Introducing GEMMA: A Geospatial Engine for Mass Mapping Applications

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GEMMA is the latest in a series of geospatial projects from the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, here at University College London.

We are experiencing a massive explosion of online geospatial data from many new and unconventional sources from mobile devices to crowd-sourcing tools. Combined with newly released public sector information, we desperately need to integrate our tools for unlocking, exploiting, understanding and sharing these new data sets so that users can be provided with an accessible gateway to their display, mapping and spatial analysis.  Funded by JISC, GEMMA aims to produce a single workflow for the collection, mapping, preservation, sharing and visualisation of the geospatial datasets.

The Aim of GEMMA

What does that mean in short? The ability to create a map without knowing anything about mapping. Simple as, for too long creating a map has been too complicated, there is now a vast amount of geographically tagged information available online, yet to map it you still have to have a considerable amount of computer related knowledge. Not any more, and we are not talking standard pin type maps, we will enable complex spatial mapping to be carried out at the click of mouse and a point at a file.

This is what geospatial mapping should be, GEMMA aims to  bring 'geo' to the masses and not in a 'neogeo' type way, simply find some data, make, mix and display a map, that's GEMMA in a nutshell.

With applications as wide ranging as community participation, social simulation, economic analysis, urban modelling and beyond, the collection, visualisation, analysis and ultimately understanding of these datasets requires new software organised around a new series of workflows which integrate an array of tools.

Over the next 8 months we aim to produce a one stop shop for any user who wishes to take public sector, crowd-sourced, mobile and related online data with geospatial reference which enables them to display and overlay this information in non-proprietary or freely available mapping services on the web such as Google Maps or Open Street Map, building on several tools that CASA has developed such as, MapTube and SurveyMapper.

What to Expect?

In typical CASA style, we will have frequent updates, beta releases and online apps. GEMMA will be integrated with various crowd sourced and open data sources complete with both iPhone and Android applications for viewing and collecting data in the field.

GEMMA kicks off March 1st, 2011, its time to make geo easy....

Broadband Speed Mapped for BBC Look East Research

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BBC Look East is calling for people in the East of England to find out their home broadband speed, as part of the TV programme's week-long special - using our free SurveyMapper tool, at CASA, University College London, to collate and map the results in real time. So far over 6500 responses have been received.

It is estimated only 60% of households in the region have access to high speed broadband.

Look East's business reporter Richard Bond said that the figure was unlikely to grow much in the next five years.

Home broadband users can take part by plotting their speed onto an interactive map.

The results of the research will then be shown on BBC One during Look East's broadband week, which runs from 21 to 25 February 2011.

"Fibre optic networks, the key to a fast service, are only available to people in and around the major towns and cities," said Mr Bond.

"Broadband speeds in rural areas are slow because they depend on copper telephone exchanges.

"Although BT is rolling out its fibre optic network, this is unlikely to make much of a difference to most rural communities over the next five years," he added.

Speed test

Broadband users can test their upload speed on BBC News' Technology website.

As broadband speeds on the same connection can fluctuate, it is recommended that people take the test several times and make a note of the highest speed.

Other speed-testing websites could return different results, so it is recommended for this research that third-party sites are avoided.

Once a figure is obtained, people can then plot their results on the BBC Look East map hosted on our SurveyMapper.

It is nice to see maps and indeed crowd sourced surveys used in such a way, SurveyMapper has been developed as part of NeISS (National e-Infrastructure for Social Simulation, funded by JISC as part of its Information Environment Programme.

You can set up your own survey or poll on SurveyMapper - If you have used other ‘polling sites’ then you will be up to speed, except we have taken away the restrictions and added real-time mapping into the mix. Simply sign up (its free) and then your be able to create your own survey and embed it into your own site. Currently we have five levels of survey available - Worldwide, based on countries, European Countries US Zip Code, UK Postcode and a Drag and Drop Pin Map.

You can ask anything, survey the nation, the world or just your street with real-time mapping and statistics.

To take part or create your own survey head over to SurveyMapper.com

The Look East survey runs until February 25th with updates each evening on BBC Look East News.

3ds Max 2011 One Project from Start to Finish - Retweet to Win a Copy

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*Update*


Thanks to everyone who retweeted and entered the competition, we are pleased to announce the 3 winners:

CodeDependent
thesuitcasekid
imagineer360
If the winners could email us their address we will ship the books out asap.


Sorry if you did not win this time round, we will have more 'giveaways' soon...

***

3ds Max is a uniquely powerful modelling program, yet one that can catch out both new comers and even advanced users out with its intricacies and workflows. Many tutorial style books are fundamentally flawed by assuming the reader is already familiar with various aspects of the software. Indeed, we remember well a book that stated 'now complete this easy step' only to leave us both frustrated and annoyed as we failed to grasp the instructions.

What therefore is needed is a book that illustrates the process of creating a 3D visualization project step by step - and we are pleased to say there finally is a book worthy of its title '3ds Max 2011, One Project from Start to Finish'.

The movie below details the model produced over 9 chapters and the good news is we have three copies to give away, full details at the end of the post:






The book has been designed to be useful for readers at all skill levels. The material is presented in a way that will engage advanced users while still being explicatory enough for beginners - which is great to see.

Covering 2D-3D Modelling, Terrain Creation, Tree Creation, Water Elements, Animation, Lighting, Rending, Particles Systems and more the book provides a fully structured guide.

If your only going to buy one 3D modelling book this year then 3ds Max 2011 - One Project from Start to Finish is simply the best option.

The publishers 3DATS have kindly provided us with 3 copies to give away to readers - simply retweet this post and we will pick 3 winners at random from the Twitter feed. Competition ends 28th February, so you have a week to enter.

The retweet button is at the top of the post, good luck, books will be shipped Tuesday 29th, each valued at $99.95.

London Bike Flow Animation

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Dr Martin Austwick and Ollie O'Brien here in CASA have produced an updated version of the animation of Barclays Cycle Hire bikes on a typical weekday:

Boris Bikes redux from Sociable Physics on Vimeo.

The data for the bikes is courtesy of Transport for London, with the Thames, parks and the underlying network being faithfully drawn by OpenStreetMap contributors.

You can find full details over at Suprageography...

How to Build a 3D Printer in 24 Hours

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Last weekend the office here at CASA was taken over by the RepRap 3D printer build. The PayItForward team - a group of altruistic people who have RepRap machines, printing parts and gifting them to people who want to make a RepRap machine with the requirement that once the 3D printer is running, they print off a set and pass them on in the same fashion - came in and 24 hours later we had a 3D Printer. Below is a timelapse of the event:

The whole process was documented, it was fascinating to see it coming together:

Three hours in and things were taking shape:

5am in the office and team were still going strong (well most of them):

A huge note of thanks to the build team, Dave Flanders (his site is where a lot of this post is blatantly lifted from), Steven Gray from CASA who did the timelapse and worked over 24 hours on the build without sleep, Ben o-Steen and Graham Klyne. What was our role? merely to provide pizza and beer....

The 3D printer is a thing of beauty, the next 24 hour build party is to be announced soon, watch the PIF3D announcement page and if you’d like to host your own print party sign up on the PIF3D wiki.

Street Slide: Coming Soon to Bing?

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Systems such as Google Street View and Bing Maps Streetside enable users to virtually visit cities by navigating between immersive 360° panoramas, or bubbles. The discrete moves from bubble to bubble enabled in these systems do not provide a good visual sense of a larger aggregate such as a whole city block. Multi-perspective "strip" panoramas can provide a visual summary of a city street but lack the full realism of immersive panoramas.

The movie below provides an overview of the system:




In a paper at SIGGRAPH Microsoft presented Street Slide, which combines the best aspects of the immersive nature of bubbles with the overview provided by multiperspective strip panoramas. They demonstrated a seamless transition between bubbles and multi-perspective panoramas presenting a dynamic construction of the panoramas which overcomes many of the limitations of previous systems.

As the user slides sideways, the multi-perspective panorama is constructed and rendered dynamically to simulate either a perspective or hyper-perspective view. This provides a strong sense of parallax, which adds to the immersion.

You can view the paper here (13Mb, .pdf), with Microsofts Patent recently approved, it looks like this should be coming to Bing soon.

New York: Pinball Skyline

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The short below was developed by Lizzie Oxby, a multi-award winning director who graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1996 to remind her of the joy of the New York skyline, the clip is based around three photographs:

Manhattan 4.33pm from Lizzie Oxby on Vimeo.
Entitled 'Manhattan: 4.33pm' the movie has been selected as a finalist in Raindance's Welcome to the Extraordinary competition.

See lizzieoxby.com for more of her work.

Norway: 4000 Bus Stops that Tweet, Record Stories and Provide the Time of the Next Bus via QRCodes

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Today sees the launch of our latest collaboration via the Tales of Things project - this time with a Norwegian transport company, Kolumbus. Tales of Things has been utilising Kolumbus’ already existing QR codes to allow passengers to leave stories for one another. When a passenger visits one of Kolumbus’ more than 4,000 bus stops they will find a QR code which when scanned with the free Tales of Things’ app on with the iPhone or Android it will not only link them to timetable information, but also allow them to leave a message on the bus stop.

Each stop contains a unique code, so the timetable information and tales are site specific. Through tales of things, passengers can leave messages about experiences they have had in the area, anecdotes about places they are going, leave a message for a loved one or maybe leave a treasure trail for your friends. In addition to this, each time a bus stop is scanned, it 'tweets' to the world that a new story, message or memory has been left.

In essence we think of this as a mix of Facebook and FourSquare for Bus Stops, where users leave behind stories, messages and memories while at the same time seeing when the next bus is.

The things can be geo-located through an on-line map of the world where participants can track their object even if they have passed it on. The object can also update previous owners on its progress through a live Twitter feed (which is unique to each object entered into the system).

Einar Hougen, project manager in Kolumbus, states: “When we learned about this exciting UK research project, we instantly recognized the parallels to our own QR tagging of bus stops, which we believe is the largest adaptation of QR codes of this kind in Norway to date. Scanning a QR code at a Kolumbus bus stop gives instant access to current departure times, right on your mobile phone.

In Kolumbus, we are happy to support this research project by sharing our QR mechanism and allowing all our bus stops to be accessible in the tales of things world of objects. Via our tech blog, next.kolumbus.no , we know there are many tech savvy users among our travellers. This will give them the opportunity to join this project, -and hopefully have a bit of fun at the same time!”

ABOUT KOLUMBUS

Kolumbus is the public transport company for Rogaland county, Norway, serving the public with bus and high speed boat routes in the areas of Stavanger, Haugesund, the Fjords, Dalane and Jæren.

For more information on Kolumbus visit http://www.kolumbus.no/

http://next.kolumbus.no/2011/02/04/talesofthings/ and of course you can tag your own objects, places, spaces or bus stops via Tales of Things.

London Cycle Flows: A Sociable Physics Animation

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The animation below details the real-time behaviour of hire bikes in London on October 4th 2010, the day of a major tube strike, and the busiest day for the scheme to date.

Departure times and journey durations are real; routing is calculated from OSM data; average speed from journey duration and route length.

London Hire Bikes animation from Sociable Physics on Vimeo.

In the visualisation, the fixed circles represent stands – when a stand flashes red, it means that one or more bikes have left it - and a yellow flash means a bike has arrived. The bikes themselves are represented by the Boris Barclays Blue Tadpoles whizzing around – leaving at the right time, travelling at their correct average speed, and taking a (generally) realistic route.

The movie was created by Martin Austwick of Sociable Physics, here in CASA with the help of Ollie O'Brien (again CASA) for collection and routing.

We are a bit biased on such work, here at digital urban, but its great....

The Colosseum Viz: Bucharest, Romania by Uniform

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Uniform have recently finished a short film on behalf of the Romanian real estate company Nova Imobiliare, the investment group behind The Colosseum project in Bucharest, Romania.

Uniform’s role was to develop a film that gave potential occupiers and customers a clear vision for this spectacular destination. The film had to create a ‘real experience’, telling the story of how the variety of infrastructure and spaces linked together, resulting in a film that provides a fantastic insight into this ‘colossus’ project and how it will look when it’s finished.

The Colosseum from Uniform on Vimeo.

Now visualising retail centres is not the easiest of jobs as all the new build shopping centres tend to have a similar look throughout the world. Notable here is the 'British Museum' style roof with hints of Vegas thrown into the standard retail blender. The project comprises of a 54 hectre site and includes 200,000m2 of mixed-use development, containing retail, restaurants, leisure facilities and a hotel. The scheme will be Central and Eastern Europe’s largest commercial development with a total value of € 350 million. We like Uniform's take on the pitch and it looks like Romania is about to have the opportunity for substantial retail therapy.

Landing at LAX in Twilight: The City Grid

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The movie below provides a stunning view of Los Angeles at twilight. Recorded on a Canon S95 and running at 8x speed it allows you to appreciate the size and extensive network of the city:



We note the authors (surfbum) reason for making the clip 'main purpose for making this video was for the benefit of my airline friends who have kids. They have an attention span of three minutes and want to see exactly what it is Daddy or Mommy does. It's just meant to be fun and somewhat educational. Plus I thought it looked kind of cool.'

Very nice...