Richard Milton

Mapping for the Masses

The authors describe how we are harnessing the power of web 2.0 technologies to create new approaches to collecting, mapping, and sharing geocoded data. The authors begin with GMapCreator that lets users fashion new maps using Google Maps as a base. The authors then describe MapTube that enables users to archive maps and demonstrate how it can be used in a variety of contexts to share map information, to put existing maps into a form that can be shared, and to create new maps from the bottom-up using a combination of crowdcasting, crowdsourcing, and traditional broadcasting. The authors conclude by arguing that such tools are helping to define a neogeography that is essentially ‘‘mapping for the masses,’’ while noting that there are many issues of quality, accuracy, copyright, and trust that will influence the impact of these tools on map-based communication.

Map mashups, Web 2.0 and the GIS revolution

Mashups, composed of mixing different types of software and data, first appeared in 2004 and ‘map mashups’ quickly became the most popular forms of this software blending. This heralded a new kind of geography called ‘Neogeography’ in which non-expert users were able to exploit the power of maps without requiring the expertise traditionally associated, in the geographic world, with cartography and geographic information science, and, in computer science, with data structures and graphics programming. First we suggest the need for a typology of map mashups while arguing that such a typology is premature. We then discuss the need for standards and formats, moving on to questions of security, privacy and confidentiality. We follow this by introducing the key issues of creating spatial data for mashups through crowd-sourcing. To ground this presentation in applications, we explore some classic exemplars from our own and related work with map mashups and portals such as MapTube (http://www.maptube.org/). We then point to extensions to other graphical media, to 3D, to virtual worlds and beyond. In conclusion, we speculate on what all this might mean for GIS software and geographic information science.

NeoGeography and Web 2.0: concepts, tools and applications

In this article, we explore the concepts and applications of Web 2.0 through the new media of NeoGeography and its impact on how we collect, interact and search for spatial information. We argue that location and space are becoming increasingly important in the information technology revolution. To this end, we present a series of software tools which we have designed to facilitate the non-expert user to develop online visualisations which are essentially map-based. These are based on Google Map Creator, which can produce any number of thematic maps which can be overlaid on Google Maps. We then introduce MapTube, a technology to generate an archive of shared maps, before introducing Google Earth Creator, Image Cutter and PhotoOverlay Creator. All these tools allow users to display and share information over the web. Finally, we present how Second Life has the potential to combine all aspects of Web 2.0, visualisation and NeoGeography in a single multi-user three-dimensional collaborative environment.

Scaling and Allometry in the Building Geometries of Greater London

Abstract.Many aggregate distributions of urban activities such as city sizes reveal scaling but hardly any work exists on the properties of spatial distributions within individual cities, notwithstanding considerable knowledge about their fractal structure. We redress this here by examining scaling relationships in a world city using data on the geometric properties of individual buildings. We first summarise how power laws can be used to approximate the size distributions of buildings, in analogy to city-size distributions which have been widely studied as rank-size and lognormal distributions following Zipf [Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort (Addison-Wesley, Cambridge, 1949)] and Gibrat [Les Inégalités Économiques (Librarie du Recueil Sirey, Paris, 1931)]. We then extend this analysis to allometric relationships between buildings in terms of their different geometric size properties. We present some preliminary analysis of building heights from the Emporis database which suggests very strong scaling in world cities. The data base for Greater London is then introduced from which we extract 3.6 million buildings whose scaling properties we explore. We examine key allometric relationships between these different properties illustrating how building shape changes according to size, and we extend this analysis to the classification of buildings according to land use types. We conclude with an analysis of two-point correlation functions of building geometries which supports our non-spatial analysis of scaling.

Using tracked mobile sensors to make maps of environmental effects

We present the results of a study of environmental carbon monoxide pollution that uses a set of tracked, mobile pollution sensors. The motivating concept is that we will be able to map pollution and other properties of the real world at a fine scale if we can deploy a large set of sensors with members of the general public who would carry them as they go about their normal everyday activities. To prove the viability of this concept we have to demonstrate that data gathered in an ad hoc manner is reliable enough in order to allow us to build interesting geo-temporal maps. We present a trial using a small number of global positioning system-tracked CO sensors. From analysis of raw GPS logs we find some well-known spatial and temporal properties of CO. Further, by processing the GPS logs we can find fine-grained variations in pollution readings such as when crossing roads. We then discuss the space of possibilities that may be enabled by tracking sensors around the urban environment—both in getting at personal experience of properties of the environment and in making summative maps to predict future conditions. Although we present a study of CO, the techniques will be applicable to other environmental properties such as radio signal strength, noise, temperature, humidity and so on.

Data visualization within urban models

Models of urban environments have many uses for town planning, previsualization of new building work and utility service planning. Many of these models are three-dimensional, and increasingly there is a move towards real-time presentation of such large models. We present an algorithm for generating consistent 3D models from a combination of data sources, including Ordnance Survey ground plans, aerial photography and laser height data. Although there have been several demonstrations of automatic generation of building models from 2D vector map data, we present a very robust solution that generates models that are suitable for real-time presentation. We then demonstrate a novel pollution visualization that uses these models

Calibration of a spatial simulation model with volunteered geographical information

For many scientific disciplines, the continued progression of information technology has increased the availability of data, computation and analytical methodologies including simulation and visualisation. Geographical information science is no exception. In this article, we investigate the possibilities for deployment of e-infrastructures to inform spatial planning, analysis and policy-making. We describe an existing architecture that feeds both static and dynamic simulation models from a variety of sources, including not only administrative datasets but also attitudes and behaviours which are harvested online from crowds. This infrastructure also supports visualisation and computationally intensive processing. The main aim of this article is to illustrate how spatial simulation models can be calibrated with crowd-sourced data. We introduce an example in which popular attitudes to congestion charging in a major UK city (Manchester) were collected, with promotional support from a high-profile media organisation (the BBC). These data are used to estimate the parameters of a transport simulation model, using a hungry estimation procedure which is deployed within a high-performance computational grid. We indicate how the resulting model might be used to evaluate the impact of alternative policy options for regulating the traffic in Manchester. Whilst the procedure is novel in itself, we argue that greater credibility could be added by the incorporation of open-source simulation models and by the use of social networking mechanisms to share policy evaluations much more widely.

Correcting GPS readings from a tracked mobile sensor

We present a series of techniques that we have been using to process GPS readings to increase their accuracy. In a study of urban pollution, we have deployed a number of tracked mobile pollution monitors comprising a PDA, GPS sensor and carbon monoxide (CO) sensor. These pollution monitors are carried by pedestrians and cyclists. Because we are operating in an urban environment where the sky is often occluded, the resulting GPS logs will show periods of low availability of fix and a wide variety of error conditions. From the raw GPS and CO logs we are able to make maps of pollution at a 50m scale. However, because we know the behaviour of the carriers of the devices, and we can relate the GPS behaviour and known effects of CO in the environment, we can correct the GPS logs semi-automatically. This allows us to achieve a roughly 5m scale in our maps, which enables us to observe a new class of expected environmental effects. In this paper we present the techniques we have developed and give a general overview of how other knowledge might be integrated by system integrators to correct their own log files.

Advances in Crowdsourcing: Surveys, Social Media and Geospatial Analysis: Towards a Big Data Toolkit

The collection, mining and analysis of social media are arguably one of the core examples of “big data” sets for the social sciences. The dynamic nature of the media makes it a new and emerging base for the analysis of human behaviour and brings new opportunities to understand groups, movements and society. Analysing the results of billions of conversations has already revolutionised marketing and advertising. However, these datasets, by their very nature, are complex, time-consuming and computationally difficult to analyse. We put in place a series of examples to utilise such datasets with a view of exploring non-complex workflows via the use of new toolkits, linking into data collection via the crowd and opening up systems for analysis.

CyberGIS for Analyzing Urban Data

This chapter describes some of the rapid developments in data collection and analysis through the processing of data collected and archived in real time that are capable of generating new insights into urban processes that in time, might lead to new theories of how cities function. It will focus on London both for its strategic importance as a global city, but also because its citizens are highly connected, and thus capable of generating a large number of datasets. These are individual-based and largely built from the bottom up. We believe that many of these aspects of London’s new data system will soon be replicated in other European cities, and it is clear that similar developments are already taking place in other world cities such as New York City and Singapore; it thus provides a useful basis on which to demonstrate another role of CyberGIS and its related technologies through the analysis of ‘big’ data, albeit in the urban domain.