Volunteer Mapping Efforts

I originally got the idea for this post after reading  Mapbox's blog post about providing imagery to help map parts of Mongolia (click here to read their post).

Living in America it is easy to pull up a map online that is update and accurate.  Sometimes sites like Google maps aren't updated and that has allowed sites like OpenStreetMap to become a more update place to get a map.  OpenStreetMap allows users to add information to maps.  Maybe a new neighborhood has opened and their streets haven't been mapped, or maybe a street is closed.  Open source mapping is a powerful tool.

People do a good job at updating areas that they live nearby or are familiar with, but many parts of the world  aren't accuracy mapped even with OpenStreetMap.   OpenStreetMap has created an organization called "Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team" (HOT).  Please check out their website to learn more (http://hot.openstreetmap.org/).  HOT was developed to aid in Humanitarian work by creating accurate and up to date maps of areas in need. 

A recent project by HOT was updating maps of areas in Africa affected by Ebola.  Before their involvement some areas only showed a few roads, when there are actually hundreds.  The Red Cross has a nice article (found here) about HOTs mapping efforts.  HOT also has plenty of information about this project on their website. 

While some of HOT's work involves collecting data a lot of there work can actually be done from anywhere in the world.  by providing volunteers with satellite imagery in OpenStreetMap, users can digitize rivers, roads or anything else they can see from the imagery.   So if your interested in Humanitarian work or want to get involved with relief efforts during a natural disaster, but aren't able to take time off from work or travel to help, consider getting involved by digitizing imagery.   

40 maps to keep you busy this weekend

Kalev H. Leetaru, Shaowen Wang, Guofeng Cao, Anand Padmanabhan, and Eric Shook

Today I came across an article from the Washington Post  called "40 more maps that explain the world" (click here).  I found most of the maps to be relative and interesting. Though all of the maps had interesting information  to display, I found a few didn't do a good job at grabbing my attention.  With so many maps being created I think its important to create maps that really stand out and have a clear purpose (of course many of the maps presented in this article are part of bigger presentations and were never meant to be viewed alone).

The map at the top of the page really caught my eye. The map was created using information from twitter.  I think the author's use of a dark background really help the foreground to stick out.  I've noticed that a lot of mapping that uses only points to map areas tend to use a darker background.  Like many maps that use twitter data you can gain valuable knowledge about population density and transportation networks.   

Have fun exploring these forty maps and who knows you might learn something as well. 

Foss4G /WhereCampPDX

This week FOSS4G is holding it's annual conference in Portland OR.   Do to my lack of planning and busy work schedule  I haven't been able to attend any of the events, but several of the workshops were held just down the hall from my office at PSU. 

For those of you who don't know what FOSS4G is here's a description from their site:

"The annual FOSS4G conference is the largest global gathering focused on open source geospatial software. FOSS4G brings together developers, users, decision-makers and observers from a broad spectrum of organizations and fields of operation. Through six days of workshops, presentations, discussions, and cooperation, FOSS4G participants create effective and relevant geospatial products, standards, and protocols.

FOSS4G has been held all over the world and draws attendees from over 40 countries. Nottingham, England hosted the conference in 2013. In 2014, Portland, Oregon, USA will host FOSS4G’s tenth year." (https://2014.foss4g.org/about/)

And below is a link to the maps that have been submitted for their map contest.  I encourage you to take a look.  These maps were made using open source software and open source data. 
https://2014.foss4g.org/map-gallery/

On Friday after the FOSS4G comes to a close a weekend event called WhereCampPDx will be kicking off.  WhereCampPDX is a free "nonconference"  where those in attendance get to select what topics are covered.   "Popular topics include social cartography, software and hardware, context awareness, mobile experimentation, humanitarian mapping efforts, food webs and local food transparency, transit, psychogeography, geo games, paper maps, and place hacking."
check out their site at  http://wherecamppdx.org/

Historical maps of Portland

I thought it would be interesting to look up some historical maps of the Portland area.  Over the last century the layout of Portland has changed drastically.  Some of my neighbors can remember when the house across the street was an open lot where kids played baseball.   My journey of discovery took me the the City of Portland's website (https://www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/44016) where I found a whole bunch oh historical maps and comparisons.  A lot of the documents seem to focus on the change of the east side of Portland. 

Paving map from City of Portland Archives

The above image is a map of Portland that shows which streets were paved in 1894.  The streets are broken into type of pavement.  What I found interesting was the track that was located in NE Portland.    Until looking at this map I was not aware of there being a track in that area. 

I think a lot can be learned from how a city develops overtime.  These historical documents will play an import role in future city planning as the population increases and space becomes an issue. 

School's Starting Soon (if it hasn't already)

Fall term has already started on many campuses and is only a few short weeks away for the rest of the students.  Even though I won't be pursuing a degree this term I still want to pursue an education.  For a very brief second I thought about taking classes as a non degree student.  Portland State offers several interesting classes I haven't  taken yet, but one class can cost over $1000 and take up valuable time.   Last year  I came across a post on GIS Lounge about the abundant free online courses out there.   Many college now offer a wide selection of college classes online for free, there are now several stand alone sites that provide courses for free.  Though some schools offer a very slim selection of GIS courses, most have a decent geography offering.  Some school however, offer a very wide selection of GIS classes.  So far Penn State  (http://open.ems.psu.edu/courseware) looks the most promising. 

Below is a link with more free courses to check out. 
http://www.gislounge.com/learn-gis-for-free/

Map of Oregon and Washignton

This is a map I made for my map design class.  The Assignment was to create a map that showed some part of the U.S. and used a point, line, and polygon feature provided by the instructor.  The background is an image courtesy of Tom Peterson.   For my map I choice to display features associated with people in the Pacific Northwest.  The features I used were, roads, urban areas, and cities.  I choice to keep my design simple by using red for roads, grey for urban areas and dots for cities.  To indicate the relative size of the urban areas I varied the size of my labels.  I also want to distinguish Interstates from state highways, so I used the standard road shields.  One thing I would like to change about this map is the color and font I used for labeling the cities.  Its hard to read some of the labels over the background.  I would also lighten the background image (when print the background is vary dark).