The TEMAP project aims to crowdsource the georeferencing of old map collections to make them searchable online. Key accomplishments include developing a georeferencer tool that allows non-experts to align digitized historical maps to modern maps. A pilot involving nine institutions in the Czech Republic saw over 17,000 users contribute over 260,000 control points to georeference maps. Future work includes addressing challenges like handling non-mappable images and implementing quality control. The end goal is to provide intuitive search of historic maps by time and location.

1. TEMAP Project – Crowdsourcing Old Maps
Petr Žabička
Moravian Library in Brno

2. Agenda
• TEMAP project
• Access
• Search
• Georeferencing
• Future work

3. TEMAP Project
• TEchnology for access to Czech MAP Collections
• MZK, Charles Uni (CU), Masaryk Uni (MU)
TEMAP results:
• Georeferencer and Georeferencer based workflows (MZK)
• Detection of cartographic projection from a scanned map (CU)
• Tool for map series cataloguing (IIIrd military mapping) (MU)
• Testing tools for duplicate/similar map image detection (MZK)
• Map cataloguing guides and online courses (UK)
• Cataloguing and digitisation of map collections (4 globes, 50000
maps)
• Improvement of geoname search tools

4. Why?
Help to put old map collections online

5. Aims
• Online publishing of high resolution scans of old maps
• Intuitive search based on time and location
• availability of geographical coordinates of the map
edges
• Map comparison
• availability of geographical coordinates of selected
points on the digitized map

6. Old Maps in MZK
MZK has long been involved with old maps:
• Digitisation and online publishing of its map collection
• http://mapy.mzk.cz/
• Use or development of free and open source tools for
• modification and publishing of large images
• placing old maps on a contemporary world map
• map search
• Projects: Historical Collections of MZK, Old Maps Online,
EuropeanaTravel, TEMAP, ...

7. Publishing
Image resolution: 300+ dpi
• Nip2 image processing software
• Image tiles
• Large number of tiles => jpeg2000 and IIPImage
• Tile based map viewing => Zoomify + OpenLayers
• Digital library => Kramerius + metadata editor

8. Publishing
NIP2/VIPS image processing:
• Halfway between excel and Photoshop
• Works with TIFF
• Modification and stitching of very large images
• Freely avalilable, can process images larger than the
amount of available memory in a PC
JPEG2000 conversion (using Kakadu software library)
• Jpeg2000 creation recommentdations
• Quality layers, zoom levels etc.

9. MZK and IIPImage
• Added JPEG2000 support using Kakadu library
• JPEG2000 created with inappropriately chosen parameters
will result in a very slow map display!
• Memcached tile cache
• Optional watermarking support
• Tileset standards: IIP, DeepZoom (MZK), Zoomify (MZK), IIIF
(ÖNB)
• MZK publishes installation packages for Debian Linux and a
Windows installer
http://help.oldmapsonline.org/jpeg2000/windows/

10. Tile Viewing
• IIPImage generates tiles of all four supported standards
• Many different tile viewers can be used with the same
image server (Java, Flash or Javascript based)
• OpenLayers preferred for maps
• Currently using modified version 2
• Version 3 (now in beta) adds native Zoomify support
• Other viewers can use DeepZoom or IIIF tile structures
(Seadragon/SandDragon)

11. Digital Library
• Kramerius 4 can work with IIPImage
• DeepZoom or OpenLayers viewer
• Page thumbnails can be created by IIPImage on the fly
• Metadata editor for Fedora Commons repository
• code.google.com/p/meta-editor
Kramerius is not mandatory for the other tools mentioned in this presentation

12. Search
• Full text search fails on maps
• Geographic names change in time, spelling varies
• Different institutions create different quality of metadata
• How to account for the scale of a map in search?
⇒ Maps can best be searched for on a map!

13. Search
• Search system requirements:
• Support for geographical relevance ranking
• Scalability (user numbers, map index)
• Speed (immediate response to change of search
parameters)
• Data requirements:
• Geographic bounding box coordinates
• Scale of a map or its size & DPI
• Year of publication, year/era shown on a map

14. • JISC Project
• Indexes many online map collections worldwide
• Based on MapRank Search technology
• (http://www.mapranksearch.com)
• Project started in February 2012 with 6 collections
• 30000 visits per day when announced

16. • Open for new map collections (for free)
• All rights remain with the collection owners
Requirements:
• Online zoomable maps in high resolution
• Permanent URL and free access
• Basic description of the maps in Dublin Core including a
bounding box data

17. Bounding Box
• While cataloguing:
BoundingBox tool
• Online published maps:
Georeferencer

18. http://boundingbox.klokantech.com

19. Georeferencer
• Enriches metadata of scanned maps
• Runs in a web browser
• Intuitive
• Crowdsourcing friendly – wiki-like
• Shows 2D and 3D map overlays
• analyses map accuracy, calculates a bounding box
• Successful pilots in several institions:

20. Pilot of 9 institions under the TEMAP project:
• Moravian Library in Brno
• Charles University in Prague
• Masaryk University
• National Library of the Czech Republic
• Museum of West Bohemia in Pilsen
• University of Jan Evangelista Purkyně
• Research Library in Olomouc
• Research Library in České Budějovice
• National Technical Library

21. • Pilot start 21st March 2013
• Motivating users - competition
• Institutions supplied csv files with metadata and
their logos
• Metadata created by the users are available to
enrich the map presentations in the individual
institutions

23. Project status
after new map
import today

25. • Over 17000 users
• Over 260000 control points
• Highest number of points on a map: 581 (minimum
required: 5)
• Most active user: over 30800 points (11,5%)
• Most work done right after pilot announcement by
the media
• Some images were not maps (text, veduta)

26. Challenges...

27. http://hermes.mzk.cz/map-transformation/

28. New requirements:
• Mark map as impossible to georeference
• What about border cases?
• Map rotation (OpenLayers 3 working prototype)
• Using another old map for georeferencing
• Mandatory crop lines
• Quality control interface
• Several maps on one sheet
• Reference map with a prominent river network
• Overlay improvement – map warping in a browser

29. WWW.STAREMAPY.CZ
WWW.TEMAP.CZ