[Openstreetmap] map limehouse

[Saul Albert]

Dear osm,

Wow, sorry for the lateness of this bulletin, my brain's been all wrong.

On Sunday 17th July, as part of limehouse town hall's 'open weekend'
(http://limehousetownhall.org.uk) , you are invited to help 'map
limehouse'.. walking, biking, meandering around with either high-tech
gizmos or tooled up with pieces of paper, we'll divide up the uncharted
areas of east Tower Hamlets and go out on a survey.

Here are some Collaborative mapping tools to experiment with during the
session:

[OpenStreetmap] - download the data from your GPS unit (provided, if
you don't have one) into GPX format, and contribute it to this site,
where the dots can be joined into patterns of lines.
- http://openstretmap.org

[GPX viewer on top of Google Maps ], uses javascript to plot tracks and
provide a quick-and-easy visualisation.
- http://www.tom-carden.co.uk/googlegpx/

[Simple Street Annotator] for adding extra metadata (street names and
types, which affect map display) to lines from [OpenStreetmap]?.
- http://map.wirelesslondon.info/map/annotate.cgi?mode=browse

[QuantumGIS] is an open source viewer and simple editor for Geographic
Information Systems and geodata. (desktop application)
- http://www.qgis.org/

Hopefully, Steve Coast from Openstreetmap.org.uk, and Jo Walsh and Lottie
Child of the Uo faculties of Cartography, Econometrics and Physical
Education will lead the workshop.

The proposed process for the use of OSM in the workshop (this is the
first workshop-based experiment, so it will probably all go wrong!) is
this: (comments welcome)

1. Divide up the area using an old OS map, and draw a simple schematic of the
   borders of each area.. so people know which roads form the outer border
   of their survey area.

2. Make up some survey sheets - with space for time, roadname and road
   type.

3. Re-assemble at limehouse after the survey, and teach everyone how to extract
   gpx files.

4. Show people how to register at osm, and how to upload their files and
   link them together into line segments.

5. Play with the above tools to make the experience more whizz-bang.

There's also big bits of paper and art materials lying on the floor in
the hall, between the tombola, the tea cake stand and the space hijackers
urban letterboxing stall: http://www2.spacehijackers.org/letterboxing/ so
it won't all involve looking at gadgets and computers.

We'll start with explanations and tests in the early afternoon but won't
actually get mapping until Lottie sings some Jazz standards at about
13:45 and then Jo and/or Steve does some free geodata zealotry.. then
we'll go out looking for things to map, say from 2:30. However, if you
want some free, communidee lunch, come early.

Cheers,

Saul.

-- 
-- http://chinabone.lth.bclub.org.uk/~saul/