Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!

This year has been a very productive year for the People' Map. All the various parties involved in the People's Map, from the individual contributor all the way through to the technical development team have all contributed significantly to the progress the People's Map has made during 2008. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our contributors, partners and in-house teams for the work and effort they have put in during 2008 as all have done a great job in contributing to the growth and development of the People’s Map.

We now look forward to the challenges that 2009 will bring the People's Map as we have quite a few big milestones to be achieved during this coming year. We start of early in the new year with launching our new People's Map website, then move on to completing the Greater London data capture project and finally completing the UK 1:100,000 scale data capture project. This is not even mentioning all the other smaller data capture projects planned with various commercial & academia partners as well as the individual contributors. So, just by looking at the above, it seems that 2009 is already going to be a busy year!

On behalf of the People's Map team, I would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and prosperous New Year!!

Top Contributors for Nov 2008

Digitising Tips for December 08

The People's Map user base is growing on a daily basis as more and more people are contributing to the Peoples Map. People have different styles and methods of data capturing, but it is important that we try and keep the end product as simular as possible. It is also very important for us to collect data as accurately as possible as this reduces valuable time spent on data verification, as we would rather like to spend it on data creation and building the map.

I have therefore created this list of data capture tips that will not only assist you with creating accurate data, but will also highlight certain issue and bugs that the system is experiencing and provide you with a work around/solution for each of these.

1) Most of you must have noticed that some of the major roads positional accuracy can be off by hundreds of meters in some areas.

Cause: This data was originally captured to a scale of 1:1,000,000 and was imported into the People's Map. This means that this data is accurate when viewed on a small scale, but not when zoomed in.

Solution: These roads should be moved into the correct position by moving the red nodes of this road to the correct location. Zoom in as close as needed to place the road node as accurately as possible.

2) Sometimes, when you are moving roads, like the example above, to the correct location, a duplicate may appear. It is therefore confusing as to which road is the actual and which is the duplicate.

Cause: All moves are registerred into a database as and when a new point is created, but sometimes a delay appears with this process and a duplicate is created. Eventually the process catches up, but the original road remains as the duplicate, untill refreshed.

Solution: This problem should not occur for much longer than January next year as the new site and database structure will be implemented, but in the mean time: If a duplicate appear, whilst editing, just flick back to and from the "View" mode to "Edit" mode and this duplicate will disappear. You will notice that the new line has been captured and the original (duplicate) has been removed.

3) Sometimes when creating a road, the actual line will change to a black line, without you noticing this. When this bug occurs, the road data will become worthless to us and needs to be recreated.

Cause: We are unsure of the exact cause, but this should no longer be a problem when the new site is launched in the New Year.

Solution: Unfortunately the only existing solution is to delete this road and recreate it. If deletion is not possible, then just leave it as it is and we will clean the data appropriately afterwards.

4) Users sometimes create roads, but forget to actually connect the road created to those it is leading from or into. Good, clean geographical road data are always connected to one another.

Cause: Incorrect Data Capture Methods

Solution: The end node of a road can simply be moved to snap to the node on the road it leads from or into. If there is no node, just create one by clicking and dragging the segment.

I hope you will find these tips helpful. Please feel free to let us know of any other problems that you have experienced whilst creating data in People's Map by emailing support@peoplesmap.com.

Why not use the Thomson Directories Maps?

What do you do when you are capturing new roads in a town or city and you have forgotten the name of the road? Have you ever come to a road in a town and could not remember what it was called, but want to capture this road and the surrounding the area! ................so what do you do?

Leaving the road blank is not ideal and copying it from other mapping sources is strictly forbidden and illegal!! You can check if the road is listed in the "Out of Copyright Map". If not, you can request the Thomson Directories Town and City maps from the People's Map to use as a reference. We have access to over 400 electronic English and Scottish town and city maps and as part of our agreement with Thomson Directories, we can send you these maps to copy the road data from and capture this in Peoples Map. Below is an example of one of the Leicester maps.

These maps cover 361 English and 54 Scottish Towns so the one you are looking for is bound to be there. Just send us an email at info@peoplesmap.com requesting the specific area you are planning to digitise and we will send you the digital copy of this specific map. You can also use your local Thomson Directory as this also have local maps listed.

Please note that the Thomson Directory Maps usually only covers the main town centers and surrounding areas, but this is a good starting point and provides other contributors with a base to work from. Some contributors already requested maps for Milton Keynes and Coventry, but don't worry, there are still 412 towns to choose from! Good luck!!

London Progress

I am excited to say that we are making very good progress in completing the data collection for the Greater London data! When I talk about the London data, I am referring to all roads, drainage, rail and land use inside the M25.

We have so far collected all land use data within the boundaries of the M25. The land use layers consist of data like agricultural land, parklands, educational land, sports fields, etc. This consists of polygon data and will provide the important backdrop to which the other data will be displayed against. Please note that this land use data is not yet imported into the Peoples Map, but will be done by the end of this year. You can see an image of the data created below:

We are making very good progress with the completing the road dataset, at a scale of 1:10,000 for the entire Greater London area. To date we have captured all road data in a grid area stretching from Stratford in the North East to Hampton Court in the South West, apart from a small block in central London. This central London block is scheduled for completion by the end of this year. All Primary roads are collected for the rest of London, but we are now embarking on capturing the remainder of the minor roads in the outer London areas. The image below shows the London data set to date, with the dark grey areas illustrating the completed unclassified roads.

Thank you to all who have contributed so far with filling the gaps in London!! I am really looking forward to seeing this dataset complete in the near future!

Peoples Map API for Local Authorities

I recently became aware that Ordnance Survey is now not allowing for any OS derived data to be displayed on Google Maps as they do not want to allow Google to have perpetual user rights on their data. I am aware that many Local Authorities are either using Google Maps as a inter/intranet mapping API or are moving toward implementing Google Maps. This move by OS will stop the use of Google Maps in Local Authority websites, if the data to be displayed is OS derived. So, why not consider using the Peoples Map API instead?

The benefits of using the Peoples Map API:

1) Allow you to display OS derived data

2) The ability to edit the map data and therefore change/customize the rendered map displayed in the API.

3) All map data displayed in the Peoples Map API is verified by a team of professional cartographers.

If you are looking for an alternative Map API, that will allow you to display OS derived data, without giving away any user rights; and gives you the ability to edit the base map data, please contact us at info@peoplesmap.com for further information. We are more than happy to contact you to discuss how the Peoples Map work and what we are planning for the future. Otherwise, please have a browse through our website at http://www.peoplesmap.com/ and let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Step by Step Guide to editing the Peoples Map

This is a basic step by step guide to editing the Peoples Map. This guide is specifically targeted at our new Peoples Map editors, but can off course be used by our existing editors to refresh their knowledge. I hope that you will find this Step by Step Guide helpful when famirialising yourselves with the tools. Please let us know if we can add anything else to this guide and send your suggestions to info@peoplesmap.com.

1. Notes before you start editing the map
People’s Map allows the registered user to create and edit map features such as:
- Roads – All type of roads, cycling and walking paths
- Points of Interests – Towns, Hospitals, Car parks, Sport Fields, Churches, etc
- Areas – Parks, Lakes, Buildings, Airports, Rivers, etc

There are two map windows in the People’s Map website that both contain four map layers. You can identify in which mode you are by looking at what tab is highlighted as illustrated in the image 1 & 2 below.

1.1) Image 1:“View” mode

The “view” window is a browser window where road, town and post code searches are performed.

1.2) Image 2: “Edit” mode

The “edit” browser is where the actually edits of data is performed. Also note that the editable vector data layers will only appear in the “Edit” view.

Each of the “View” and “Edit” windows contain four map layers:
- The Aerial Photography – Used as the base to create/edit data on
- The Peoples Map - The verified People’s Map
- Historic Data - This map can be used as guidance when digitizing new roads
- Unverified Peoples Map – This layer shows both the verified and unverified data

2. Login or register.
Having found an area, you can click on the "edit" tab of the People's Map. This will bring you to a page prompting you to sign into your account. If you have not already done so, please take a few minutes to create an login account.

3. Become familiar with the account user page.
Having logged in you will notice that your account options are displayed along the right hand side of the webpage and a grey toolbar appears in the top left-hand corner. This editing toolbar holds the tools that are used to create and edit map objects.

4. Locate the area you are interested in.
First find an area known to you where you want to add or edit an existing feature. You can locate areas in the UK by typing in a post code, place name or road name in the search box. If searched by place name, the map will show the whole town, but when searched by postcode, the map will zoom into the specific post code area. Once you have located a general area, you can switch between the aerial photography and the People's Map to recognize features of the area you are familiar with.

5. Create or edit a road.
5.1 Identify a road you wish to change or add.
You should first identify a road in the aerial image that you are familiar with and would like to add or edit (you can check this by flipping between the aerial images and the map).

Please note - only change or add roads that you personally know. Using other map sources is not allowed.

5.2 Use the editing tools to add or change a road.



Click on the "Add road feature" button in the expandable dialogue, find the beginning of the road and click once on it with your left mouse cursor. This will add a point to the map. Follow the length of the road, clicking as often as necessary to represent the curves. Continue along the road in this manner, adding enough points so that the line you are creating fits nicely along the road in the aerial image. When you come to the end of the road, double click the left mouse button to finish the road.

5.3 Provide the name and details of the road

Once you double-click the mouse button to indicate that you have finished digitizing a road, a dialog box will pop up, prompting you to add road details, such as what type of a road it is, and the name of the road. Please fill this in to the best of your knowledge and click "OK". Your road has now been added to a layer of data that is marked as "unverified". This will be rendered and placed in the map layer that shows both verified and unverified data together. Once the new data has been verified, it will be placed in the People's Map layer.


6. Create or edit a Point of Interest (POI).
6.1 Identify a POI you wish to change or add.
You should first search for and then identify an object that you would like to map as a “Point of Interest”.

6.2 Use the editing tools to add or edit the properties of a “Point of Interest” (POI).



Click on the "Add point" mode button in the editor toolbar, find the feature you want to map and click once on it with your left mouse cursor. This will add a point to the map and a dialog box will appear. Choose what type of POI this will represent, add as much detail as possible into the dialog box and click the “OK” button. Your POI will be created.

6.3 Edit the position, name and details of the Point of Interest.

When you want to change the type and details of this point, double click on the newly created point and the dialog box will reappear. Click on the “OK” button when changes have been made. The POI can also be moved by selecting the point and dragging this to the required position.





7. Create or edit an Area/Polygon.
7.1 Identify an area you wish to change or add.
You should first identify an area in the aerial image that you are familiar with and would like to add or edit.

7.2 Use the editing tools to add an area to the map.



Click on the "Add Polygon” mode button in the editor tool bar, find the beginning of the area and click once on it with your left mouse cursor. This will add a point to the map. Follow the boundary of the area you want to map, clicking as often as necessary to represent the curves. Continue along the boundary in this manner, adding enough points so that the line you are creating fits nicely along the area in the aerial image. When you come back round to the starting point and want to create the last node, double click on this location and the polygon will complete automatically.

7.3 Provide the name and details of the area.
Once you double-click the mouse button to indicate that you have finished digitizing an area/polygon, a dialog box will pop up, prompting you to add the area details, such as what type of an area this polygon represents and the name of the area. Please fill this in to the best of your ability and click "OK". The area is now created in the People’s Map.

7.4 Change the position or shape of the area/polygon.
The shape of the area can be altered by selecting or moving the red nodes, or by clicking on and dragging the segment lines in between the nodes to a new location. The entire polygon can also be moved by selecting the polygon, pressing shift and drag the polygon to its desired location.

The polygon can be deleted by deleted the nodes one by one. The polygon can also be deleted in its entirety, left click to select the polygon and then right click for a “delete object” option to appear. Select this option and the polygon will be deleted.

Bath Data Capture Project

Peoples Map and Bath Spa University are working together on two data capture projects. The Bath Spa 2nd year GIS students are mapping the city of Bath and beyond and the 3rd year GIS students are mapping the entire Isle of Wight.

Getmapping and Geosense, both shareholders in the Peoples Map, have had a long standing relationship with Bath Spa GIS Department where students have been working on Knowledge Transfer Projects (KTP’s). Getmapping/Geosense has also employed a few graduate students into their permanent teams. This relationship has worked well in the past as Bath Spa and the students specifically benefit from working with and in a commercial environment and we as a commercial entity, gain from the skills and expertise of the academia.

With this latest Peoples Map/Bath Spa venture, the Peoples Map benefit as Bath and the surrounding area is accurately mapped in the Peoples Map, but more importantly, the students not only learn and experience how data is captured and processed, but will also see how this data forms part of a commercial product. This gives them insight on how the data they capture, can be used within a commercial project.

In this data capture project, 15 Bath Spa students are using the Peoples Map, Getmapping Aerial Images and tools like GPS, MapInfo & Peoples Map Editing Suite to survey and digitise the entire city of Bath and beyond. In total they will cover an area of 10 square kilometers. Each student have the opportunity to cover urban as well as rural areas where they are collecting roads, point of interests and land use polygons. This project started at the end of September and the students are now one month into their data capture module. The project is scheduled for completion by the 1st of December and we will see the final data displayed in the Peoples Map by the end of this year. All the data created by the students will be put through the normal Peoples Map verification process to insure that this data is correct and up to date before it is loaded into the final Peoples Map layer.

I am really excited to see how the Bath data set will evolve over the next month, but more specially look forward to meet the students and discuss how they experienced this project, what was the pro’s and the cons, etc. The Peoples Map is changing and improving by the day and by receiving feedback from our users, we can keep our improvements relevant to the task at hand!

People's Map Aerial Photography

I am often asked about the photography which is used as the basis for the People's Map. The photography comes from Getmapping's Millennium Map, which was started in 1999. Our idea was to create and maintain a map-accurate, seamless colour photograph of the whole of Britain and make it available to all users at affordable prices.

Detail of the New Digital Aerial Photography

It is extraordinary to think that in those days most people had never seen an aerial photograph of their house or village. Most aerial photography was commissioned by individual Local Authorities which owned the data outright and did not make it available to anybody outside the council. The market was limited almost entirely to 'oblique' photographs taken by private pilots and sold door-to-door.

In the early days we used film cameras to capture the photography on 9 inch square negatives, and the first complete photograph of England and Wales, which was completed in 2001, used 27 kilometers of film which all had to be developed and scanned. We had over 200 people working to stitch all the 34,000 photographs together into a seamless map-accurate 'mosaic' which at that time was the largest seamless photograph ever made. We then put the whole of the Millennium Map onto our website (http://www.getmapping.com/) so that, for the first time, everybody had access to aerial photography of the whole country. We also started to make and sell various products based on the photography such as the England Photographic Atlas (the heaviest book ever published by Harper Collins) and Photoscape (a 3D DVD that allowed users to fly around the country in 3D.

In 2004 we switched to digital cameras and the resulting photography is much sharper and easier to manage. We aim to renew the photography on a 5 year timescale, but the terrible summers we have had for the last two years have put us rather behind schedule. We are hoping for a long hot summer next year.

Intergeo 2008

The recent annual trade show in Bremen – Intergeo2008 – highlighted the rapid growth in demand for geographic data, and in particular the need for more flexible solutions in the future.

Amongst the new technology on show were a large range of vertical and oblique survey cameras, web-based data services, and a growing number of ground based image acquisition systems.

However, a common theme of all of these was the need to set them in a real geographic context, and in particular to have good up to data mapping to support them – such as the People’s Map.

Many were interested in the People’s Map concept, and were impressed by the way it strikes the right balance between open access, flexible licensing and a sound commercial framework (to maintain consistency, accuracy and continuity in the data). They also agreed this was the best way to meet the needs of a changing market.

It was encouraging to see so many new pioneering technologies on show, and to realize that the People’s Map is not just a geographic information source in its own right, but will also become a platform on which the developers of tomorrow can build new and innovative solutions in an environment free from concerns over copyright infringement and uncertainty regarding data maintenance.

Working with the Swindon Link!

We are excited to announce that Peoples Map is now working with the Swindon Link newspaper to get Swindon mapped.

The Swindon Link is a community magazine that is published on a monthly basis. It was first published for the West Swindon community in December 1978 and then in North Swindon from January 1994. Swindon Link is distributed monthly free of charge over 23,000 homes in West and North Swindon. A further 3,000 are left in public places around the town.

Roger Ogle, the Swindon Link editor, realised the need for up to date maps of the Swindon when he moved there more that 30 years ago. He has been creating and publishing maps of West and North Swindon since then. These maps are free to the public as it is paid for by advertising on the brochures and is distributed in the same way as the magazine. These maps, regularly updated by Roger, is still the most up to date maps of this area as he receives the details of new developments direct from the Local Council. Towns like Swindon have undergone major development over the past 30 years as illustrated by the two Getmapping aerial images below. These show how North Swindon has developed in 6 years from 1999 to 2005.

Image 1: 1999 Getmapping Aerial Image of North Swindon

Image 2: 2005 Getmapping Aerial Image of North Swindon

Conventional Map companies are struggling to keep up with rapidly expanding towns and that is why collaboration such as this between Peoples Map and Swindon Link (the public) are so important. I asked Roger what his reason was for creating these maps and he mentioned that Swindon was expanding rapidly, and still is, and because of the layout of the modern day developments, it was very easy to get lost. He was local to the area and felt the need for a up to date map of his local area. A example of one of these maps he created for North Swindon is illustrated in Image 3 below.

Image 3: North Swindon Map by Swindon Link

The Peoples Map is now working with the Swindon Link to involve the Swindon community to get mapping. Together, we want to excite Link readers in the People’s Map and get them actively involved as users and contributors. The two parties will work closely together over the coming years to develop a relevant and up to date map of Swindon. The Swindon Link recently published this article regarding the collaboration between Peoples Map and Swindon Link: http://www.swindonlink.com/features/show/84

Swindon is still ‘virgin territory’ in the People’s Map. We hope that the people of Swindon will react to Roger's article and join in to help keep the map of Swindon up to date. Over the coming months the Peoples Map Blog and the Swindon Link will be keeping you informed on the map progress, so watch this space - and get mapping for yourself and your community.

If you think the Peoples Map can contribute to your community in the same way as we do with Swindon Link, and you have any ideas on how, we would like to hear from you. Please contact us at info@peoplesmap.com and we can discuss this in further detail.

Rasterization Issue Resolved!

The rasterization issue has now been resolved. The map renderer is currently running through the entire Peoples Map database to re-render all the maps. This process has now been running for the past three days and you will notice a significant improvement to the data displayed in the Peoples Map and Unverified map layers, especially on the small scales.

The Peoples Map team wants to thank you for your patience and again apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Rasterization disruption

We are currently fixing a bug in our rasterization process which has caused us to temporarily suspend rendering your modifications to the People's Map.

You may have noticed that gaps have started to appear in the road network and features appear on the rendered layer, but the vector data is absent in edit mode. The patch will fix these problems and others, but force us to re-render amost the entire map at each scale, which will take some time to complete.

We will keep you informed and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

The People's Map is Growing!!

The Peoples Map data coverage is growing by the day. So far, the peoples map users have created more than 100,000km of roads , 40,000 town & place names, 12,000 points of interested, 17,000 km of railways, 30,000km of rivers, 18,000sqkm of land use polygons and also 3,000qkm of lakes & dams.

Currently the following cities are complete: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham. Cities like London, Cardiff, Bath and Brighton are also making very good progress and we are expecting to have complete datasets for Central London, Bath and Isle of Wight by the end of this year. Town centre's for Exeter, Plymouth, Penzance, Padstow and St Ives have also been created. We have also noticed that editors have started to work in Swindon, Bristol, Portsmouth, Reading, Leicester & Norwich.

Unfortunately some editors have not yet started work on a few significant UK cities and towns like Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds, Nottingham & Northampton.

Although this article reflects how much data has already been created, it also highlights that we have quite a bit of work ahead of us to complete a UK wide data set!

Essential Maintenance

The People's Map website is undergoing essential maintenance today and you will therefore only be able to access the site in "view only" mode. This means that you can unfortunately not create or edit any mapping objects during this time.


The maintenance is scheduled for completion by close of play today, but the users will find that they might still only be able to access the "view only" mode. All users will be able to access the edit mode before the end of the week. If you do not have access by this time, or would urgently like to use the People's Map, please contact us via support@peoplesmap.com and we will assist you with the problem.

We appologise for the inconvenience caused!!

The People's Map team

Future People's Map Developments

Dear users,

I am pleased to say that the polygon editor tool is working smoothly. Just to refresh those users that have not yet utilized this tool: It allows you to digitize polygon areas like lakes, parks, buildings, sport fields, etc into the People's Map and classify them according to pre-determined land use categories. This tool allows users to create greater map detail to be added to the People’s Map.

The People's Map team is constantly working on improving the tools and functionalities in order for our users to create better, more accurate data with ease. Although these are only in planning/development phase, I wanted to keep you informed of what improvements you can expect to see in the coming months.

The main improvement you will notice is an increased map screen and a general menu layout improvement. A functionality to split roads is also being developed. This will for instance allow users to split the geometry of an existing road, delete less accurate section and re-digitize the new more accurate section. This tool will also be helpful to digitize the exact path of roundabouts in a road. We are also working on creating another zoom layer in Peoples Map that will allow users to view more detail aerial imagery and allow you digitize building outlines, parks, etc more accurately.

Since the People's Map is a mapping tool for the people, we would like to keep improving the tools and functionalities according to the requirements of our users. We therefore rely on you to inform us of any improvements that can be made to the existing functionalities and tools.

We look forward to receive all your comments and suggestions. If you do not want to comment directly on this blog, please feel free to send us an email to one of the following People's Map addresses.

info@peoplesmap.com

support@peoplesmap.com

Regards,

Chlodwik

New Polygon Editor

We are pleased to announce that the newly developed polygon editor tool is now live. This tool allows you to digitize areas like lakes, parks, buildings, sport fields, etc into the People's Map. A example of the new toolbar and a created polygon is illustrated in the image below.

You will notice that when you complete the digitizing stage of creating a polygon, a extensive attribute list will appear that allows the user to select what type of land or building category has been created. Please choose the type that is most relevant to the area created.

To test this new tool, why don't you digitize your house, local sports field, etc onto the People's Map? If you can not view the polygon tool in your editor tool, press CTRL + F5 in your browser when you next come to the site. This will refresh the People's Map site and load the latest editor toolbar.

Please let us know if you have any queries regarding the new editor or any other features by emailing us at support@peoplesmap.com. We also look forward to receive your comments and suggestions via this blog.

From all of us here at People's Map, enjoy and get mapping!!

PS: As we speak new features and improvements for the Peoples Map are being developed and as soon as these are implemented into the live site, we will notify all users via this blog.

New People’s Map Blog

Dear People's Map users,

I would like to introduce myself – I am Chlodwik Rossouw and I have recently joined the People’s Map Partnership as the Project Manager. I have worked in GI services for the past 6 years as a user of various GIS data as part of the utilities, consulting as well as the local government sectors.

One of my main goals is to build a much closer relationship with our growing band of users. There is a lot going on in the People’s Map world – new users, new applications, new functionality and new datasets – and it is important that we keep you all informed about these developments. It is also important for us to receive feedback from you the users so that we can constantly improve the People’s Map service.

To help improve our communications we are launching this blog which we will be using from now on to keep you informed about People’s Map developments.

So please feel free to comment on any of the posts.

Enjoy & get mapping!!

Best wishes
Chlodwik