Mapping
From FridaV
Contents |
Featureserver & Openlayers
They make rich interactive maps on the web easy! (and browsers breathe heavy)
Do see: dev map of the World proto map of Beijing
OpenStreetmap
We like the freedom in maps made by OpenStreetMap, the open world mapping project. So we use them as the base map for our mapping.
Spatial data standards and formats
- GPX with excelent tool: gpsbabel
- OpenGIS, WKT, WKB: postgis, featureserver and much other software speak this format for geometries
- OSM xml: gets the collaborative editing job done
- ESRI Shape File, ESRI World File: is widespread in GIS industry, can usually be converted to friendlier formats
- GeoTIFF
- SVG (general vector format, not GIS-specific)
Free GIS Software
- The most accomplished and overwhelming open-source GIS is GRASS.
- An easy to use viewer is Quantum GIS.
- The most polished open-source GIS viewer is (still?) Thuban.
- For working with spatial data in a database look at PostGIS.
- Mapnik is a great rendering engine for maps used by OSM among others.
- The UMN Mapserver is a software for creating a web mapping service.
- JUMP is an open-source mapping application with a less scary user interface (yay!).
- More free spatial software can be found at Free GIS.
Visualisation Ideas
i don't know what you think about but i guess it could be very interesting to create maps telling also something else than "their is an accesspoint on street x nr. y". for example there is this story that africa was called "black continent" because norhtwestern 'discoverers' couldn't progress into its inland and so their maps contained a lot of black spots for the 'unknown' areas. i had the idea that a similar aesthetic could be used for warriding maps: to maculate rotterdam city maps wherever a wifi accesspoint exists. that would contain several intersting aspects which also alows to continue on contents or questions like: where does 'virtual' world overlap with non-virtual (how much is getting black/empty on the map)? who has access to the net, in which areas are most accesspoints (rich or poor, commerce or culture, center or agglomeration, right-wing/left-wing/or non-wing voters)? who are the 'discoverers' and where are their constructing a new map/modell/world? what areas stay unmaculated
i like this idea. if we put a small (one block) circle around each waypoint we have and compute the union, we'll get the complete coverage or discovered space. all unvisited areas could be black on the map, areas with no access points the normal map color, areas with closed ones red, areas with good ones green. something like this could look really nice.
beamer/projector
for the beamer, we should make something more dynamic and animated, a map scrolling slowly around by itself when noone is interacting with it, zooming in on new data as it comes in and similar. it should be more like a screensaver rather than a web page. it could also well be in 3D.
there is a python library called slithy meant for creating presentations. its a bit like flash and uses opengl hardware accelleration so i've thought about using it for the visualisation.
web interface
the interface, which can be accessed also from the computers in the cartographic command center, should make a map of each journey and some collated maps like wifi coverage, all media, explored/unexplored areas or similar.
Models and Workshop
[...] whatever visualisation we'll do it should be able to swap the base background map, photo or whatever for one of our maps, and plot the tracks and points over that.
yes, and maybe it also might be possible to create diagrams or models instead of streetmaps only. like a statistic about in which areas most signal strentgh exists or things with other parameters (see attachments).
[...] we can do that for the frida display too, especially the wireless data which was the initial focus anyway. besides that i think it would be really exciting especially for the workshop to start creating a free vector dataset (map) of rotterdam, starting small with the big avenues, landmarks, the river and place names. supporting such an activity should be the aim of the mapping interface. we can use our tracks as source data which gets filtered and annotated by the mapmaker becoming part of the free map dataset.
Workshop: "i would expect a number of computers there for the participants to use. i don't need a special computer for frida during the workshop."
Statistics Rotterdam for thematic models/maps:
- Centre for Research and Statistics (COS)
- Swing Online to create maps and tables with statistic data (see attachments for examples)
- Get maps of Rotterdam and its district
Mapping background see also:
