[maps.soton] Re: Future Maintainability

Mon Mar 30 16:23:53 BST 2015

I had a chat with Sophie Dear in comms and showed her some of the map 
work I'd done for an arts festival last Summer and suggested we could 
retool it for open days and I swear her eyes lit up...
http://vfringe.totl.net/vfringe.map

(all links a bit broken, but the hover and click still work)

On 30/03/2015 16:13, Dover M.S. wrote:
> Hi Chris,
>
> I¹ve highlighted your work to Irene Purdie, over in Comms, who¹s my main
> contact on campus maps, and is in charge of getting Campus Maps Boards up
> etc. Trying to get Comms. on board is probably a good idea, they have
> little idea you¹ve produced all this work and it¹s out there.
>
> If you look at the updated web pages for campus etc, it uses embedded
> Google Maps etc, with occasional links to maps I¹ve produced (I wasn¹t
> involved in any of this redesign, apart from a few requests to redraft
> maps). Comms sees maps etc as falling under their remit, and will go
> forward with their vision for maps etc if not presented with alternatives.
>
> I¹ve been trying to push for something like Project Drake over at
> Cambridge, but I¹ve had, if honest, little progress. I think it needs this
> level of institutional involement towards a set goal (web maps and paper
> maps united using same data, controlled and updated spatial data sourced
> from OpenstreetMap, etc).
>
> I don¹t have the clout individually  to push something like Drake through
> to upper management, either here at G+E or centrally, and currently happy
> to admit I don¹t currently have the leaflet, JS knowledge etc to take over
> your work.
>
> Maybe it would be a good idea for us all to to try and  meet up after
> Easter, in person, and see if we can try and work out the way forward as a
> group?
>
> Cheers
>
> Mark
> Mark Dover
> Senior GIS Cartographer
> Geography and Environment
> University of Southampton
>
> Room 1009, Building 44, Highfield Campus
>
> Southampton, SO17 1BJ
>
> Tel. +44 (0) 2380 594649
> www.southampton.ac.uk/geography
> Twitter:  @SpatialGeek
> My current Job Calendar: http://bit.ly/1hMwF64
>
> Too brief? Here's why! http://emailcharter.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 30/03/2015 15:44, "baines c. (cb15g11)" <cb15g11 at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> Its looking more and more likely that I will be graduating and getting a
>> job soon, which has got me thinking about the future on the maps stuff
>> that I have been working on.
>>
>> I am therefore interested in trying to help anyone who wants to continue
>> working on any of the projects I have started, before I leave. This
>> could be just setting up development environments, or better documenting
>> something that is not well understood, in any case, please just let me
>> know.
>>
>> I have copied in a couple of the people who showed interest on the Open
>> Data Maps groupsite group [1]. As far as I can see, it has been dormant
>> for some time now, and some of the information is now out of date (most
>> of this is stuff that I added, and have not updated).
>>
>> The projects divide up as follows:
>>
>> Software:
>>     leaflet-soton
>>     uos-live.js
>>     maps.southampton.ac.uk
>>
>> Cartographic:
>>     sum-carto
>>
>> Data:
>>     hartley-library-map-data
>>     mfd-location
>>     OpenStreetMap
>>
>>
>> List of Projects
>> ================
>>
>> ## maps.southampton.ac.uk
>>
>> Seems to be going well. I think there have been some unpublished changes
>> made to the version on maps.southampton.ac.uk, and therefore I couldn't
>> integrate these. I have some changes that are in my opinion ready to be
>> released.
>>
>>
>> ## leaflet-soton
>>
>> Also going ok, this is a bit harder to work on, as the data processing
>> side of it is a large (~2000) line JavaScript program. It is also not
>> possible to run this reproducibly as it talks to both a PostgreSQL
>> database, and sparql.data.soton.ac.uk. The function of this component is
>> to pull data from OSM (from a PostgreSQL database), the University (from
>> sparql.data.soton.ac.uk) and from the couple of datasets that I have
>> written [5][6] and generate a single json file for use in leaflet-soton.
>>
>>
>> ## uos-live.js
>>
>> I started writing the uos-live.js [4] very recently, its used in
>> leaflet-soton for the bus times.
>>
>>
>> ## sum-carto
>>
>> sum-carto is the modified version of openstreetmap-carto that controls
>> how the tiles look. This currently exists on kanga-cb15g11.soton.ac.uk.
>> I have not published it, as it could do with being re-written as a neat
>> set of patches on openstreetmap-carto (as I did not have the skill to
>> do this initially).
>>
>>
>> ## mfd-location
>>
>> The mfd-location [5] dataset is a very incomplete dataset that contains
>> the location of printers, it is pulled in to leaflet-soton.
>>
>>
>> ## hartley-library-map-data
>>
>> The hartley-library-map-data repository [6] contains a digital version
>> of the maps which the library publish in image form. This is pulled in
>> to leaflet-soton. I am going to try talking to someone at the library,
>> to see if they at least know about this. In my opinion, its not very
>> usable, but this is more due to the lack of information about the rooms
>> and corridors in the library.
>>
>>
>> ## Southampton University Map App
>>
>> There is also the Southampton University Map Android application. I am
>> planning to remove this from the Play Store before the end of Easter. I
>> stopped using it years ago, and the data and software is quite out of
>> date. Despite this, Google tells me that it is currently installed on
>> 628 devices, and has been used by 2692 people (it had only been used by
>> around ~150 people when I stopped developing it).
>>
>>
>> ## OpenStreetMap
>>
>> Lots of the information that is presented on maps.southampton.ac.uk
>> comes from OpenStreetMap. Especially in the case of the indoor data,
>> this might not be very beginner friendly to edit. Keeping OpenStreetMap
>> up to date is an essential part of keeping leaflet-soton, and thus
>> maps.southampton.ac.uk up to date.
>>
>> There is also lots of indoor data, that could do with being added to
>> OSM. I may try talking to SUSU, in addition to the library, to let them
>> know about this alternative to their image based indoor maps.
>>
>>
>> 1:
>> https://groupsite.soton.ac.uk/Administration/Open-Data-Maps/Pages/Home.asp
>> x
>> 2: http://git.cbaines.net/maps.southampton.ac.uk/
>> 3: http://git.cbaines.net/leaflet-soton/
>> 4: http://git.cbaines.net/uos-live.js/
>> 5: http://git.cbaines.net/mfd-location/
>> 6: http://git.cbaines.net/hartley-library-map-data/
>> 7: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.cbaines.suma
>>    (soon to be removed)
>> 8: http://git.cbaines.net/southamptonuniversitymap/
>
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-- 
Christopher Gutteridge -- http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cjg

University of Southampton Open Data Service: http://data.southampton.ac.uk/
You should read the ECS Web Team blog: http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/webteam/