PostGIS – O.O'Brien

foss4g_atrium

I was at FOSS4G UK 2016 which took place at the new Ordnance Survey buildings in Southampton, a few weeks ago. FOSS4G is short for “Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial”, and the conference focuses on some of the key free GIS software such as QGIS and PostGIS. This was a UK-focused event, following on from the global FOSS4G in Nottingham in 2013, which I was also at. (The next FOSS4G is in Germany in August.)

The OS is a little hard to get to if you aren’t driving there – I ended up cycling right through Southampton from the central station. Once on site though, it’s a lovely new venue, light and airy inside, with the floors and desks of OS cartographers and digital information managers sweeping away to one side of the central atrium, while the conference took place in a couple of large rooms on the other side. Breakout was overlooking the atrium (above). Around 180 people attended, split into two conference streams.

Highlights included:

foss4g_pgrouting
Above: A nice demo of pgRouting usage from Angus Council who’ve switched to open source for asset access mapping. Open and effective code and mapping in a practical, real world context.

foss4g_pgrouting_software
Above: The software used for the Angus Council asset project.

foss4g_chevrons
Above: Add Ordnance Survey Landranger-style hill chevrons to your GIS-created digital maps with this nice bit of code. I love these kinds of talks/demos, which you typically only get at these enthusiast/community-driven meetings like FOSS4G UK. Really interesting bits of code or hacks, demonstrated by the creator who did it just because they thought it would be cool.

foss4g_datashine
Above: I was pleased also to see DataShine getting a mention, specifically its use of OpenLayers UTFGrid for the attribute mouseovers. The talk was by a FOSS/OpenLayers consultant who’s written a book about the mapping platform, which powers most of my web maps. It’s always flattering to get mentions like this, especially as the speaker was probably unaware I was in the audience!

Outside in the atrium there was a mini-exhibition by the talk sponsors, including, intriguingly, ESRI UK, who are presumably keeping an eye on the FOSS4G community, their core business being far from open source (software), even if they have been very keen on demonstrating their products operating on open data.

FOSS4G UK was an interesting and useful couple of days, pulling together the professional and enthusiast geospatial community in the UK to see what’s happening in the space, and a good opportunity to network.

foss4g_mapmakers
Above: “MapMakers”, a housing development next to the old Ordnance Survey office, which is on the way to the new one from the station. The inclusion of the OS grid reference is a nice touch.

The COMO Project and Seek ‘n Spell

Michael (of the Okansas blog) has recently mentioned two quite interesting orienteering-related ideas:

1. The COMO project, which is looking to use OpenStreetMap data to create orienteering maps. This is very similar to (although more advanced than) my own work – I looked at creating Street-O orienteering maps from OpenStreetMap data for my dissertation for my MSc in GIS last summer, and additionally built an Osmarender-generated/OpenLayers-based based map for viewing and printing such maps easily – although I never got around to releasing it publically. I’ve subsequently thought of extending the process for “proper” orienteering maps, while keeping the data in the OSM database. The COMO project is looking at creating “proper” orienteering maps, converting OCAD data into a form which can be read into a special database separate from the main OSM one.

As an aside, it would probably be easier not using the OSM flow or API, but rather a PostGIS database to store the data, with GIS applications such as Quantum GIS to do the editing. Mapnik as the rendering engine is considerably easier to set up, configure and use than Osmarender, too.

2. Seek ‘n Spell, which is an iPhone game, uses the internal GPS, the ability to broadcast your location to a central server, and aerial photographs, to create multi-player games where you can run around, collecting letters to spell words. See Michael’s post and also the video – the action looks uncannily like a combination between SLOW’s Mobile-O and a “normal” mass-start score orienteering event. The game-view reminds me of watching an animation of a race in Routegadget. The concept and the finish quality of the app looks great but the name is a dreadful pun – hopefully they’ll rename it something a bit snappier.