day.png 500w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p>I suppose it&#8217;s disappointing because Ren &amp; Stimpy is so unbearably bizarre I can&#8217;t get my head around it, but also I was hoping for the origins to have some better link with our tech community use of the &#8220;yak shaving&#8221; phrase. Oh well.</p>


guid: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/?p=593
url: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2018/04/05/government-snooping-encryption/
title: Government snooping and breaking encryption. Hurrah!
published: 2018-04-05 11:30:50
fetched: 2019-10-26 00:00:14.424297
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.349661
updated_at: 2019-10-26 00:00:15.293110
summary:
  I was just looking at some old photos from this time last year. A year ago the weather was a lot better and I finally made it to Bletchley Park. It filled me with chest-thumping patriotic pride to think of these code-breakers puzzling over intercepted nazi messages, and inventing brilliant machines to break the code. [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><a title="Bletchley Park Bombe Machine" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/harrywood/32938135664/in/dateposted-public/" data-flickr-embed="true" style="float:right;"><img class="alignright" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2806/32938135664_83ea8a7f54.jpg" alt="Bletchley Park Bombe Machine" width="375" height="500" /></a>I was just looking at some old photos from this time last year. A year ago the <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/harrywood/33740298596/in/dateposted-public/">weather was a lot better</a> and I finally made it to Bletchley Park.</p>
  <p>It filled me with chest-thumping patriotic pride to think of these code-breakers puzzling over intercepted nazi messages, and inventing brilliant machines to break the code. A good old bit of government snooping and breaking encryption. hurrah!</p>
  <p>It was a curious coincidence to return home on the same day, and see on the evening news, the home secretary <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/26/intelligence-services-access-whatsapp-amber-rudd-westminster-attack-encrypted-messaging">Amber Rudd declaring that it was “completely unacceptable” that the government could not read messages protected by end-to-end encryption</a>. There had been a small terrorism incident in which a few people were killed by a nutter with a gun at Westmister. Hardly deserving of the &#8216;T&#8217; word. Apparently he had sent a WhatsApp message. So naturally this was being used as an excuse to enlarge government snooping powers. A good old bit of government snooping and breaking encryption. hurrah!</p>
  <p>The enigma code was a different matter though. British code-breakers versus the nazi war machine.</p>
  <p>It&#8217;s a well known story, but I learned a few things at Bletchley park, particularly while putting my stupid questions to a member of staff. I asked about what came before enigma. Radio signals had been extensively encrypted by various communication networks of the German military for years before the outbreak of war, and Poland had been extensively snooping, mapping out all these networks (a complex challenge in itself), and breaking various levels of encryption in a cat &#8216;n&#8217; mouse game. They were able to pass on all of this information to the Brits. We were only carrying on with the game.</p>
  <p>But with enigma machines the nazis thought they had an unbreakable code. To crack it, Alan Turing built the Bombe. This is often described as a forebear of modern computers.  The star attraction at Bletchley Park is a working (moving!) replica. It moves with spectacular spinning and clunking noises. Watching the way it moves, it&#8217;s obvious that the spinning drums are performing a kind of brute force attack, trying every combination to break the encryption. But the replica is not complete, and actually seeing <em>behind</em> the drums where they are still missing, is very revealing. Metal brushes on the back of the rotating drums, brush over these metal contact pads. Behind the scenes they&#8217;re wired up so that an electrical current flows and the machine suddenly stops when it hits upon the correct combination.</p>
  <p><a title="Bletchley Park Bombe Machine" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/harrywood/33740299836/in/dateposted-public/" data-flickr-embed="true"><img src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3854/33740299836_5e1662022c.jpg" alt="Bletchley Park Bombe Machine" width="500" height="375" /></a></p>
  <p>I was amazed and delighted by the simplicity of that idea. The whole giant contraption is just a great big electrical circuit, with some mechanical movement thrown in. We can see and understand the machine at a very low level, in a way which is much harder with modern computers. In computer science studies we learn about all the lovely layers between applications like this web browser, right down to&#8230;  well ultimately an electrical circuit. However I actually deliberately chose a computer science degree course which <em>didn&#8217;t</em> involve hardware, because I found that low level stuff uninteresting. I have a vague understanding, but maybe I should try building <a href="http://nand2tetris.org">tetris with nand gates</a> some time!</p>
  <p>Although there&#8217;s a beautiful electromechanical simplicity to the Bombe, the less low level aspects (the details of the cryptography problem it&#8217;s actually trying to solve) are harder to understand. There&#8217;s a good <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4V2bpZlqx8">numberphile video</a> explaining some of it.</p>
  <p>To come up with these solutions in 1940, Turing was surely a genius. He clearly knows the necessary hashtags. We rewarded him with chemical castration as a punishment for being gay, which drove him to suicide. Hurrah Great Britain!</p>


guid: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/?p=692
url: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2018/02/12/new-job-at-opencorporates/
title: New job at OpenCorporates
published: 2018-02-12 01:22:42
fetched: 2019-10-26 00:00:14.424297
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.352477
updated_at: 2019-10-26 00:00:15.295418
summary:
  A month ago I started a new job. This is a big deal for me because I&#8217;d been in at TransportAPI for eight years. But time for a new job in 2018! I&#8217;ve just started at OpenCorporates. OpenCorporates provides company listings data. It has a database of corporate entities, rather like Companies House in the [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>A month ago I started a new job. This is a big deal for me because I&#8217;d been in at <a href="https://www.transportapi.com">TransportAPI</a> for eight years. But time for a new job in 2018! I&#8217;ve just started at <a href="https://opencorporates.com">OpenCorporates</a>.</p>
  <p><center><a href="http://opencorporates.com"><img class="wp-image-695 size-full alignnone" src="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/opencorporates-1.png" alt="" width="575" height="162" srcset="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/opencorporates-1.png 575w, http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/opencorporates-1-300x85.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 575px) 100vw, 575px" /></a></center>OpenCorporates provides company listings data. It has a database of corporate entities, rather like Companies House in the UK, but bringing together this and similar datasets from countries all around the world.</p>
  <p>Now &#8220;company listings data&#8221; may sound rather dull, but there&#8217;s a couple of aspects of this which I think are quite exciting: open data and&#8230; fighting crime and injustice!</p>
  <h3>Open Data</h3>
  <p>At one stage the Companies House website was only open during working hours (Yes. Hilariously the website&#8217;s clunky querying interface stopped working after 6pm!). Aside from making itself a target of general ridicule from tech people, companies house also became a target of the emerging &#8220;open data&#8221; campaign at the time. About a decade ago the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/free-our-data">guardian &#8220;Free Our Data&#8221; column</a> was leading the march, campaigning for data releases. I also remember attending a &#8220;National Hack the Government&#8221; event hosted by the guardian, with all sorts of hijinks of civic hacking tech people who were producing better versions of government websites and, if necessary, taking data by force (brute force scraping) to do so.</p>
  <p>From these kinds of mischievous beginnings OpenCorporates was born. I remember bumping into Chris Taggart at various conferences and events around this time, while I was generally running around beating the OpenStreetMap drum. Later I ended up working with TransportAPI, and TransportAPI ended up sharing an office space with OpenCorporates at the <a href="https://theodi.org">Open Data Institute</a> for a while.</p>
  <p>Companies House went on to get their act together considerably (spurred on by those early civic hackers no doubt). Meanwhile OpenCorporates continues to campaign for open data releases from other governments around the world. My point is, OpenCorporates is very much historically and currently part of the open data movement. I regard <i>any</i> open data work as a kind of &#8220;social good&#8221;, but if you think about it, company listings are really a flagship example of the kind of dataset any government <i>absolutely should</i> be making public and easy to use.</p>
  <h3>Fighting crime and injustice!</h3>
  <p>This brings me onto the other aspect. A more dramatic kind of &#8220;social good&#8221;. OpenCorporates, by making company listings data more available, is fighting crime and injustice &#8230;if a little indirectly.</p>
  <p>A &#8220;registered company&#8221; might be a high-street shop or some other real-world bricks-and-mortar thing, but often not. Registered companies are legal and financial constructs which get used and abused in all sorts of ways. We see examples of dodgy dealings on any episode of &#8220;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Traders_(TV_series)">rogue traders</a>&#8221; where it invariably reveals how bad people closed down a company, and re-started under a new name to shake off the authorities. It&#8217;s clearly too easy to get away with. Company listings data provides a little bit of an antidote by helping with transparency and knowing who you are doing business with.</p>
  <p><a href="http://treasureislands.org"><img class="alignleft wp-image-694 size-full" style="margin: 10px; float: left;" src="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/treasure-islands.png" alt="" width="260" height="404" srcset="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/treasure-islands.png 260w, http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/treasure-islands-193x300.png 193w" sizes="(max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px" /></a>But that&#8217;s just small time fraud. When I started at OpenCorporates they gave me a copy of the book &#8220;<a href="http://treasureislands.org">Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World&#8221;</a> by Nicholas Shaxson. It describes tax avoidance, tax evasion, money-laundering, and flows of criminal funds enabled by offshore &#8220;secrecy jurisdictions&#8221;. It builds up a picture of this as not just a side-show by a dishonest minority, but widespread deeply embedded system of corrupting influence benefitting the rich and powerful, at the expense of everyone else. The problem feels unsolvable as we realise that the corruption runs deep within all of our governments.</p>
  <p><i>&#8220;Rich governments cannot be trusted to do the right thing on tax havens and transparency. Many will demand more transparency and international cooperation even as they work to frustrate both. They will call for reasoned debate as they engage in character assassination  secret deals and worse. They will talk the language of democracy and freedom the better to defend unaccountable, irresponsible power and privilege.&#8221;</i></p>
  <p>It&#8217;s a pretty eye-opening and pretty horrifying book!</p>
  <p>The book details some specific financial tricks and loopholes, but generally the idea for a global company (or crime syndicate, or just a wealthy individual) is to have your accountants and lawyers create a tangled web of different corporate entities registered in different jurisdictions, with maximum secrecy making it almost impossible for tax authorities or financial regulators to pin down your assets, profits, risks, and capital. There are many layers of financial trickery, but it&#8217;s clear that corporate registrations are the key vehicle for this kind of skullduggery.</p>
  <p>As such, data on registered corporate entities is vital. It doesn&#8217;t solve all the problems of financial secrecy. Investigators will need to piece together a lot more about companies, their assets, the true owners and beneficiaries, and their links with other entities, in order to cut through the information void created deliberately to bamboozle them. But it&#8217;s a start. Company listings form a kind of information bed-rock upon which other information and investigation can be built. Whether it&#8217;s an investigative journalist looking to crack open a high profile case, or a tax authority, or a just somebody looking to establish the trustworthiness of a company, OpenCorporates helps enable this important work. It puts the information out there more publicly and in more useful formats to help shed a little bit of light on this murky world of crime and tax dodging.</p>
  <p>Maybe &#8220;fighting crime and injustice&#8221;, is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_(2010_American_film)">super</a>-style exaggeration. Folks like the <a href="https://www.taxjustice.net">Tax Justice Network</a> are tackling this big problem more head on, but OpenCorporates helps chip away at the problem with a more bottom-up data-oriented approach.</p>
  <h3>The new job</h3>
  <p>So I&#8217;m getting my head into this new subject area, and <a href="https://blog.opencorporates.com/2018/01/25/meet-harry-wood-software-engineer/">joining OpenCorporates as a software engineer</a>. It&#8217;s primarily Ruby on Rails development, but with lots of infrastructure and data processing challenges. Fun stuff! We&#8217;re based in the main pointy tower at Canary Wharf. We just had our office warming party in a new place 42 storeys up.</p>
  <p>If you fancy joining me there, we are hiring back-end engineers, infrastructure engineers, and data analysts. Check out <a href="https://jobs.opencorporates.com">jobs.opencorporates.com</a>!</p>


guid: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/?p=688
url: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2017/11/18/printable-calendar-tool/
title: Printable Calendar tool
published: 2017-11-18 22:49:10
fetched: 2019-10-26 00:00:14.424297
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.355240
updated_at: 2019-10-26 00:00:15.297962
summary:
  Here&#8217;s a little thing I just found (I have lots of silly bits of code like this kicking around) : Printable Calendar Generate a calendar in a strip layout, suitable for printing, with lots of space for writing notes next to each date. I originally did this as a visual basic word macro, then later [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>Here&#8217;s a little thing I just found (I have lots of silly bits of code like this kicking around) :</p>
  <p><b><big><a href="/calendar.php">Printable Calendar</a></big></b></p>
  <p>Generate a calendar in a strip layout, suitable for printing, with lots of space for writing notes next to each date.</p>
  <p>I originally did this as a visual basic word macro, then later as <a href="https://github.com/harry-wood/printable-calendar/blob/master/calendar.php">this php script</a>.</p>
  <p>I used to use this to do big calendar printouts to help with family logistics, usually at this time of year, covering the months around Christmas. That&#8217;s back when we four kids were all home for Christmas in Yorkshire, all with our own overlapping plans. Nowadays we might do a shared google calendar instead, but I remember the scrawlings all over the calendar wall used to be quite fun.</p>


guid: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/?p=682
url: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2017/10/05/a-tech-manifesto-from-2007/
title: A tech manifesto from 2007
published: 2017-10-04 23:50:21
fetched: 2019-10-26 00:00:14.424297
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.357580
updated_at: 2019-10-26 00:00:15.300145
summary:
  I&#8217;ve just been tidying some old content on this website, which I&#8217;d written just over 10 years ago now. Back then I wrote a kind of tech manifesto, or at least a collection of various broad thoughts of tech and the IT industry I was working in at the time. I haven&#8217;t worked as an [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>I&#8217;ve just been tidying some old content on this website, which I&#8217;d written just over 10 years ago now. Back then I wrote a kind of <b>tech manifesto</b>, or at least a collection of various broad thoughts of tech and the IT industry I was working in at the time. I haven&#8217;t worked as an enterprise integration consultant since 2009, and some of it is out-of-date in various other ways. Some of it feels like it&#8217;s noticeably coming from my naive younger self.</p>
  <ul>
  <li>
  <p><a href="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2007/03/03/i-hate-the-word-geek/">I hate the word &#8220;geek&#8221;</a>. I don&#8217;t really hate the word of course, and that&#8217;s not the point I was trying to make. I stand by the idea that we should always work to close the separation between &#8220;geeks&#8221; and &#8220;normal people&#8221;. The march of technological progress does this for us of course. If I think back to 2007, the internet was actually a lot less mainstream. Fewer people with broadband at home (including me!). Fewer people required to use the internet or even computers as part of their work. It used to be that &#8220;geeks&#8221; were people who knew how to use computers and were super savvy with the internet. Nowadays that&#8217;s everyone. My 2 year old son is already getting the hang of it! Nowadays I see an interesting push to get more people from more diverse backgrounds to learn to code.</p>
  </li>
  <li>
  <p><a href="https://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2007/03/03/its-a-people-thing/">It’s a people thing</a> was a piece complaining that clients should discuss high level requirements rather than skipping ahead to designing a solution. This is an accepted anti-waterfall principle rolled into &#8220;agile&#8221; these days. Perhaps it goes without saying, &#8230;except it&#8217;s still a common mistake. I recall a few occasions since writing that, when I&#8217;ve worked on projects which jumped to discussing a technical solution before getting a high level view of problems we were solving.</p>
  <p>I also talked about user interface design. I think I had a bit of a bee in my bonnet about the project I was on at the time, but I do remember leaving that particular project with great satisfaction at having implemented some of the UI ideas despite initially having them shot down. Since then there has been a couple of times where I&#8217;ve found myself surprised by colleagues&#8217; failure to see obvious UI improvements. It makes me wonder whether user interface design is a talent I&#8217;ve not really appreciated within myself. Maybe I should do more of that kind of work.</p>
  </li>
  <li>
  <p>
  With <a href="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2007/03/03/it-project-politics/">IT project politics</a>, I was talking in general terms, but really I was bearing my soul about some frustrations with my consulting job. Some of the assignments with Green Hat Consulting involved parachuting into a pretty hostile environment. When I quit that industry and went to work in a more fresh funky start-up I left the politics behind on the whole, but of course you never really escape that kind of thing completely. I guess the golden rule I still have to remind myself of would be: work with people you like (and if you don&#8217;t, leave, because life&#8217;s too short)</p>
  </li>
  <li>
  <p><a href="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2007/03/03/maintainable-software/">Maintainable Software</a>. Maybe I had a fairly simplistic view of what makes good software back then, but I think I was just glossing over the details. Obviously there&#8217;s a whole universe of coding best practices which make code maintainable, beyond &#8220;comments and meaningful variable names&#8221;. In fact <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=comments+are+bad&#038;oq=comments+are+bad">comments are bad</a> &#8230;sometimes. I think keeping up with recommendations and knowing which wisdom to follow and which to discard may be the real skill. Being an &#8220;opinionated coder&#8221;, and taking pride in your craft. In any case, I&#8217;m sure I was correct in saying that most developers consider their own code to be good code. &#8230;and I still didn&#8217;t learn to drive!</p>
  <p>I was also ranting about documentation. Again I think this was a bee I had my bonnet related a particular request to document a particular project at the time. But it remains a reasonable point, that documentation can be seen as an afterthought; a project delivery box to tick. I quite like documentation. The interesting challenge of trying to distill the most important hand-over information for a project, without making something which is just too long for anyone to bother reading. Also mechanisms to help ensure docs are kept up-to-date e.g. keeping docs close to the code or part of the code. I like that github have  establish a nice convention of supplying a README.md file for each repo.
  </p>
  </li>
  </ul>
  <p>On the whole my &#8220;tech manifesto&#8221; of a decade ago wasn&#8217;t too bad, but a lot&#8217;s happened in 10 years, and some of these thoughts were starting to feel quite old. So I decided today that they belong in the blog archive.</p>
  <p>But what would I write about if I were to pick some points to make about tech and the IT industry in 2017? (Not sure we even call it the &#8220;IT industry&#8221; so much these days). I don&#8217;t think I would try. Clearly such things are destined to go out of date. A single page of thoughts also feels incomplete, but maybe I should add some more deep thinking to the <a href="http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/category/technology/">blog category &#8216;technology&#8217;</a></p>


guid: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/?p=602
url: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2017/09/18/diagrams-of-openstreetmap/
title: My SOTM 2017 talk: Diagrams of OpenStreetMap
published: 2017-09-18 12:19:23
fetched: 2019-10-26 00:00:14.424297
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.360328
updated_at: 2019-10-26 00:00:15.302757
summary:
  I gave a talk at State Of the Map 2017, the official OpenStreetMap annual conference, which took place in Japan last month. &#8220;The Diagrams of OpenStreetMap&#8221; is a tour of a various diagrams illustrating the project, but focussing more on my own diagramming efforts, including quite a few new diagrams I produced especially for this [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><img style="float: right; margin: 10px;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/sotm2017talk-video-frame.jpg" width="332" height="219" /><br />
  I gave a talk at State Of the Map 2017, the official OpenStreetMap annual conference, which took place in Japan last month.</p>
  <p>&#8220;The Diagrams of OpenStreetMap&#8221; is a tour of a various diagrams illustrating the project, but focussing more on my own diagramming efforts, including quite a few new diagrams I produced especially for this talk.</p>
  <p>I would have mentioned in my talk, but I wasn&#8217;t going public with it at the time: I&#8217;m going to be available for new work opportunities soon. Maybe I can find something map related? We shall see (suggestions welcome). In any case I&#8217;ve been involved in OpenStreetMap, mostly as a volunteer, for over a decade now, and so I&#8217;m well placed to try to capture some &#8220;big picture&#8221; overviews of the project&#8230; in diagram form! That&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve tried to do here.</p>
  <p><b><a href="http://2017.stateofthemap.org/2017/diagrams-of-openstreetmap/">Watch the video</a></b> on the conference site</p>
  <p><b><a href="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/sotm2017-harry-wood.odp">Slides as a LibreOffice .odp file (7.3Mb)</a></b></p>
  <p>But the following are slides and transcript as one big long blog post. In total there&#8217;s a whopping 61 slides (I was talking through them quite quickly). I&#8217;ve skipped over some animation step slides to reduce this down a bit, but still a lots of slides:</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Jump to slide:<br />
  <a href="#slide1">1</a>, <a href="#slide2">2</a>, <a href="#slide3">3</a>, <a href="#slide4">4</a>, <a href="#slide5">5</a>, <a href="#slide6">6</a>, <a href="#slide7">7</a>, <a href="#slide8">8</a>, <a href="#slide9">9</a>, <a href="#slide10">10</a>, <a href="#slide11">11</a>, <a href="#slide12">12</a>, <a href="#slide13">13</a>, <a href="#slide14">14</a>, <a href="#slide15">15</a>, <a href="#slide16">16</a>, <a href="#slide17">17</a>, <a href="#slide18">18</a>, <a href="#slide19">19</a>, <a href="#slide20">20</a>, <a href="#slide35">35</a>, <a href="#slide36">36</a>, <a href="#slide37">37</a>, <a href="#slide38">38</a>, <a href="#slide39">39</a>, <a href="#slide40">40</a>, <a href="#slide41">41</a>, <a href="#slide42">42</a>, <a href="#slide43">43</a>, <a href="#slide44">44</a>, <a href="#slide45">45</a>, <a href="#slide46">46</a>, <a href="#slide47">47</a>, <a href="#slide48">48</a>, <a href="#slide49">49</a>, <a href="#slide50">50</a>, <a href="#slide51">51</a>, <a href="#slide52">52</a>, <a href="#slide53">53</a>, <a href="#slide54">54</a>, <a href="#slide55">55</a>, <a href="#slide56">56</a>, <a href="#slide57">57</a>, <a href="#slide58">58</a>, <a href="#slide59">59</a>, <a href="#slide60">60</a>, <a href="#slide61">61</a></p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide1"></a></p>
  <p><!-- SOTM-Japan.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide1">Slide 1</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img0.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>This talk is called “Diagrams of OpenStreetMap”. I started thinking about this after my previous 2014 State Of The Map talk.</p>
  <p><span id="more-602"></span></p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide2"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img1.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide2">Slide 2</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img1.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>In Buenos Aires I ran through some favourite visualisations which in some way capture the essence of OpenStreetMap</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide3"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img2.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide3">Slide 3</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img2.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>But I was mostly talking about the “long tail of OpenStreetMap”. The long tail graph shows a spike of a few big contributors on the left, and long tail of many people chipping in a little bit at the bottom.</p>
  <p>I annotated this in various ways in that talk. I think this was my favourite. It’s showing the marketing messaging and really everything we do to make OpenStreetMap easier, which all can be related to different positions on the long tail graph.</p>
  <p>We’re enticing a potential audience of many millions of people to come take a look at the website and find out about OpenStreetMap for the first time. Then enticing some of those millions to join the ranks of signed up users because you might want to edit… and then trying to entice those people to actually make an edit, since there are many signed up users who do not. So perhaps the message at that stage is to “be bold” and give editing a try.</p>
  <p>I suppose it’s also showing that messaging for new joiners and website visitors, is very important in terms of number of people it applies to.</p>
  <p>I like this kind of thing. A “big picture” diagram which tries to capture all of OpenStreetMap, or some aspect of it, explaining our project in a particular way.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide4"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img3.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide4">Slide 4</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img3.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Big picture diagrams are something I’ve been trying to do for a long time now. One of my very early contributions to the project was this technical components diagram &#8230;a decade ago now!</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide5"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img4.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide5">Slide 5</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img4.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>You may recognise it better if I show it like this. It was designed as a little illustration for the “develop” page on the wiki, where we listed various technical development activities. This page was fairly prominently linked and used to get a fair bit of attention, so it felt like an important diagram despite being pretty basic.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide6"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img5.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide6">Slide 6</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img5.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>And this diagram went through a lot of different revisions, which you can see in<a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:OSM_Components.png#filehistory"> the wiki histor</a>y.</p>
  <p>The way the diagram developed was actually kind of interesting. It represents some historical changes, but also an evolution of my own understanding.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide7"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img6.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide7">Slide 7</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img6.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>It starts off with the “Java Applet” editor which feels like early history of the project now.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide8"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img7.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide8">Slide 8</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img7.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>That was largely replaced by Potlatch in the next revision, and you can see I’m refining my understanding of how the tile rendering systems work.</p>
  <p>We had a strange idea of calling the API the “Protocol Interface” at this stage, and you can see that I’ve incorrectly shown the “Planet.osm” feeding from the API. This is wrong&#8230;</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide9"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img8.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide9">Slide 9</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img8.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>….but fixed in the next revision, in November that year.</p>
  <p>We’re showing JOSM consuming Yahoo! Aerial imagery via the “YWMS Plugin”. Remember that? That was rubbish. This still feels like early history</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide10"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img9.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide10">Slide 10</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img9.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>It went unedited for a while but here in 2009 I did another update. We’re calling it the “API” now and introducing the “diffs” alongside the planet dump.</p>
  <p>So as I say, this was an evolution of my own understanding as much as anything. So a few people were involved in the sense that they were telling me the stupid things I was getting wrong, but… I was always hoping for some direct collaboration on this diagram, and later that year&#8230;</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide11"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img10.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide11">Slide 11</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img10.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Boom! Collaboration!</p>
  <p>Well sort of… ivansanchez redrew the whole diagram into this more spectacular creation, overwriting with the wiki comment (which you have to imagine spoken in Ivan’s cheeky spanish accent) :</p>
  <p>“Brand new architecture diagram. I was getting bored of the old one (which by the way looked amateurish)”</p>
  <p>Thanks ivan. Thank you very much! <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/11/72x72/1f600.png" alt="😀" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /></p>
  <p>He was right though wasn’t he? It <i>was</i> pretty amateurish. This looks much more of a pro job</p>
  <p>Although&#8230; it’s getting more complicated. Showing more components, which may or may not be regarded as a good thing.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide12"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img11.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide12">Slide 12</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img11.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>And the diagram continued from there through a few more iterations, with somebody else getting involved too to add some colours.</p>
  <p>&#8230;up until this point in 2012. At this time it was removed from the <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Develop">“Develop” page on the wik</a>i, and I think around the same time, the entire wiki was de-linked from the front page a bit, meaning this diagram no longer got much attention.</p>
  <p>This seemed like a shame to me so&#8230;</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide13"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img12.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide13">Slide 13</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img12.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Especially for this talk I decided to blow the dust off it, and make some more changes.</p>
  <p>Now first of all I actually largely re-created the diagram because Ivan only had OpenOffice files from an earlier version, so I’ve recreated this in Inkscape now, and got it working <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:OSM_Components.svg">directly from SVG within the wiki</a>. Rather a fiddly task actually, but I’m hoping this may encourage more people to make edits to it</p>
  <p>I also made various obvious updates. So I’ve included ‘iD’ editor alongside ‘P2’ (I have to thank Richard here for choosing nice short names for editors. Made drawing this bit of the diagram much easier!) and I’ve added some mobile editors.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide14"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img13.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide14">Slide 14</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img13.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>The right hand side shows some tile rendering systems. I got rid of MapQuest, and we’re showing just those which are featured on the main page here. We show Leaflet and OpenLayers options at the top.</p>
  <p>But it feels like there’s a huge range of output possibilities not really covered by this.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide15"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img14.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide15">Slide 15</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img14.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>So I’ve done another iteration. This is the <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Component_overview#Diagram">components diagram</a> as it currently looks.</p>
  <p>You may have seen my blog post about this. I’ve had a go at adding a bit more detail to the right hand side&#8230;</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide16"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img15.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide16">Slide 16</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img15.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Near the top we’re now showing other web map libraries, and also mobile apps with web mapping app SDKs.</p>
  <p>I’ve tried to introduce “vector tiles” here. We can feed vector tiles into a raster rendering system (e.g. as a Mapnik datasource), sending raster tiles to the browser as before, but these days we can also use “Vector Plugins” such as <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/api/">Mapbox GL JS</a> / Tangram to render vector tile data in the browser. Likewise in the mobile SDKs.</p>
  <p>I’m happy with this as as a conceptual summary diagram but vector tiles is a confusing array of different technologies on server-side and client-side, following different standards/schemas. I’m confused by this, so I’m probably the wrong person to try to draw such a diagram, but I think this is also a clue that this is an information gap, and a great diagram could help bring clarity to me and to lots of other people. So can we find a diagram to help with this?</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide17"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img16.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide17">Slide 17</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img16.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>I found <a href="https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/55685/generate-styled-map-tiles">this diagram on the Q&amp;A site</a> which made me laugh.</p>
  <p>Map data from OpenStreetMap(s!), a style definition, in the end map tiles, and &#8230;what is that ’???’ thing in the middle?</p>
  <p>Not a very revealing diagram, but just look how much more interesting this question is when there’s a diagram added!</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide18"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img17.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide18">Slide 18</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img17.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>This diagram is probably the closest to what I’m looking for actually. I found this in the <a href="https://delftswa.gitbooks.io/desosa-2017/content/mapbox-gl-js/chapter.html">Delft Students on Software Architecture</a>, so some sort of university project to document open source, with a chapter on Mapbox GL JS. We’ve got boxes for client and server side components and various mapbox technologies and APIs. I don’t understand some of the arrow directions here.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide19"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img18.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide19">Slide 19</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img18.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>But what I’m looking for is a diagram with boxes and arrows for the range of different vector technologies from MapBox, Mapzen, OpenMapTiles, ThunderForest, Wikimedia, also the various client-side libraries, and laying out the different standards, and some indication of compatibility (the concept of vector tile “schema” and how that effects compatibility)</p>
  <p>This is a sketch I drew while chatting with Matt in the pub, but when I got home I realised I didn’t understand it! Always the way.</p>
  <p>Unless anyone can suggest an existing diagram, I hope to revisit this, and I hope to pick the brains of people at this conference to understand it better.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide20"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img19.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide20">Slide 20</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img19.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>OK. Here’s another diagram I created quite a while ago. Actually I think I was regarding it as a successor to the component diagram for some purposes. It’s showing fewer technologies, just some key ones and broad concepts and trying to show an ecosystem of data users.</p>
  <p>Actually I created this, not just as a diagram, but as a slide deck forming a kind of animation, introducing tech topics as the diagram builds up.</p>
  <p>I’ve presented this four or five times now, to various technical/developer audiences, as an introduction to OpenStreetMap.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide35"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img34.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide35">Slide 35</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img34.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>I found <a href="http://letters-sal.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/openstreetmap-post-earthquake-mapping.html">this diagram by Steve Bower</a> which does a similar thing of placing the raw OpenStreetMap data at the centre of the diagram, with many arrows radiating out from it.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide36"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img35.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide36">Slide 36</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img35.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>I like this diagram by Andy Woodruff from a <a href="http://maptimeboston.github.io/web-maps-101/#47">web maps 101 maptime talk</a>. That’s for a similar web developer type audience, and the diagram covers the tile server rendering bits.</p>
  <p>I like the way it also has “feature layers” coming in on the right hand side. That’s the bit web developers tend to be more familiar with from using google maps (which offers less control of the left hand side)</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide37"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img36.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide37">Slide 37</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img36.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Sticking with tech topics for a little longer…</p>
  <p>Here is a diagram by Komяpa showing the <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Database">database of OpenStreetMap</a> (website &amp; API). Maybe this kind of thing is useful for developers?</p>
  <p>At this zoom it might be better not listing out the fields and just show table names. But I showed this to some of the sysadmins and we played a game of “guess the database table”. The well linked table on the left with lots of fields is the ‘user’ table. The well linked table on the right is the ‘changesets’.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide38"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img37.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide38">Slide 38</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img37.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Here’s<a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Rails_port/Railroad_diagrams"> diagram showing the rails app “models”</a>, which is more or less the same thing but a little different.</p>
  <p>This is very old. Shaun did this in 2008, so maybe we should try re-running this “Railroad” tool to regenerate it now. The fact that this whole diagram is automatically generated, is kind of interesting.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide39"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img38.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide39">Slide 39</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img38.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Here’s something a bit different, but again automatically generated.</p>
  <p>Matias Dahl made these <a href="http://matiasdahl.iki.fi/2015/finding-related-amenity-tags-on-the-openstreetmap">diagrams which show tag transitions</a>, meaning it’s tracking things which have changed from one tag to another, and looking at the statistical frequence of these transitions, which turns up some interesting linkages, showing that tags are related, but often confused, perhaps because they are very similar or overlapping in their definition.</p>
  <p>These are all prefixed with the amenity key, so we can see in the example I’ve pulled out, that people commonly “fix” these various other values to become amenity=drinking_water . You can imagine people might accidentally tag something as amenity=fountain when they meant a drinking water fountain. So that’s just an example, but on the right is the really big diagram covering lots of interlinked amenity tags. And being an automated process, he could re-run it for other keys.</p>
  <p>This is a neat use of the big “history dump”. He had to crunch all of that data rather than just the current “planet dump” in order to figure out these tag transitions.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide40"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img39.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide40">Slide 40</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img39.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>OK. Something completely different now. We’ve been fairly techy so far, but how about this for a diagram?</p>
  <p>This is an old diagram which Steve Coast used to show, to explain the project in the early days. The idea is, as OSM quality improves at zero cost, moving along the bottom axis, we start to exert a downward pressure on the price point of traditionally licensed closed data providers, even if we haven’t yet reached their level of “quality”.</p>
  <p>This is UK specific, talking about the Ordnance Survey, but you might be able to draw a similar diagram showing a monopolistic over-charging data supplier in your country.</p>
  <p>&#8230;and actually the situation in the UK has changed now.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide41"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img40.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide41">Slide 41</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img40.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Ordnance Survey released some of their datasets as free open data, so we have to show this rather more complicated picture. Different products. Different price points. Debatable positions on the quality scale (depending on your use case)</p>
  <p>I find it useful to show this, if only to point out that the Ordnance Survey have <i>not</i> released all of their products as open data (a common misconception)</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide42"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img41.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide42">Slide 42</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img41.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Here’s a different diagram. An “organisation chart” for HOT. These are the HOT paid employees. We can see their different teams.</p>
  <p>I really like that we can see their mugshots. It feels softer, more human, and more real than just showing people’s names. It makes us feel we <i>know</i> each other better.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide43"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img42.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide43">Slide 43</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img42.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>We also use mugshots on this page, which is showing HOT working groups. These are not staff but volunteers now. It could be interesting to blend the two diagrams somehow.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide44"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img43.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide44">Slide 44</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img43.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>What about the OpenStreetMap Foundation? It only has one member of staff doing admin, so the staff org chart would be boring, but we do have a board and some working groups arranged like this I suppose.</p>
  <p>Given that some working groups come and go and are more/less active, while others are like OWG and DWG are performing essential functions, it could be redrawn to show some being more important than others I suppose.</p>
  <p>But there’s an obvious limitation/problem with this diagram, and with the previous HOT diagrams. They don’t show anything of the big OpenStreetMap community where a lot of the action is. Some “work” happens in things like working groups, and HOT paid staff positions, but vast amounts of “work” go into making OpenStreetMap great outside of these organisation structures.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide45"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img44.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide45">Slide 45</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img44.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>&#8230;in what we might call a “disorganisational structure” (to be a little flippant)</p>
  <p>I have this vision of the OpenStreetMap community represented as a wibbly wobbly jelly blancmange thing. A big community of many volunteers working to build OpenStreetMap up into something great. Reaching upwards for the sky.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide46"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img45.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide46">Slide 46</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img45.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>People make collaborative contributions, or individual contributions, sometimes as one-offs before disappearing again.</p>
  <p>In the middle of the diagram we have folks working together, and managing to build on eachother’s work to some extent, for example with large important OSM projects like developing the core website &amp; api, and JOSM / iD editors. Things like “Overpass API” also get subsumed into this central column of collaboration, with many people building upon it, and relying on it as a stable bit of infrastructure. But like many things it started life as more of an individual pet project. A great contribution (forming a tall blob on the diagram), coming from the community at large and gradually being drawn in as a more central thing.</p>
  <p>This is not just about tech contributions though. It’s also people creating great documentation resources, or blogs, or building great local communities.</p>
  <p>But a lot of volunteer effort comes and goes. Things get set up but then get shut down a while later. There’s a lot of ebb and flow. A wibbly wobbly jelly.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide47"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img46.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide47">Slide 47</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img46.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>There’s various things which we might collectively call “Organisation building”, which I think of as attempts to build some solid structure. To make things less wibbly wobbly,</p>
  <p>Things like working groups, things done as university projects, or even paying staff to do certain things. These are slightly boring classic organisation type things, which can feel quite different from our normal volunteer driven do-ocracy.</p>
  <p>When I served on the board of HOT, we talked a lot about the challenges of building a “hybrid organisation”. This reinforced jelly diagram/metaphor popped into my head a lot. I think we should try to do organisation building activities in a way which is not working around or re-doing volunteer activities, but supporting them. Placing good solid cast iron girders for the community to climb upon, to bring OpenStreetMap to higher heights.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide48"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img47.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide48">Slide 48</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img47.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>OK. Something different again.</p>
  <p>Here’s a diagram which for a long time was shown on the first page of the wiki beginners guide. It shows the <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:First_Page2.PNG">mapping workflow in 5 steps</a>. Actually the whole wiki guide was structured around this. I think in a way that was quite good, because there’s many different ideas for ordering this guide. I think this diagram forced us to settle on one idea for the overall structure, partly because the graphics is quite nicely done, so nobody felt able to re-draw it!</p>
  <p>But the five steps may seem a bit weird. If you’ve never used a GPS unit, you may be wondering why that is presented as the first step in <i>the</i> mapping workflow. Actually the 2nd step is also referring to uploading of GPS data, “upload data” being a confusing title. Likewise “edit maps” and “edit data” are confusing titles for steps 3 and 4. It means “edit nodes/ways” and “edit tags”. Those are OK as titles for chapters of the guide, but here it seems to suggest you do one then the other as separate steps. I suspect the step 5 “render maps” also dates from a time back when we needed to run our own data through osmarender and upload the image to the wiki, because there <i>was</i> no front page map! All said and done, there’s lots wrong with this diagram, but&#8230;</p>
  <p>I’m interested in what we would replace it with nowadays. How do we capture the steps of mapping workflow in diagram form?</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide49"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img48.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide49">Slide 49</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img48.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>There are many different mapping workflows. In fact there always was, even back when it was all about using these GPS units. You could gather GPS tracks, giving you a spiderweb of lines along where the streets are, and then just name those streets etc from your local knowledge. But people have invented quite range of other ways to gather and record data. You could mess around with waypoints and write them down on paper. You could take photos and correlate them by timestamp (I used to do a lot of that). You could use a dictaphone.</p>
  <p>Some folks would just dump their GPS tracks and never do any editing of map data.Now that would mean that you could build upon this by gathering data (using just paper) about street names or POIs and position that it in relation to other people’s GPS tracks. In theory you could even simply add roads over other people’s GPS tracks without even knowing the area (an early kind of armchair mapping) but I don’t think this was a common approach.</p>
  <p>But of course we need to add aerial/satellite imagery to the picture here.</p>
  <p>It’s worth noting, before I do that, that there are still some parts of the world where we don’t have useable imagery, so these workflows are still where it’s at.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide50"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img49.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide50">Slide 50</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img49.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>I’m trying to show all the different combinations of tools and data sources we might use, so if we add the use of aerial imagery as a possibility, then we get this combinatorial explosion in the number of different mapping workflows.The bottom half of this, is showing workflows now incorporating imagery.</p>
  <p>But towards the bottom, some of these mapping workflows are made dramatically more viable when we have imagery. In particular, at the very bottom here, you can quite easily and effectively skip the data gathering stage entirely, and simply sit and home and edit the map based on what you see in the imagery. Armchair mapping!</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide51"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img50.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide51">Slide 51</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img50.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>OK but these combinations are getting out of hand. Let’s condense this down. Imagery can be thought of as an optional source for use while we are inputting our data. If it’s available you’ll generally use it, even if you’ve got lots of GPS tracks and photos etc, so it’s almost not worth mentioning there. But obviously it enables this big new approach of armchair mapping at the bottom.</p>
  <p>In the middle we’ve got paper based approaches. Map printouts like field papers, or just taking some notes on a piece of paper.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide52"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img51.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide52">Slide 52</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img51.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>But while we’re on the topic of paper, I want to draw attention to what I call the “Lubumbashi Workflow”. As a humanitarian mapping thing, people in Lubumbashi in DRC, were asked to write down street names and other details on field papers map printouts. These sheets of paper were then brought back to mapathons in London (and Berlin too I think) and we inputted the map data there.</p>
  <p>So this is a workflow involving two different sets of people. Because this editing is in an area we don’t know, maybe it’s a kind of armchair mapping (as humanitarian mapathons generally are) &#8230;but maybe not, because we’re taking this locally surveyed data, which is coming from the local community. We could think of it as a souped-up survey powered kind of armchair mapping.</p>
  <p>I love the Lubumbashi workflow by the way. A great way to get low-tech local communities involved. The approach has been used several times since, and we should carry on with more of this!</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide53"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img52.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide53">Slide 53</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img52.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>That’s not the only kind of souped-up survey powered armchair mapping actually. Connected to armchair mapping down in the bottom-right here, Street level photos from Mapillary and OpenStreetCam, and OSM Notes, when they are added by somebody else, can act as a new kind of data source for armchair mapping. Those new mapping workflows are a kind of <i>enhanced</i> armchair mapping, which feels closer to survey-based mapping.</p>
  <p>Another box I’ll add here is “community import”. This is where we’re using an external datasource, and we copy data into OpenStreetMap bit-by-bit as armchair mappers. Like imagery though, we might have a dataset available as an optional source to make use of during any editing session. I’ll talk a bit more about importing in a minute.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide54"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img53.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide54">Slide 54</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img53.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>I added field papers in yellow before, so let’s add a few more yellow boxes to this diagram for software/tools.</p>
  <p>For armchair mapping we (sometimes) use tools which guide us on what to map. “Tasking Manager” is obviously one, but “Maproulette” also does this in a different way.</p>
  <p>At the top in relation to “editing at home”, this is going to involve a desktop editor. JOSM and iD being the main options.</p>
  <p>And aha! There’s a whole workflow style I didn’t mention yet.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide55"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img54.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide55">Slide 55</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img54.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Mobile mapping! Mobile devices allow us a workflow which cuts through this devide between gathering data and inputting data. We do both at the same time, so a wide bar crossing both sides of the diagram. Typically that’s done with apps like Go Map!! on iPhone and Vespucci on android (There’s many other <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Editors">editor options</a> of course. I’m just showing some leading examples)</p>
  <p>Even when not using an app to input data, smartphones can make data gathering easer. In particular geo-located photos!</p>
  <p>So I want to put this forward as a new diagram to show mapping workflows. As with many diagrams we have to choose how much detail to show. I like the balance I’ve chosen here. As I showed earlier, trying to show more data source combinations gets pretty messy.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide56"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img55.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide56">Slide 56</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img55.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>We could choose to condense it down more. We can group mapping workflows into survey-based mapping, armchair mapping, and imports.</p>
  <p>I see these things on a spectrum. Survey mapping is rich and detailed and creates a dataset backed by a community of local mappers. At the other end of the spectrum, data imports will get mapping done very quickly, usually with even coverage. But (downsides) we’re blatting in data quickly, sometimes crudely, and side-stepping the community building problem. In the middle, armchair mapping e.g. with these big humanitarian tasking manager projects. It’s also blatting in data quite quickly, but at least at a human speed, using humans to use the OpenStreetMap editors, as part of, if not a local community, at least a community.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide57"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img56.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide57">Slide 57</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img56.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>I probably just said something you disagree with, because I’m very much straying into a divisive area of OpenStreetMap politics now.</p>
  <p>It’s a kind of tribal politics which Mike Migurski drew attention to, identifying groups he called “Craft Mappers”, “Humanitarian Mappers”, and “Robot Mappers”. He was discussing some particular debate related to robot mappers at the time, but I think it makes more sense to lump those in with a broader group of “Import” people. Anyway he labelled these groups and then…</p>
  <p>&#8230;went on to conclude that “Craft Mappers” are all wrong and taking the project in a bad direction, which I disagree with pretty fundamentally.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide58"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img57.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide58">Slide 58</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img57.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>The idea of doing survey-based mapping, is not just some old idea we need to move on from. It’s core to what OpenStreetMap <i>is</i>. “Map your neighbourhood”, because if we all map our own neighbourhood and get enough people to do this, then we’ll have a free map of the world. Many hands make light work. A huge community of people coming together to create the map, and to maintain the map. It’s what makes OpenStreetMap unique. We’re not just an aggregation of data. Our map is created by a community. The data is backed by a community.</p>
  <p>Imports, armchair mapping, and humanitarian mapping (which largely overlaps armchair mapping) are <i>extensions</i> to the core idea of OpenStreetMap. They should be carried out with due deference to the core idea of OpenStreetMap. This means finding ways to minimise anything which detracts or impedes the message and the practicalities of “map your neighbourhood” community growth.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide59"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img58.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide59">Slide 59</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img58.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>But I agree with one point Mike Migurski’s was making, that it feels like some unhealthy tribal politics has developed here. This “craft mapper” group of old timers are in danger of being seen as the “grumpy old farts” of OpenStreetMap, particularly if this group seems to be cliquey, unwelcoming and negative all the time.</p>
  <p>But the “map your neighbourhood” message is a positive message, and a welcoming message. It’s <i>all about</i> welcoming more mappers to our community (but making sure we don’t do anything to inhibit that)</p>
  <p>So to the craft mappers I want to say, let’s find ways to amplify that positive message. Less of the snide remarks in back-channels. Less of the polarised entrenched viewpoints. And let’s try not to be grinding on with negativity too much.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide60"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img59.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide60">Slide 60</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img59.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>This will help us to become more unified and less tribal.</p>
  <p>But if you are looking upon craft mappers as grumpy old farts, I would ask for your understanding. It’s not easy to defend these principles without sounding negative. Understand what OpenStreetMap <i>is</i> at its core. If you’ve only ever done humanitarian mapping, try mapping your neighbourhood just once. You might like it! Let’s keep refining the HOT validation process to help ensure we’re not blatting low quality data too quickly, and (In the developing world this is always going to be difficult but) wherever and however possible, let’s keep doing what we can to foster <i>local</i> communities and local mapping in addition to the armchair mapping.</p>
  <p>If you’re keen on imports, understand that we don’t want OpenStreetMap to feel like a data dumping ground. Blatting in data could be detrimental to community-building; The “map your neighbourhood” thing we’re operating here. Again, understand what OpenStreetMap <i>is</i>. Follow the guidelines. Sell your import idea to the community, but dont get angry if our community doesn’t buy it.</p>
  <p>Sometimes defending the core idea of OpenStreetMap can feel like an unavoidably negative discussion. Let’s look for ways to positively advise and reinforce the behaviour shifts we want to see from armchair mappers and importers. Set out rules, but also friendly guidance, and reminders of the reasons &amp; the principles we’re defending. Find consensus on where we should draw the line. And let’s <i>celebrate</i> examples of where it’s done well.</p>
  <p>Unify the tribes of OpenStreetMap!</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <hr />
  <p><a name="slide61"></a></p>
  <p><!-- img60.html --></p>
  <h3><a title="permalink" href="#slide61">Slide 61</a></h3>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p><center><img style="border: 1px solid #DDD;" src="//harrywood.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/img60.png" /></center>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>&#8230;so we’re all in one happy OpenStreetMap family. Wouldn’t that be the best diagram of all? So I’ll leave you with that one. Thank you very much!</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Jump to slide:<br />
  <a href="#slide1">1</a>, <a href="#slide2">2</a>, <a href="#slide3">3</a>, <a href="#slide4">4</a>, <a href="#slide5">5</a>, <a href="#slide6">6</a>, <a href="#slide7">7</a>, <a href="#slide8">8</a>, <a href="#slide9">9</a>, <a href="#slide10">10</a>, <a href="#slide11">11</a>, <a href="#slide12">12</a>, <a href="#slide13">13</a>, <a href="#slide14">14</a>, <a href="#slide15">15</a>, <a href="#slide16">16</a>, <a href="#slide17">17</a>, <a href="#slide18">18</a>, <a href="#slide19">19</a>, <a href="#slide20">20</a>, <a href="#slide35">35</a>, <a href="#slide36">36</a>, <a href="#slide37">37</a>, <a href="#slide38">38</a>, <a href="#slide39">39</a>, <a href="#slide40">40</a>, <a href="#slide41">41</a>, <a href="#slide42">42</a>, <a href="#slide43">43</a>, <a href="#slide44">44</a>, <a href="#slide45">45</a>, <a href="#slide46">46</a>, <a href="#slide47">47</a>, <a href="#slide48">48</a>, <a href="#slide49">49</a>, <a href="#slide50">50</a>, <a href="#slide51">51</a>, <a href="#slide52">52</a>, <a href="#slide53">53</a>, <a href="#slide54">54</a>, <a href="#slide55">55</a>, <a href="#slide56">56</a>, <a href="#slide57">57</a>, <a href="#slide58">58</a>, <a href="#slide59">59</a>, <a href="#slide60">60</a>, <a href="#slide61">61</a></p>


guid: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/?p=582
url: http://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2017/03/12/notes-in-maps-me/
title: OpenStreetMap Notes in MAPS.ME
published: 2017-03-12 11:25:55
fetched: 2019-10-26 00:00:14.424297
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.363074
updated_at: 2019-10-26 00:00:15.305732
summary:
  I made a tool to scratch an itch I&#8217;ve been having recently. I wanted to see OpenStreetMap notes within the MAPS.ME app, so I made a thing to fetch and generate&#8230; OpenStreetMap notes as KML This let&#8217;s you grab all the notes in an area and download them as KML. Such a download might be [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>I made a tool to scratch an itch I&#8217;ve been having recently. I wanted to see <a href="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2013/04/29/openstreetmap-opens-up-to-more-contributors-with-easy-add-a-note-feature/">OpenStreetMap notes</a> within the <a href="http://maps.me">MAPS.ME</a> app, so I made a thing to fetch and generate&#8230;</p>
  <p><b><a href="http://harrywood.co.uk/maps/notes/kml/">OpenStreetMap notes as KML</a></b></p>
  <p>This let&#8217;s you grab all the notes in an area and download them as KML. Such a download might be useful for various things, but mostly the idea is to easily load notes into MAPS.ME</p>
  <p>It works nicely if&#8230;<br />
  (A) you have the MAPS.ME app on your phone, and&#8230;<br />
  (B) you open the above link on your phone  (Or this QRcode)</p>
  <p><img class="aligncenter" src="http://harrywood.co.uk/maps/notes/kml/qrcode.png" /></p>
  <p>The KML download will (after some confirmation prompts) be handled by the MAPS.ME app, and the result is&#8230;   a shed-load of red bookmark icons:</p>
  <p><a title="MAPS.ME notes map" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/harrywood/32572702583/" data-flickr-embed="true"><img class="aligncenter" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3950/32572702583_1321e772fe.jpg" alt="MAPS.ME notes map" width="281" height="500" /></a></p>
  <p>It will fetch up to a limit of 1000 notes for an area of your choosing, appearing as a layer of &#8220;bookmarks&#8221; which you can show and hide (third icon on the bottom there).</p>
  <p>On a bookmark, swipe up to see the detailed description and you get the full note description plus any other comments people have added:</p>
  <p><a title="MAPS.ME Note comments" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/harrywood/33003931660/in/dateposted-public/" data-flickr-embed="true"><img class="aligncenter" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/744/33003931660_92125fb678.jpg" alt="MAPS.ME Note comments" width="281" height="500" /></a></p>
  <p>I have control over how that gets formatted, so it&#8217;s something I could tweak/improve</p>
  <h3>What is MAPS.ME?</h3>
  <p>You don&#8217;t know? It&#8217;s an app which you can install <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/app/id510623322">for iPhone</a> or <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mapswithme.maps.pro">for Android</a> for viewing maps &#8230;specifically OpenStreetMap, but it&#8217;s worth having even if you&#8217;re not a big OpenStreetMap enthusiast, as an alternative to the &#8220;maps&#8221; app on your phone. You might use it occasionally e.g. when the maps app doesn&#8217;t have the detail you want. MAPS.ME requires an initial (quite big) download of an area, and then it all works offline. Great for going on holiday somewhere.</p>
  <h3>What are &#8220;notes&#8221;?</h3>
  <p><a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Notes">OpenStreetMap Notes</a> allow people (anyone. without even logging in) to report a map problem or an omission on OpenStreetMap. So if you don&#8217;t fancy learning how to edit OpenStreetMap (we try to make it very easy, but &#8230;takes a bit of learning) then instead you can effectively ask somebody else to make the edit, by simply leaving a note. However it&#8217;s important to position the note precisely add as much description as you can. Preferably even link a photo of the thing which is missing/wrong.</p>
  <p>As a mapper you will understand the importance of this when you come to try to clear out the open notes in an area. In London it feels like most notes are pretty unclear and poorly described, but of course we&#8217;re generally only looking at the notes which are left open. It&#8217;s quite common for somebody to write just a few words, seemingly reporting the name of a missing thing, but if that&#8217;s the level of effort somebody is willing to go to (not even constructing a sentence) then the data doesn&#8217;t feel reliable enough to do anything with, other than to leave open and go survey. And there&#8217;s various other types of notes which lead to this same conclusion. Going to take a look on-the-ground is going to be the way to solve the note.</p>
  <p>And going to look on-the-ground is really the idea behind this. Because I use MAPS.ME <em>a lot</em> while out and about, for everyday navigation, I&#8217;m hoping having the notes in there will help remind me to go take a look</p>


guid: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2016/03/22/on-building-things
url: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2016/03/22/on-building-things
title: On Building Things
updated: 2016-03-22 12:15:21
published: 2016-03-22 10:59:02
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.546383
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.573340
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.573340
summary:
  <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  	<p>Building a thing means that there's a thing. Building a tool to build things means that there can be many things, and many people can build their own things.</p>

        </div>


guid: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2015/12/04/an-open-letter-to-mapzens-ceo
url: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2015/12/04/an-open-letter-to-mapzens-ceo
title: An Open Letter to Mapzen's CEO
updated: 2015-12-04 16:53:31
published: 2015-12-04 16:53:31
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.546383
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.575884
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.575884
summary:
  <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  	<p>Hey Randy,</p>

  <p>While I agree with the sentiment of
  <a href="https://mapzen.com/blog/an-open-letter-to-audi-ag-bmw-group-and-daimler-ag">what you've written</a>
  to the new owners of HERE, I can't help feeling there's a distinctly anti-OSM
  vibe from this piece. It seems like you're suggesting that HERE's data might be
  opened up to external contribution ("It would certainly reduce your ongoing data
  collection costs") as a competitor to OSM, which would only serve to fracture
  the open data community.</p>

        </div>


guid: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2015/11/18/the-road-to-api-07
url: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2015/11/18/the-road-to-api-07
title: The Road to API 0.7
updated: 2015-11-18 13:46:05
published: 2015-11-18 13:42:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.546383
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.578261
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.578261
summary:
  <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  	<p>Its been years since the <a href="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2009/04/17/osm-api-06-on-the-way/">last OpenStreetMap API update</a>. Partly this is a good thing as it seems to be mostly powerful enough for people to map the things which they want to, editor support is pretty good, and there has been time for <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/API_v0.6">documentation</a> and <a href="http://learnosm.org/en/">tutorials</a> to be written.</p>

  <p>However, there are some known problems as well.</p>

        </div>


guid: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2015/09/12/oauth-support-in-cgimap
url: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2015/09/12/oauth-support-in-cgimap
title: OAuth support in Cgimap
updated: 2015-09-12 11:17:20
published: 2015-09-12 11:17:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.546383
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.580559
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.580559
summary:
  <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  	<p>Recently, I've been hacking on <a href="https://github.com/zerebubuth/openstreetmap-cgimap/tree/oauth">adding OAuth support</a> to <a href="https://github.com/zerebubuth/openstreetmap-cgimap">cgimap</a>. This seems like a fairly technical detail, but it's a key part of making important improvements that'll really help people editing, especially at mapping parties.</p>

        </div>


guid: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2015/09/07/new-blog
url: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2015/09/07/new-blog
title: New blog
updated: 2015-09-06 23:52:20
published: 2015-09-06 23:52:20
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.546383
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.582869
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.582869
summary:
  <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  	<p>It's been almost a whole decade since <a href="http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2005/09/20/first-blog-post/">my first blog post</a> and, in a weird kind of celebration, I've just finished getting rid of that whole wordpress blog and started using something more <a href="http://jekyllrb.com/">Jekyll</a>-like. Hurrah.</p>

        </div>


guid: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2014/02/18/routing-benchmarking-2
url: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2014/02/18/routing-benchmarking-2
title: Routing Benchmarking: Part II
updated: 2014-02-18 12:27:00
published: 2014-02-18 11:41:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.546383
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.585130
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.585130
summary:
  <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  	<p><a href="http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2014/02/16/routing-benchmarking/" title="Routing Benchmarking: Part I">Last time</a>, I ran a simple benchmark on <a href="http://project-osrm.org/" title="Open Source Routing Machine home page">OSRM</a> and
  <a href="http://graphhopper.com/" title="GraphHopper home page">GraphHopper</a> and presented some of the results. I'd like to expand
  on those results in this post in more detail.</p>

        </div>


guid: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2014/02/16/routing-benchmarking
url: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2014/02/16/routing-benchmarking
title: Routing Benchmarking: OSRM vs. GraphHopper
updated: 2014-02-18 12:47:00
published: 2014-02-16 19:55:24
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.546383
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.587404
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.587404
summary:
  <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  	<p>One of the great benefits of open data is that anyone can download it
  and write software to do really cool things with it. One example of
  that is route-finding and there are several good bits of software
  which you can use, ranging from those on the embedded or mobile
  environment to the server environment.</p>

  <p>I tested two of the leading server implementations; OSRM and
  GraphHopper to see what the differences between them are.</p>

        </div>


guid: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2010/07/12/osm-without-delay-sotm10-talk
url: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2010/07/12/osm-without-delay-sotm10-talk
title: OSM Without Delay - SotM10 Talk
updated: 2011-08-21 20:36:49
published: 2010-07-12 20:00:21
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.546383
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.589880
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.589880
summary:
  <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  	<p>I gave a talk at <a href="http://stateofthemap.org/">State of the Map</a>,
  <a href="http://osm.org">OSM</a>'s annual conference, about the <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Planet.osm/diffs">minutely
  diffs</a>; why they
  should be used, a little introduction on how they could be used and
  some examples of things that already use them. I also used the talk to
  advertise the
  <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OWL_%28OpenStreetMap_Watch_List%29">OWL</a>
  system I've been writing. </p>

        </div>


guid: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2009/12/04/editor-retention
url: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2009/12/04/editor-retention
title: Editor retention
updated: 2011-08-21 20:36:49
published: 2009-12-04 20:06:53
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.546383
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.592163
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.592163
summary:
  <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  	<p>I've been playing with the changeset data for OpenStreetMap and looking to see what patterns I can find in the usage of various editors since changesets were introduced in the API 0.6 migration. We can start off just looking at the major editors by distinct users, i.e: everyone's favourite popularity contest. </p>

        </div>


guid: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2009/09/10/imports-and-the-community-ii
url: http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2009/09/10/imports-and-the-community-ii
title: Imports and the Community II
updated: 2011-08-21 20:36:49
published: 2009-09-10 10:32:17
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.546383
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.594484
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:59.594484
summary:
  <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  	<p>Thanks for the <a href="http://www.asklater.com/matt/blog/2009/09/06/imports-and-the-community/#comments">feedback</a> on the previous post on imports; it got me thinking about whether my model had been over-elaborate. Specifically, the limit on the model agents which capped the maximum "completeness" levels at which they would contribute. I thought this was a necessary part of the model, but after investigation it turns out it isn't. </p>

        </div>


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-1877196403987582247
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/09/lidar-data.html
title: Lidar data
updated: 2015-09-26 15:40:41.688000
published: 2015-09-25 10:39:00.001000
fetched: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.485340
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.343160
updated_at: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.750556
content:
  I'm not sure what it is going to be used for, but the Lidar data recently opened up by the Environment Agency is remarkable. Here's central Alnwick, hillshaded in QGIS, using 1m DSM elevations downloaded from <a href="http://environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey#/download?grid=NU11">here</a>.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WQRJSyNkW18/VgUif2g2aFI/AAAAAAAAAkE/Uq7rNsHMlRQ/s1600/AlnwickCentreShade.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WQRJSyNkW18/VgUif2g2aFI/AAAAAAAAAkE/Uq7rNsHMlRQ/s320/AlnwickCentreShade.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><hr />Edited: 26/9/2015<br /><br />Thanks to Chris for the comment and pointers.<br /><br />There's more.<br /><br />If sea levels continue rising at 3.2mm p.a. Alnwick will look like this by 20,000 a.d. Thankfully our local pub will still be above the waves.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z-oVHO_yGAk/VgaXb0JalII/AAAAAAAAAkU/tdJsrTI94tU/s1600/AlnwickFlooded.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z-oVHO_yGAk/VgaXb0JalII/AAAAAAAAAkU/tdJsrTI94tU/s320/AlnwickFlooded.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />And this is what I reckon the duke can see from the top of Alnwick Castle.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IR5nfZ8dsEU/Vga8ZAgYrOI/AAAAAAAAAks/m1Z4m-R90Is/s1600/AlnwickDukeViewShed.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IR5nfZ8dsEU/Vga8ZAgYrOI/AAAAAAAAAks/m1Z4m-R90Is/s320/AlnwickDukeViewShed.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-5200993260845133460
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/08/osm-retail-survey-conclusions-2.html
title: OSM retail survey: Conclusions-2
updated: 2015-08-23 09:19:32.991000
published: 2015-08-23 08:26:00.001000
fetched: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.485340
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.346941
updated_at: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.753084
content:
  This picks up from previous posts to consider more specifically what tools might help contributors.<br /><br />The examples are rudimentary – stuff I've assembled for my own use, rather than robust tools for the wider community. If they have any value I hope it will be as prototypes for something more polished.<br /><br /><h3>Missing data</h3><br />There are about 385,000 retail properties in England that are missing from OSM, and the obvious way to help contributors is to point out where they are.<br /><br />To help achieve the most rapid improvement across the whole country I have tried to find dense retail concentrations that haven't been thoroughly mapped yet.<br /><br /><br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.reedhome.org.uk/Documents/osmembed.html?kml=http://www.reedhome.org.uk/Documents/KML/lsoaplausibility.kml">http://www.reedhome.org.uk/Documents/osmembed.html?kml=http://www.reedhome.org.uk/Documents/KML/lsoaplausibility.kml</a></li></ul><br />These are the biggest concentrations of unmapped retail property in England and Wales: about 1,000 of them, each with an average of 100 missing retail outlets across an area of under 2 sq. km.<br /><br />I've used a mix of Food Hygiene Data, Non-Domestic Rates, population data, and various other statistics to identify concentrations of retail outlets at a local level. I've done this for England and Wales. The same basic technique should work in Scotland because similar data is available, but the structure of the census geography, and data on non-domestic rates for Scotland is quite different, so the process needs tweaking, and I haven't got round to that yet.<br /><br />My formula for estimating the number of retail premises at a local level can probably be improved, but it will never be perfect. At this stage I don't think it is good enough to reliably identify areas that are almost complete, because that needs more precision. But I think it is good enough to flag up areas that are far from complete. Contributors who are looking for significant concentrations of missing retail outlets should be able to do a quick check on the area. If it still looks empty on the map, they can head there with a reasonable expectation of adding enough new retail outlets to make the trip worthwhile.<br /><br />Feedback based on local knowledge would be welcome, to help refine this a bit more.<br /><br />Helping contributors to find nearby concentrations of missing retail outlets is one way to quickly increase the overall volume of data. A different starting point is to assume that thorough retail coverage in some areas has a higher value to data users than adding missing shops elsewhere. On that basis we may want to encourage contributors to concentrate first on mapping areas which we think have the highest potential value.<br /><br /><br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.reedhome.org.uk/Documents/osmembed.html?kml=http://www.reedhome.org.uk/Documents/KML/settlementplausibility.kml">http://www.reedhome.org.uk/Documents/osmembed.html?kml=http://www.reedhome.org.uk/Documents/KML/settlementplausibility.kml</a></li></ul><br /><br />This example picks out a limited number of smaller towns and cities where OSM data might have high value (e.g. to students or visitors).<br /><br />Areas coloured:<br /><ul><li>blue already contain more than 75% of my estimated number of retail outlets</li><li>green contain 50-75% of my estimated number of retail outlets</li><li>orange contain 25-50% of my estimated number of retail outlets</li><li>red contain less than 25% of my estimated number of retail outlets&nbsp;</li></ul><br />Each area is intended to cover a manageable size: one where a few contributors should quickly be able to bring retail content up to an impressive level. Larger cities are excluded on the basis that they justify a more systematic approach. My list is &nbsp;bit arbitrary – it is intended to cover a mix of different towns of roughly similar size, distributed across the country. Are these really the areas where OSM retail data is likely to have most value? I doubt it, but that might be a useful discussion point in its own right. For each suggestion of a settlement that should be added, please feel free to suggest one that should be removed.<br /><br />I can only assess how useful these estimates might be in areas that I know fairly well. Feedback on any unexpected results would be useful: to better understand where the technique can be improved.<br /><br /><h3>Feedback to contributors</h3><br />All contributors deserve to see the results of their work. But not all retail information is rendered on the standard map. And in my view it never can (and shouldn't) be. So to encourage contributors I would like to see a decent alternative to the standard map which shows more complete retail information.&nbsp;When I want to check specific content of the database I use either a data extract, Overpass, or the “Map Data” overlay on the standard map view. I'm happy to do this, but for many contributors (and particularly for novices) none of these techniques are particularly user-friendly. I suspect this is beyond my own technical capabilities, but there are examples (based on various data extracts) that illustrate the kind of thing that can be done.<br /><br /><ul><li><a href="http://openpoimap.org/">http://openpoimap.org/</a></li><li><a href="http://mijndev.openstreetmap.nl/~peewee32/paard/ruiterpadenOSM.html">http://mijndev.openstreetmap.nl/~peewee32/paard/ruiterpadenOSM.html</a></li></ul><br /><h3>Data collection</h3><br />When mapping retail areas there will normally be some shops already recorded in OSM, which need checking. Alongside other existing features such as road junctions, these also provide reference points for adding new data. When surveying retail premises, it's handy to have a crib sheet to hand, on which to collect notes of any changes, which shows the current state of the data. This needs to show every relevant feature in the database, including some which won't be rendered on the standard map.<br /><br />Below is an example generated (automagically, with some rather clunky SQL) from OSM data for Winchester High Street (the pedestrian part). It starts at the western (top) end.<br /><br /><ul><li><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzQeJ_0Y8XDfVG5KbWI1MXA5ZWs/view?usp=sharing">https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzQeJ_0Y8XDfVG5KbWI1MXA5ZWs/view?usp=sharing</a></li></ul><br /><br />I've set this up to collect any shops, amenities and offices within 25 metres of the highway centre line, and display them in order. This simplistic approach only exhibits the most basic information, and includes more features than I would really want: including shops beyond each end of the central line, up side streets, and occasionally from a nearby street running parallel. But it's easy enough to cross out any unnecessary entries. To allow for some additions there's an additional spacer inserted every 20 metres (roughly twice the width of a conventional shop front). I find sheets like this speed up the data collection process and make it easier to add notes.<br /><br /><h3>Consistency checks</h3><br />I hope I've made a clear case that across most of the UK adding missing retail data is a higher priority than cleaning up tagging inconsistencies. However, this isn't true everywhere, and pointers to inconsistencies could help contributors to clean local data.<br /><br />Some basic consistency checks are easily carried on Overpass:<br /><br /><br /><ul><li>amenity=pharmacy &amp; dispensing=no: <a href="http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEc">http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEc</a></li><li>shop=cafe: <a href="http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEg">http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEg</a></li><li>name=Argos and shop not = catalogue: <a href="http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEW">http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEW</a></li><li>shop=fast_food: <a href="http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEV">http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEV</a></li><li>amenity=optician: <a href="http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEl">http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEl</a></li><li>shop=supermarket without building tag: <a href="http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEp">http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEp</a></li><li>shop=unknown: <a href="http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEr">http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEr</a></li><li>some basic spelling mistakes (shop tag includes upper case or space): <a href="http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEs">http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aEs</a></li></ul><br />But this isn't ideal for finding all quirky data within a local area, and finding more complex inconsistencies sometimes involves extensive processing that isn't really practical interactively. Overpass isn't the ideal solution here, but it is possible to do more crunching on a data extract. Here are some examples. Unlike Overpass, anything here that is fixed won't be quickly updated in the overlay (some of these quirks are already fixed, which could get annoying). Note that, for the sake of simplicity, this overlay only contains some of the features in the UK that exhibit these quirks.<br /><br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.reedhome.org.uk/Documents/osmembed.html?kml=http://www.reedhome.org.uk/Documents/KML/retailquirks.kml">http://www.reedhome.org.uk/Documents/osmembed.html?kml=http://www.reedhome.org.uk/Documents/KML/retailquirks.kml</a></li></ul><br /><div><br /></div>


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-6008917477608304215
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/08/osm-retail-survey-conclusions-1.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Conclusions-1
updated: 2015-08-13 16:13:34.675000
published: 2015-08-12 09:29:00.003000
fetched: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.485340
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.350992
updated_at: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.755824
content:
  OSM has thrived by bringing together a community with diverse interests, and aligning their efforts behind a common purpose. In thinking how best to improve retail coverage it seems useful to consider how different groups with different interests and different skills will be able to contribute.<br /><br />The most obvious question for the community is how the existing tools might be improved. But I am not going to start there. Instead I will begin with how contributors might view the priorities - because that will determine which tools will be of greatest help.<br /><br />My starting point is based on findings from the survey:<br /><ul><li>In a some localised areas retail data in OSM is the most comprehensive retail data that is generally available. Because OSM data has a degree of structure it should be capable of supporting certain types of structured search that are extremely difficult to achieve in any other way. These are the areas where the data will be of greatest value to end users and hence of greatest interest to application providers</li><li>We are still a long way from being able to offer comprehensive retail data across the whole of the UK. In the foreseeable future this means that most viable applications based on OSM data are likely to have a local focus, rather than aiming for national coverage. So far only a few areas have been really thoroughly mapped. One priority is to increase the number of thoroughly mapped areas.</li><li>Elsewhere, whatever issues data users find with the consistency and accuracy of UK retail data in OSM, the impact of those issues is small in comparison to the amount of retail data that is missing from OSM. Another priority is to reduce the volume of missing retail data.</li></ul>To address missing data, I assume the community needs to expand the number of contributors, as well as encouraging existing contributors to add more basic retail data. We need to ensure that the process of collecting and contributing data is both satisfying and productive.<br /><br />Most contributors have only a limited choice of where to map. The question we need to help them with is <b>how </b>to make the biggest impact in their local area. Some contributors have more choice of where they map. The question we need to help them with is <b>where </b>they can make the biggest impact.<br /><br />If OSM is going to provide a decent platform for viable applications based on retail data, then the priority is to bring more areas of the UK up to a standard that compares with the best. OSM data doesn't have to be complete in order to be the best available source of retail data in a well-defined area: but it should be getting near complete. In towns and smaller cities individual contributors can quickly make an impact, by bringing retail data up to a good standard across a well-defined area. In an ideal world they might chose a location that would most interest potential application providers – perhaps a university town, or a city that attracts a large number of visitors.<br /><br />I'd like to think that contributors who want to improve retail data will start by assessing how retail coverage currently stands in their chosen area. For a rough idea, they can examine the standard map, or for more precision they can compare the number of shops in the OSM database with an estimate of how many there should be. There are various ways to get that estimate, but that's a separate question which I'll defer for now.<br /><ul><li>If local coverage is currently under 25%, then this part of the map is still close to being a blank canvas. OSM data is far from providing the best source of retail data, and there will still be gaps in some of the most commonly mapped features, such as post-offices and pubs. The first priority is to make a start, develop technique, and demonstrate progress to encourage others. For a contributor's own motivation, they should begin with whatever interests them personally. This probably includes retail outlets that they are familiar with (i.e. ones that their family, friends and neighbours use regularly). Beyond that, major retail premises, such as supermarkets, banks and larger high street stores are relatively easy to tag, and are all properly rendered on the standard map. Their relatively large scale helps to build visibility. To help raise awareness add any retailers with a high public profile. This could include any well-known local specialists, those who advertise heavily, those who regularly feature in the local paper, or take an active part in the local chamber of trade.</li><li>If local coverage is around 25-50% then a fair number of shops will appear on the standard map, but there will still be plenty that are missing. Quite often some retail categories will have been well covered (pubs often seem to appear first), while others still have to be added. The priority now is to build momentum. The quickest results will be achieved in densely occupied retail zones such as the central shopping area and larger retail parks. Complete coverage is still some way off, and trying to include everything at this stage will slow things down. It is more important to include major outlets, and a representative sample of outlets that are of high public utility, and widespread interest. It seems to me that this should include retailers that cater for a broad section of the population – both their daily needs (convenience stores, post offices, pharmacies, take-aways, cafés, pubs), and more significant purchases (electrical goods, clothing, furniture, etc.). Others will have better insight into those catering for specific groups of customer (visitors, students, etc.), and in some towns these groups will be particularly important.</li><li>Once local coverage reaches around 50-75% then OSM data is providing some of the most complete retail data that is generally available. The standard map will contain a good number of shops – particularly in the town centre. But anyone familiar with the area will still find it fairly easy to spot shops that are missing. Particularly outside the main shopping areas there will be shops scattered across residential and commercial areas that haven't been added. &nbsp;Now is the time for contributors to work towards something approaching complete coverage. Missing shops are likely to be the more specialised, smaller and more quirky independent retailers, shops outside the central retail core, in suburban shopping parades, and corner shops in residential areas.</li><li>Over 75% coverage means that locally OSM is capable of providing some of the most comprehensive retail data that is generally available. Contributors will find it increasingly time-consuming to deal with the remaining gaps, and the more difficult categories are the most likely to have been left aside. Now is the time to include them. This is also the time to verify that existing data is up to date and consistent. There will be opportunities to add value with information that will be of use to different types of data user. This might include features such as wheelchair access, ATMs, non-standard opening times, specialist services, etc. Beyond this, contributors have &nbsp;choice. They can continue to add unreasonable levels of detail, that will never be used. Or better, broaden the scope of their survey into neighbouring towns and villages.</li></ul><br />If this is broadly how things work, then I'd suggest the following priorities to help contributors:<br /><br /><ul><li>Firstly, contributors are encouraged by seeing the results of their work. Currently the standard map is the main source of such feedback, but it doesn't show all retail outlets, and it doesn't render all retail characteristics that contributors add. It is unrealistic to expect the standard map to render everything, so I'd like to see a different way of showing contributors the results of their work: one that doesn't depend on adding increasing detail to the standard map.</li><li>Secondly, for areas where retail data is relatively thin, contributors who have some choice of where to map may benefit from guidance on where and how they can make the biggest impact. Tools that highlight areas where there is a substantial amount of missing retail data could save them time. Suggesting areas where retail data could be of high utility may influence their choice of where to map.</li><li>Thirdly, retail data generally has to be collected by survey, and there is a lot missing. Tools that help contributors collect data in the field (i.e.&nbsp;on the high street) will make the process more satisfying and help to speed the process</li><li>And finally, once &nbsp;retail data in an area is relatively complete, the emphasis will change from improving coverage to improving consistency and adding value. Bulk edits won't help much, but tools that highlight inconsistencies and quirks in retail data will help contributors identify issues and improve quality.</li></ul>


