Neogeography Archives - Digital Urban

Introducing GEMMA: A Geospatial Engine for Mass Mapping Applications

Andy — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:03:00 +0000

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….

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Broadband Speed Mapped for BBC Look East Research

Andy — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 09:30:00 +0000

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 coun
tries, 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.

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Data Mash-Ups and the Future of Mapping: JISC Report

Andy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 10:05:00 +0000

Over the past few months we have been working with colleagues here at CASA, University College London and at the University of Nottingham, in association with the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) to write a report on Data mash-ups and the future of mapping. We are pleased to say the report has just been released and is available to download.

Report by Suchith Anand, Michael Batty, Andrew Crooks, Andrew Hudson-Smith, Mike Jackson, Richard Milton, Jeremy Morley

Data Mash-Ups and the Future of Mapping

Executive Summary

The term ‘mash-up’ refers to websites that weave data from different sources into new Web services. The key to a successful Web service is to gather and use large datasets and harness the scale of the Internet through what is known as network effects. This means that data sources are just as important as the software that ‘mashes’ them, and one of the most profound pieces of data that a user has at any one time is his or her location. In the past this was a somewhat fuzzy concept, perhaps as vague as a verbal reference to being in a particular shop or café or an actual street address. Recent events, however, have changed this. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton’s policy decision to open up military GPS satellite technology for ‘dual-use’ (military and civilian) resulted in a whole new generation of location-aware devices.Around the same time, cartography and GIScience were also undergoing dramatic, Internet-induced changes.

Traditional, resource intensive processes and established organizations, in both the public and private sectors, were being challenged by new, lightweight methods. The upshot has been that map making, geospatial analysis and related activities are undergoing a process of profound change. New players have entered established markets and disrupted routes to knowledge and, as we have already seen with Web 2.0, newly empowered amateurs are part of these processes. Volunteers are quite literally grabbing a GPS unit and hitting the streets of their local town to help create crowdsourced datasets that are uploaded to both open source and proprietary databases.

The upshot is an evolving landscape which Tim O’Reilly, proponent of Web 2.0 and always ready with a handy moniker, has labelled Where 2.0. Others prefer the GeoWeb, Spatial Data Infrastructure, Location Infrastructure, or perhaps just location based services. Whatever one might call it, there are a number of reasons why its development should be of interest to those in higher and further education. Firstly, since a person’s location is such a profound unit of information and of such value to, for example, the process of targeting advertising, there has been considerable investment in Web 2.0-style services that make use of it. Understanding these developments may provide useful insights for how other forms of data might be used. Secondly, education, particularly research, is beginning to realize the huge potential of the data mash-up concept. As Government, too, begins to get involved, it is likely that education will be expected to take advantage of, and indeed come to relish, the new opportunities for working with data.

This TechWatch report describes the context for the changes that are taking place and explains why the education community needs to understand the issues around how to open up data, how to create mash-ups that do not compromise accuracy and quality and how to deal with issues such as privacy and working with commercial and non-profit third parties. It also shows how data mash-ups in education and research are part of an emerging, richer information environment with greater integration of mobile applications, sensor platforms, e-science, mixed reality, and semantic, machine-computable data and speculates on how this is likely to develop in the future.

There are two versions for download: the first is an optimised version (900Kb) and the second is the one with full resolution graphics (14Mb)

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Data Mash-Ups and the Future of Mapping: JISC Report

Andy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 10:05:00 +0000

Report by Suchith Anand, Michael Batty, Andrew Crooks, Andrew Hudson-Smith, Mike Jackson, Richard Milton, Jeremy Morley

Data Mash-Ups and the Future of Mapping

Executive Summary

There are two versions for download: the first is an optimised version (900Kb) and the second is the one with full resolution graphics (14Mb)

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SurveyMapper Trailer: Survey the World a Nation, City or Town

Andy — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:23:00 +0000

Last week we announced that the beta release of SurveyMapper, our free real-time geographic survey and polling tool is now live. As is traditional with our roll-outs it now has its own 55 second trailer:

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. Currently we have four levels of survey available – Worldwide, based on countries, European Countries and UK Counties/Authorities and Postcode.

Head over to SurveyMapper.com to create your own survey or answer the surveys already running.

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SurveyMapper Trailer: Survey the World a Nation, City or Town

Andy — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:23:00 +0000

Head over to SurveyMapper.com to create your own survey or answer the surveys already running.

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Paper: Mapping for the Masses Accessing Web 2.0 Through Crowdsourcing

Andy — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:14:00 +0000

Continuing the publication online via Issuu of our papers we include our recent paper written with Andrew Crooks, Michael Batty, and Richard Milton from CASA entitled “Mapping for the Masses Accessing Web 2.0 Through Crowdsourcing” as published in Social Science Computer Review.

“The authors describe how we are harnessing the power of web 2.0 technologies to create new approaches to collecting, mapping, and sharing geocoded data. The authors begin with GMapCreator that lets users fashion new maps using Google Maps as a base. Click the right arrow to turn the page:

The authors then describe MapTube that enables users to archive maps and demonstrate how it can be used in a variety of contexts to share map information, to put existing maps into a form that can be shared, and to create new maps from the bottom-up using a combination of crowdcasting, crowdsourcing, and traditional broadcasting. The authors conclude by arguing that such tools are helping to define a neogeography that is essentially ‘‘mapping for the masses,’’ while noting that there are many issues of quality, accuracy, copyright, and trust that will influence the impact of these tools on map-based communication.”

Keywords: network economies; neogeography; web-based services; map mashups; crowdsourcing; crowdcasting; online GIS.

The paper can be downloaded from here (pdf link).

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The Renaissance of Geographic Information: Neogeography, Gaming and Second Life

Andy — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:08:00 +0000

Web 2.0, specifically The Cloud, GeoWeb and Wikitecture are revolutionising the way in which we present, share and analyse geographic data. In this paper we outline and provide working examples a suite of tools which are detailed below, aimed at developing new applications of GIS and related technologies. GeoVUE is one of seven nodes in the National Centre for e-Social Science whose mission it is to develop web-based technologies for the social and geographical sciences. The Node, based at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London has developed a suite of free software allowing quick and easy visualisation of geographic data in systems such as Google Maps, Google Earth, Crysis and Second Life.

We are trying out the service by Issuu to share and view our documents online, if it works well then the digital urban booklet will go online next week (click the right button to turn the page):

These tools address two issues, firstly that spatial data is still inherently difficult to share and visualise for the non-GIS trained academic or professional and secondly that a geographic data social network has the potential to dramatically open up data sources for both the public and professional geographer. With our applications of GMap Creator, and MapTube to name but two, we detail ways to intelligently visualise and share spatial data. This paper concludes with detailing usage and outreach as well as an insight into how such tools are already providing a significant impact to the outreach of geographic information.

If you dont want to read it online you can download the full paper The Renaissance of Geographic Information: Neogeography, Gaming and Second Life in .pdf format (9.8Mb).

Thanks go to UrbanTick who pointed us to the service – you can see a preview of their book over at urbantick.blogspot.com

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Come in Neogeography Your Time is Up

Andy — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:13:00 +0000

We are currently writing a technical report on all things geographic and coming to write the term ‘Neogeography’ has to be honest become painful. Sure, we have written many papers and book chapters on the topic but perhaps its one to lay to rest as we try to explain below…

The ability to mine data via new emerging methodologies for the collection, analysis and leverage of spatially related information is gathering pace and entering the main stream of social science. The key to this is three fold, firstly the move of information into the digital domain with datasets previously limited to corporations or local government organizations becoming available online, this is a recent trend. Secondly the rise of Neogeography, volunteered geographic information, crowd sourcing and citizen science above and beyond the traditional geographic domain. Thirdly the development of new toolkits that take advantage of various application programming interfaces (API’s) to allow non-programmers to quickly and easily mix, match and visualize datasets which would of previously been prohibitively technical. Such activites as a whole can be defined as Neogeography, the term derives from Eisnor (2006) one of the founders of www.platial.com where she defines it (Neogeography) as ‘…a diverse set of practices that operate outside, or alongside, or in a manner of, the practices of professional geographers.

Rather than making claims on scientific standards, methodologies of Neogeography tend towards intuitive, expressive, personal, absurd, and/or/ artistic, but may just be idiosyncratic applications of ‘real’ geographic techniques. This is not to say that these practices are of no use to the cartographic/geographic sciences, but they just usually do not conform the protocols of professional practice’. We see this as key to the renaissance of geographic information, the term Neogeography is perhaps of its time, in a similar manner that ‘Cyberspace’ is now rarely used. The importance is the trend towards the intuitive, expressive, personal, absurd, and/or/ artistic use of data without worrying, or indeed caring, about standards. A term to replace Neogeography? Perhaps there is not a need for one, its all about visualising spatial data, is there a need for a term that distinguishes between the professional and the non-professional, we would argue not.

Neogeography was 2006-2009, perhaps its time to leave it there.

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New paper: NeoGeography and Web 2.0

Andy — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:59:00 +0000

The current issue of the Journal of Location Based Services is a special edition on Neogeography edited by Sanjay Rana and Thierry Joliveau.

Apart from the editorial there are three papers of particular note in this special issue. The first is by Michael Goodchild, entitiled “NeoGeography and the nature of geographic expertise” The abstract of the paper is below:

“NeoGeography has been defined as a blurring of the distinctions between producer, communicator and consumer of geographic information. The relationship between professional and amateur varies across disciplines. The subject matter of geography is familiar to everyone, and the acquisition and compilation of geographic data have become vastly easier as technology has advanced. The authority of traditional mapping agencies can be attributed to their specifications, production mechanisms and programs for quality control. Very different mechanisms work to ensure the quality of data volunteered by amateurs. Academic geographers are concerned with the extraction of knowledge from geographic data using a combination of analytic tools and accumulated theory. The definition of NeoGeography implies a misunderstanding of this role of the professional, but English lacks a basis for a better term. “

The second article is by Marcus Foth et al., entitled “The Second Life of urban planning? Using NeoGeography tools for community engagement” The abstract of the paper reads:

“The majority of the world’s citizens now live in cities. Although urban planning can thus be thought of as a field with significant ramifications on the human condition, many practitioners feel that it has reached the crossroads in thought leadership between traditional practice and a new, more participatory and open approach. Conventional ways to engage people in participatory planning exercises are limited in reach and scope. At the same time, socio-cultural trends and technology innovation offer opportunities to re-think the status quo in urban planning. NeoGeography introduces tools and services that allow non-geographers to use advanced geographical information systems. Similarly, is there a potential for the emergence of a neo-planning paradigm in which urban planning is carried out through active civic engagement aided by Web 2.0 and new media technologies thus redefining the role of practicing planners? This paper traces a number of evolving links between urban planning, NeoGeography and information and communication technology. Two significant trends – participation and visualisation – with direct implications for urban planning are discussed. Combining advanced participation and visualisation features, the popular virtual reality environment Second Life is then introduced as a test bed to explore a planning workshop and an integrated software event framework to assist narrative generation. We discuss an approach to harness and analyse narratives using virtual reality logging to make transparent how users understand and interpret proposed urban designs”.

While the third paper is by myself, Andrew Crooks, Maurizio Gibin; Richard Milton; and Michael Batty entitled “NeoGeography and Web 2.0: concepts, tools and applications” in which we explore the concepts and applications of Web 2.0 through the new media of NeoGeography and its impact on how we collect, interact and search for spatial information. We argue that location and space are becoming increasingly important in the information technology revolution. To this end, we present a series of software tools which we have designed to facilitate the non-expert user to develop online visualisations which are essentially map-based. These are based on Google Map Creator, which can produce any number of thematic maps which can be overlaid on Google Maps. We then introduce MapTube, a technology to generate an archive of shared maps, before introducing Google Earth Creator, Image Cutter and PhotoOverlay Creator. All these tools allow users to display and share information over the web. Finally, we present how Second Life has the potential to combine all aspects of Web 2.0, visualisation and NeoGeography in a single multi-user three-dimensional collaborative environment.

If you are interested in reading our paper and can not access it (access through Universities should be free of charge), drop us an email via our contact page.

Thanks go to gisagents.blogspot.com

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