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24 November 2004 Maps ancient and modernToday, my complete collection of Ordnance Survey New Popular Edition maps went off to be scanned. The result will be a CD-ROM of 1940s England and Wales in maps - and since the maps are out of copyright (published over 50 years ago), they're perfect for tracing from. After all, most minor roads, canals and railways are still in the same place... though one or two of them might have closed. One beneficiary of this, I hope, will be Geowiki. I'm planning a fairly major revamp of this, partly for code reasons - it currently stores all the information in flat text files, and a database would be better - but mostly to redo the maps in vector format. The current Illustrator-GIF setup is tiresome to maintain and inflexible. A wholly vector-based format would allow people to upload their own GPS tracks, annotate them, and see them added to the map in real time. That said, there'll probably be at least one more iteration of the GIF map before it's switched over. We've got a colossal amount of GPS tracks now - including a large collection of the UK's motorways and motorway-like roads, such as the A14. What we're not so hot on is the countless minor and B-roads around the country. This is where the New Popular Edition scans come in. Then there are the street-level maps to worry about, but Openstreetmap has taken on that task with alacrity. I'm enjoying reading their mailing list and hope to contribute a few tracks. Comments | |
