[okfn-labs] OpenPlaceDatabase.org

Thu Dec 19 11:55:47 UTC 2013

This is a really interesting project.

I'm currently wrestling with historical place data - trying to sort out
pre-1914 English & Welsh parishes and historic counties. If I find 
anything useable, I'll pass it on.

Are you aware of the Open Historical Map?
http://www.openhistoricalmap.org/ (Site currently offline)
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Historical_Map

John

On 18/12/2013 15:56, Justin York wrote:
> OpenPlaceDatabase.org <http://www.openplacedatabase.org/> was recently
> started with the goal of solving a specific problem:
>
> * Enable geocoding to shapes (boundaries) as opposed to just a point
> * Track boundary changes over time so that the geocoding can be done in
> a historical context
>
> You can read more about this
> <http://blog.genealogysystems.com/2013/12/watercooler-wednesday-14-retrieving.html>
> on our blog.
>
> The Open Place Database is open source
> <https://github.com/openplacedatabase/www> and the data will be open too
> once we're done acquiring seed data and ironing out our schema and data
> flow.
>
> The app and API run on node.js. The data is currently stored in the file
> system and we use ElasticSearch to index it for searching. Eventually we
> expect to enable reverse geocoding at which point we'll need to add a
> spatial index.
>
> Two things we're currently working on:
>
> DATA
>
> Historical data will be a challenge. There are very few data sets for
> historical administrative boundaries, and those that do exist are either
> poor quality or have restrictive licenses.
>
> We found an open data set of historical country boundaries
> <http://library.thinkquest.org/C006628/download.html> but it appears to
> have been created by students tracing maps at a low resolution, plus we
> can't tell what GCS and projection they used so we're having trouble
> plotting it correctly on Google Maps.
>
> We're resigned to the fact that we'll have to eventually start
> overlaying digital scans of historical maps and trace them. Thankfully,
> many pieces of that problem have already been solved by NYPL Labs
> <http://www.nypl.org/collections/labs> (Map Warper and Building
> Inspector). If we can nail the experience then we should be able to get
> considerable help from crowdsourcing.
>
> EDITING
>
> We're working on an interactive editor for our data that's similar to
> OpenStreetMaps iD editor
> <http://openstreetmap.us/iD/release/#background=Bing&map=20.00/-77.02271/38.90085>.
> But we're running into problems with shapes that have lots of points.
> The browser can run out of memory very quickly.
>
>
> Thoughts? Suggestions? We like praise too.
>
>

-- 
John Levin
http://www.anterotesis.com
http://twitter.com/anterotesis