 Bryan
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Posted: 20 March 2009, 2:07 AM
New Zealand Orienteering map portal to be created.
New domain name tentatively named: www.omaps.co.nz
Features of the portal are:
- map base using Google Earth
- searching by map name, club, author, year of edition, type of the map, area
- showing the position and exact surface of mapped area
- showing the map itself on map portal marked with watermark, resolution preventing usage for orienteering competition
- Maps which clubs want to give away for free will be available for download in PDF format (with contact details registered of anyone who downloads and forwarded onto clubs)
- links to clubs and club information and NZOF contact info
- adequate legalese and terms and conditions
Map portal will be based on the following Slovak Orienteering map portal website:
http://www.orienteering.sk/maps-new/
One of the main reasons I'm doing this is to find, scan and archive all our old maps (even black and white) otherwise they will be lost forever. I did this for all results of major events (www.orienteeringresults.com) and it took me 25 years to capture and find the information which is now largely uptodate and a valuable resource. I envisage that the map portal will probably take a few years for me to collate most of the maps. I have already scanned and created details for all the maps I have been involved with (over 200).
Information about maps to be collected could include:
- Unique identifier
- location coordinates (lat/long, NZMG)
- name
- version
- date of fieldwork
- scale
- contour interval
- type (black and white, colour offset, colour laser, ocad, GIS, image-jpg, gif)
- printed approx size (A1, A2, A3, A4, A5)
- owner of map
- Location name
- Purpose
- Used for (with links to results)
- fieldworkers
- cartographers
- year map published
- map scanned
- available for download
- download filename
- landowners
- access restrictions
If a club does not want to make even a watermarked low resolution map available on the website, then only the map outline in Google will appear (I would hope that this would not happen) but the map should still be scanned for archival purposes and for keeping an official record of all Orienteering maps in New Zealand.
Because of the Google requirement, the site will be accessible by the public and everything will be free.
Due to the sensitivity around money at the moment, the portal will be created at little cost but the investigation
and scoping will determine any extra costs above the domain name costs. I'm prepared to do the web development
for free and to gather the maps information and to maintain and manage a centralised online map
storage system. Investigation is currently underway with the Slovakian federation to see if their software can be tailored for our needs and at what cost. If too much, then I'm prepared to develop from scratch.
It will probably take a few months (and I'm also going on holiday overseas in April) before the first version is
launched. Clubs will be requested to provide a copy of maps they want on the maps database and on the portal.
Any ideas, issues and debate welcome.
Bryan Teahan, NZOF Statistician
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Michael
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Posted: 20 March 2009, 4:29 AM
Excellent proposal Bryan. (I've had a look at the Slovak one.)
Keen to be involved in the design. Interesting issue that while historic maps were identifiable items, more and more we have "mapped areas" from which we extract a part for a specific event. Eg the hundreds of different bits of Woodhill used at various times. We will have to define what is "a map".
OHV has the first step of its contribution - a list of its maps both current and historic, see the website.
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Jamie
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Posted: 20 March 2009, 8:39 AM
what an awesome concept (certainly a step up from my lame get our current maps online idea). I think club archivists will be all over this it should be awesome! And Bryan certainly has the track record to make it happen.
There is so much history contained in our maps that it would be awesome to have accessible for everyone...and combined with the stats page too...check out the results for the 86 nationals then check out the map...
As part of the scheming we need to work out how people, I'm thinking the likes of Bryan and Michael possibly and others that own maps outside club structures can be paid for maps they would like to sell through this site. I read up about the google maps API a few years ago and I thought their commercialisation conditions were workable - although its been a while.
I'm happy to help with any donkey or writing up work you need done Bryan.
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Michael
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Posted: 20 March 2009, 8:56 AM
I don't own any maps.
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Greg
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Posted: 20 March 2009, 9:29 AM
Jamie dont go volunteering for jobs Penny wont let you do, plus how far past maptalk do your computer skills really go, come on.
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The Map Guy
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Posted: 21 March 2009, 5:34 AM
I too don't own any maps suitable for orienteering purposes, but I have produced several privately owned maps for Lodges/Conference Centres which have permanent orienteering courses on them: Tatum Park (south of Levin) and the Rangitaiki River Lodge (Murupara)
I also did a 1:5000 scale map of the River Lodge (near Mihi) but it has no permanent course on it.
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Jamie
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Posted: 21 March 2009, 7:20 AM
househusbands with no kids have a cetain ammount of discretionary time. And yes complete incompetence hence "donkey".
Ok I will rephrase that. Maybe it could be investigated whether clubs or individuals that own maps may be able to choose a commercial model, if they so wish. As Map Guy suggests this might not be pure orienteering maps, it might be rogaine maps, city maps or whatever. For example Chris Forne who owns the Port Hills map may be interested in obtaining some money for people downloading this.
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robbie
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Posted: 21 March 2009, 4:27 PM
Bryan great idea. You shouldnt be doing this for free I see it as an NZOF project. I suggest you apply to the council for backing as a funded project. After all it is our history.
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robbie
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Posted: 21 March 2009, 4:28 PM
Bryan great idea. You shouldnt be doing this for free I see it as an NZOF project. I suggest you apply to the council for backing as a funded project. After all it is our history.
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Jenni
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Posted: 22 March 2009, 12:06 PM
Not sure if you can own a map if you don't own your own copy of ocad...
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Bryan
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Posted: 23 March 2009, 1:32 AM
I'm keeping any commercial stuff completely out of the portal for a few reasons:
- extra development is required to include user payments
- Google commercial fees too expensive
- where maps are available for purchase there could be a link to
a separate site or sites of a different entity or company ( in the future my own company will sell maps on a different website but this is a fair way off)
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Jamie
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Posted: 23 March 2009, 5:01 AM
makes sense, good on you, sounds like there could be possibilities there for it to add to your business model in the future and contribute to its sustainability. Sounds great!
It will be fun for you relating the "exact surface" of the map to some of the google maps...ie Tyger Country, or a lot of the little areas...and of course the overlapping woodhill maps. Man its going to be awesome. Choice.
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nick
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Posted: 23 March 2009, 5:28 AM
Bryan, you are a legend bro.
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Michael
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Posted: 30 March 2009, 5:46 PM
Before proceeding why don't we take a look at the World of O map register? For an example entry, go looking for Belmont Bunkers near Lower Hutt.
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Alistair
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Posted: 30 March 2009, 11:02 PM
Here is the Swedish one too:
http://www.obasen.nu/kartbanken/
...if you need help translating anything just ask - it's relatively intuitive.
Quite a few maps can be seen, however the quality can often be below par for orienteering with. To test - go to the "Sök Kartor" (Search maps) tab on the right, type in "Korpberget" in the "Kartnamn" (map-name) field and press enter. A link then appears below - and if you click on the little icon on the right of the link with the tooltip "kartprov" (map-test) you can see the map. If you klick on the link itself you get a bunch of information about the map itself...
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Bryan
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Posted: 14 January 2010, 12:32 AM
First design of New Zealand Orienteering map portal now created.
Feedback very welcome.
Domain name: www.omaps.co.nz
Kindly sponsored by Dave Melrose Design for the historical scanning of old maps.
Site at the moment only contains the maps I've been involved with and some of Ralph's old maps which he kindly gave to me when I as living in Auckland and mapping Woodhill.
- site contains layers of different kinds of maps which can be turned off and on.
- site can be searched using Google Maps and clicking on marker to get map details, or searching for maps using the form on the right.
- A later version of the site may show the footprint of the map area - currently it only shows a location marker.
- Some free maps (maining OHV's) are available for download - the download part will take you to a different website where you have to register to get the download.
- site also contains a list of mappers and the ability to get in contact or ask a quote of a mapper. (at the moment the list is very small - it contains only me! - Mappers feel free to register your details on the site and I will add you to the list - it is interesting to note that over the years I've had very few requests for a quote for mapping from clubs - I've never had a request to map in the South Island for example and I've usually decided myself
what next area I want to map)
- More maps will be added over time - I have many of my own still to do and I will be asking clubs soon to send theirs. All copies of
maps and map details will also end up I hope in the National Library.
Enjoy!
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