[OHM] Update: Deploying our own version of NYPL Building Inspector

[Tim Waters]

Hi folks,

here's my thoughts

Moving forward:
Remember that people will fix the automatic vectorisations if they are off
- they can also add extra buildings if need be also.
I think we have enough to move it forward and see what happens. As the NYPL
Building Inspector says: "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good"

Branding:
Yes I think it should be branded an OHM project - but with space for donors
and supporters particularly if other organisations apart from NLS want to
get involved.
I've also forked the project into the OpenHistoricalMap repo
https://github.com/OpenHistoricalMap/building-inspector as I think that's
the best place for it (not sure why I didn't do that at first, tbh)

cheers,

Tim


On 1 June 2014 18:25, Rob Nickerson <rob.j.nickerson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> An update on progress deploying our own version of NYPL's historic map
> vectorizer/building inspector tool [1].
>
>
>    1. Chris Fleet from National Library of Scotland (NLS) has kindly
>    provided a couple of GeoTiff example scans from their London 1890's maps
>    [2].
>    2. Using the NYPL map-vectorizer [3] I am able to get initial building
>    outlines from these maps.
>    3. Tim Waters has managed to get a copy of the NYPL website up ready
>    for loading NLS's maps/vectorized buildings. This is at [4]. Meanwhile he
>    has opened initial conversations with the British Library who also have a
>    good collection of historic maps.
>    4. I am concerned that the initial building outlines end up leaving
>    gaps between terraced buildings. This is due to the way that the NYPL
>    map-vecotrizer works to trace the _inside_ of buildings. I'm no GIS expert
>    so may be missing a simple solution. However I have noticed that we could
>    use the Strava Slide tool [5] to 'slide' the building polygons onto the
>    building walls. In essence this works by using pixel "blackness" of the map
>    scan (rather than GPS traces as per the initial Strava Slide tool).
>    5. I have contacted Paul at Strava to ask about this. He thinks the
>    idea is a really good one and is hoping to add the functionality we will
>    require. He's a bit busy at the moment but is presenting at FOSS4G (in
>    September?) and would like to use this as an example of what's possible
>    with slide.
>
> So, where does this leave us? Well we're at the same place as NYPL so
> could go ahead with adapting the website Tim put up to our needs and then
> launch when ready. Or, we could hold off until Paul at Strava is able to
> add the functionality we need to the Slide tool.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Also, are folks happy for this to be branded as an OpenHistoricalMap
> project? (Chris at NLS is okay with this).
>
> Regards,
> Rob
>
> [1] http://buildinginspector.nypl.org/
> [2] http://maps.nls.uk/os/london-1890s/index.html
> [3] https://github.com/NYPL/map-vectorizer
> [4] http://leatherwood.herokuapp.com/
> [5] http://labs.strava.com/slide/
>
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