Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Building a live online map with your feet on the ground

OpenStreetMaps offers the organic result of real-world volunteers plotting their knowledge of local geography, writes DANNY O'BRIEN

IF YOU watched the news in the last month, you’ll recognise the outline in the first few moments of the data visualisation movie: the island of Haiti.

The barest outline of roads and other major features pick out Port-au-Prince and other major towns. As the date indicator crosses the “January 12th” marker, the epicentre of the earthquake appears as bold red circles. Then, minutes later, the first flashes of red and white light up the island’s silhouette. Hour by hour, the island turns from being a general sketch of the nation to an increasingly detailed street map. Within a day, the resolution is similar to an Ordnance Survey Ireland map: streets, paths, rivers are all marked and labelled.

By January 17th, a new set of icons appears: the glowing blue markings of Haiti’s refugee camps, picked out and entered into this map, which is now, after just one week, the most accurate and up-to-date geographical record of Haiti available. Read More

Courtesy: Irish Times

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