Computing, GIS and Archaeology in the UK

At FOSS4G last week, my colleagues and I got chatting with the folks from OSGEO. It was difficult not to, given that they played such a huge part in organising the conference. Anyhow, we identified that it would be a good idea to set up a UK Local Chapter, to provide a UK-specific focus and slant on the work that OSGEO are doing. The kind of things we might look at include providing a first port-of-call to newcomers to the world of geomatics in the UK, with a particular focus on the open source tools available; providing a focus for lobbying for public access to Geodata (you know, the stuff we’ve paid for with our Taxes but have to pay again to use).

What we need at the moment is expressions of interest. Enough signatures will convince the board that such a chapter would be worth setting up. We only have a few names at the moment, mainly because we only started canvassing this week, so if you feel you could sign up then pop on over to the wiki and add your name. For more information on local chapters, here’s the place to look.

What we are also trying to do is come up with a manifesto for the group. If you have something to contribute to this, then please feel free! That’s what wikis are for, after all…

If you’re into archaeology, regardless of whether or not you’re in the UK, but you are interested in Open Source applications or Open Standards in archaeology, then we’re also investigating the level of interest in an Archaeology Special Interest Group. Again, at the moment we just need expressions of interest and ideas.

FOSS4G Day 3. Fantastically inspiring lectures on Open Source Spatial Data Infrastructures, which is just what we (in an Oxford Archaeology sense) are looking for. Time to go back and re-evaluate a lot of these products, which are maybe two major releases further on, and a great deal more developed and sophisticated, than last time I looked.

Prize for the most exciting new product of the conference (IMHO) goes to MapChat- which the conference abstract describes as “a prototype web-based tool for synchronous multi-user communication via a mab interface”. In archaeology the technical term we would use to describe this would be “very cool indeed”. In a nutshell it’s a geographically enabled forum with a map front-end built with mapscript/chameleon and some ajax widgets, and the data stored in postgresql. I came away with these rosy ideas of passionate discussions amongst my fellow archaeologists about what has been found in a particular area, or more prosaically being able to plan trenches interactively with the client, all through a map and discussion-based interface. It’s still in alpha at the moment, but a demo is available at http://fesdss08.uwaterloo.ca/mapchat.

So why am I grudgingly praising the mighty AutoDesk monster? Well they’ve been a big presence throughout this conference and have invested quite a lot of money in making it a success (which it has been, without a doubt). However, I think that their motives for opensourcing MapGuide are still not entirely clear, and there is a lot of ingrained distrust towards them. Having said that, tonight they laid on a boat trip to the Chateau de Chillon at Montreux, a guided tour of what is undoubtably a fantastic castle, and a delicious three-course meal in one of the castles’s four great halls. So, thanks guys!

[Posted on my pda from the hotel]

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Soooo, yesterday was FOSS4G 2006 Day Two, and the key point of interest for me was the interaction between the old-school learning-intensive traditional approach to GIS with the “anything goes” Google Mashup approach.

Several of yesterday’s speakers acknowledged the undeniable debt that web-based mapping has towards Google for lowering the barriers and raising the profile of the discipline, but some also pointed out that often this means abandoning core ideas in GIS such as coordinate systems, because you don’t need this knowledge to create a mashup.

As I learnt in Scott Davis’s very informative and interesting workshop in the afternnon, you can create a perfectly functional Google Maps clone in javascript with free imagery from NASA without referring to real world coordinates, but is that a map or a pretty interactive picture?

I think it is still a map, the London Tube Map isn’t an accurate location of what’s under the ground, but people don’t expect it to be geographically accurate. When creating maps that have the appearance of accuracy, should we be more upfront about the limitations of the data or applications we produce?

People who create Google Maps Mashups were described yesterday as NeoGeographers, which was the first time I’d heard the term. If you take that to mean that Google Mashups represent the rebirth of mapping, then it’s even more important that we acknowledge the limits of the maps, and in fact all the spatial data, that we create.

[Posted with my pda from the conference]

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Well, today was day one of the FOSS4G conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. I’m a bit of a conference n00b, having only made it to UK events in the past, and certainly nothing of this size or calibre. So, couple that with the fact that I’ve forgotten most of my school french or german vocab and it’s been a learning experience!

The workshops that I attended today were on MapGuide Open Source, which was what I was concentrating on when I signed up but I think I would rather have attended the workshop on PostGIS instead of the Introduction to MapGuide Open Source this morning. Having already used MGOS for a few months now I’m reasonably familiar with the basic functionality, although as always a proper grounding in the fundamentals is incredibly valuable. The most interesting aspect that I was unaware of is MapAgent, a set of html forms built in to the standard MGOS installation that expose the xml-based resource database and allow you to interrogate it. With MapAgent it’s possible to alter much of the layer symbology and client-level appearance of your map, such as the Web Layout without needing to use MapGuide Studio, which will soon be a fully commercial product, or it’s slightly limited but free alternative Web Studio by DM Solutions.

The afternoon session was far more advanced, covering the development of web-based applications to enhance MGOS, such as an interface for digitising features on screen or serving live kml to Google Earth. This session required a better understanding of php and javascript than I have, unfortunately, so went way over my head. It was really inspiring though, and I do hope to improve my coding in those areas (when I get chance). I’m not sure that either session convinced me that MGOS should be a primary part of our emerging Spatial Data Infrastructure though, as it does blur the lines between service provider (the Server), the Data Store, and the Client Interface. Boy though, that client interface is slick. Hmm, the jury’s out on this one.

This evening there was a meeting about OSGEO, which was mainly a request for people to set up Local Chapters, and a discussion on the exact form that such groups should take. I confess that I started off in the meeting not very interested, but after mulling it over I can see that such a group in the UK could potentially provide a focus for lobbying for public ownership of geospatial data as well as increasing public awareness (and adoption) of Open Source software in the UK. It’s quite telling that there are very few Brits at the conference, and whether that’s symptomatic of a British reluctance to get involved in OS Software is an interesting question.

Finally we hooked up with Tyler Mitchell and had an entertaining evening meal in a pizzeria where all the pizzas were named after celebrities! I can’t say that I tried the Brad Pitt, or even the Tony Blair- I went for a Swiss Politician who’s name I’ve forgotten. No mushrooms you see…

[Posted from my hotel room on my zaurus pda (so no linkalicious goodness, though I'll try and rectify that later, with a proper keyboard]

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