Location & Mapping
Steve Coast
www.cloudmade.com
steve@cloudmade.com

Location

X,Y,Z

Y
X

X = Longitude

Y = Latitude

Z = Height

Time?

Projections

Paleogeography

Neogeography

Essentially, Neogeography is about
people using and creating their
own maps, on their own terms and
by combining elements of an
existing toolset.
Wikipedia

2000

2002

2004

2005

Mapstraction

Lightweight tools
Really the democratisation of geography
•Surveying - OpenStreetMap / Platial / PoM
•Cartography - OpenStreetMap
•Analysis - GeoCommons
•Mashups - GMaps (GYM)

Lightweight tools
• GeoRSS / KML
• OSM (GPS + notepad)
• GMaps

GeoRSS
<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?>
<feed xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom\"
xmlns:georss=\"http://www.georss.org/georss\">
<title>Earthquakes</title>
<subtitle>International earthquake observation labs</
subtitle>
<link href=\"http://example.org/\"/>
<updated>2005-12-13T18:30:02Z</updated>
<author>
<name>Dr. Thaddeus Remor</name>
<email>tremor@quakelab.edu</email>
</author>
<id>urn:uuid:60a76c80-d399-11d9-b93C-0003939e0af6</id>
<entry>
<title>M 3.2, Mona Passage</title>
<link href=\"http://example.org/2005/09/09/atom01\"/>
<id>urn:uuid:1225c695-cfb8-4ebb-aaaa-80da344efa6a</id>
<updated>2005-08-17T07:02:32Z</updated>
<summary>We just had a big one.</summary>
<georss:point>45.256 -71.92</georss:point>
</entry>
</feed>

2007 - maturity?

OpenStreetMap

§

Why OSM?
• Geodata isn’t
• Free
• Open
• Current
• Wiki is obvious next step
• It’s just fun

Some Quotes

Quote 1
“It’s absolutely possible for a bunch of smart guys
with the technology we have today to capture
street networks, and potentially the major roads
of the UK and minor roads”
Ed Parsons, ex-CTO Ordnance Survey

Quote 2
“If you don’t make [lower-resolution mapping data] publicly
available, there will be people with their cars and GPS devices,
driving around with their laptops .. They will be cataloguing
every lane, and enjoying it, driving 4×4s behind your farm at the
dead of night. There will, if necessary, be a grass-roots
remapping.”
Tim Berners-Lee

Quote 3
“You could have a community capability where you took
the GPS data of people driving around and started to see,
oh, there’s a new road that we don’t have, a new route ..
And so that data eventually should just come from the
community with the right software infrastructure.”
Bill Gates

We make beautiful maps

...which we give away

Using OSM

Workshops
Or, Map as Party

Fallout

A-Z
Norman Dennison, director of Geographers' A-Z Map
Company, confirms that Lye Close is a lie, which will now
be removed. \"The idea is to put something on the map to
protect copyright,\" he says. \"We try to put it in an area or
a part of a road which would not be misleading to the
ordinary person in the street. They have been put in out-
of-the-way places.\"

Postcodes

1 2
-2.11 780 AB 5 3SQ
650 2.148 2
0 AB 1 8JU
-
9970 -2.10415 0 AB4 B
00 .96551 AB41 9J Y
43 -1 U
0
770 2.07120 AB52 6
0
9
80 - .596490 L1 1DS
3650 10 -2 A L
7316 AL1 2Q
0 1
0
.39 07 -0.3 262 R
2 1G
46
9
.730 03 -0.3 305 AL 2LA
3
2 2
1.733 616 -0.29 1070 AL 2LE
2
3
1.721 522 -0.3 3903 AL 2 2PA
5 L
3
0
51.71 127 -0.3 40726 A 4 0SE
4 L
3
51.71 4834 -0. 58973 A L4 9AH
2
51.72 6314 -0. 96870 A L4 9NH
2
51.74 0150 -0. 21020 A 5 5RU
3 L
51.77 0430 -0. 37272 A 6 9HT
L
3
51.77 5879 -0. 14148 A 4 7TG
2 1
51.81 1930 -0. 01901 B 2 1JU
7
9
51.82 4691 -1. 17927 B 90 2AA
8
3
52.4 1040 -1. 27760 B 97 4NF
.8
5
52.5 4420 -1 69556 B A2 3BH
9
0
52.4 0354 -1. 67850 B 17 5QA
D
3
0
52.3 8340 -2. 67370 B H20 4PF
7
51.37 7590 -1. 123162 B 20 6EP
H
.
4
53.8 2699 -2 31780 B H21 1HJ
2
8 1 -2. B
50.6 3DA
7160
7

Coase’s Penguin
(Yochai Benkler)
Commons-based Peer Production:
•Non-monetary motivation
•Discrete multi-size pieces
•Low-cost integration

Coase’s Penguin
(Yochai Benkler)
Commons-based Peer Production:
•Fun
•Takes 5 minutes
•Easy

Data:
UK-EU comparison

US GeoData Maket
Price
100 ‘%’
‘Quality’

US GeoData Maket
Price
TIGER-derived
etc
TIGER
100 ‘%’
‘Quality’

EU GeoData Maket
Price
100 ‘%’
‘Quality’

EU GeoData Maket
NMA
Price
OSM
100 ‘%’
‘Quality’

EU GeoData Maket
NMA
I’m ignoring ex-
copyright data as
Price
its place is very
debatable
OSM
100 ‘%’
‘Quality’

EU GeoData Maket
NMA
Price
OSM
100 ‘%’
‘Quality’

EU GeoData Maket
NMA
Price
OSM
100 ‘%’
‘Quality’

EU GeoData Maket
NMA
Price
OSM
100 ‘%’
‘Quality’

We’ve seen this before

OS Market
Windows
Price
Linux
100 ‘%’
‘Quality’

OS Market
Windows
(Think price per
feature)
Price
Linux
100 ‘%’
‘Quality’

• Consultancy
• Development
• OpenStreetMapData (cleaned, nice formats)
• Proprietary data, using OpenStreetMap tools
(much cheaper)

Thank you
Steve Coast
www.cloudmade.com
steve@cloudmade.com