[okfn-labs] OpenPlaceDatabase.org

Thu Dec 19 14:52:05 UTC 2013

Yes, we have seen Open Historical Map but because the site was down we
weren't able to see learn much about what they were trying to accomplish
nor what data they already had. We're making the assumption that it's just
going to be a historical version of OSM which is a much broader goal than
we have. At this time, we're not interested in roads, ways, or points of
interest -- just political boundaries and the location of cities.

On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 at 4:55 AM, John Levin <john at technolalia.org> wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
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