Developing participatory mapping software

From a technical perspective, the focus of the DiMDiCi project lies in developing a software application called OGITO (Open Geospatial Interactive Tool), an open-source software tool for participatory mapping implemented on digital maptables. Further scientific information can be found in the references at the bottom. This time we would like to introduce the development of OGITO in a generally understandable way.

For this purpose, Dr. Johannes Flacke from the University of Twente answered some questions in an interview.

Thank you very much for taking the time for a short interview. We will start with the basics. One of DiMDICi’s key objectives is to find out how participation can be achieved through technology interaction. Johannes, we want to know what precisely is a digital maptable and what is it used for? 

JF: Well, a maptable is, in the first instance, a piece of hardware; a screen, like a large TV screen lying flat on a table, with touch functionalities like an iPad or a tablet. That means you can touch it; you can zoom in and zoom out. People can stand around the digital screen and can interact with it and with the spatial content that is visualized on the screen. That’s what we use it for. We can display different layers of spatial information on it, a topographic map, satellite images, thematic information about accessibility to public spaces, quality of the environment, and so on. People can visualize it, can zoom in, can explore the digital content pretty similar to how it’s been done in Google Maps, and can also sketch and draw; they can design and discuss situations or can make annotations on the screen.

Okay. And in case of our project DiMDiCi, we heard about OGITO. Can you tell us what OGITO is and how people get along with it?

JF: Sure, I am happy to do so. OGITO is actually a software tool that we developed here at Twente University together with a PhD student. The software is used to facilitate and enable the participation of stakeholders around the maptable, as I’ve just described. It’s an open-source software tool that is available for others who can use it and develop it further. We made it particularly user-friendly because of two reasons: On the one hand, there is not much software available yet to be used on maptables and very few software applications that are affordable or free of cost.

So, OGITO has been initially developed by the University of Twente?

JF: Yes, the first version of OGITO was developed by our PhD student Rosa Aguilar, supervised by me and my colleague Karin Pfeffer, professor for Infrastructuring Urban Futures at Twente University.

When OGITO is used on the maptable, how can I imagine a practical unit with it?

JF: Well, key to any practical unit or workshop in which we engage with stakeholders in mapping is to make them acquainted with the table. That’s why we often do in the beginning what we call an icebreaker. We ask them to find their own location on the maptable or particular locations that they know on the screen. They have to get used to zooming in and out and how to navigate on the screen, because particularly elderly people are often a bit shy of touching the maptable in the beginning. Younger people are much more affiliated with that kind of technology. And when that icebreaker is done, they start interacting. We give them different tasks of mapping or discussing issues. The idea of it and the reason why we do it on a maptable is that in the moment that you put stakeholders in a planning context ­– citizens or professional stakeholders – around such a table and give them certain tasks to design, to sketch, to explain locations on the map that they like or they don’t like, or where they see problems: they start talking to each other. They start explaining it to their fellows, their colleagues, and the other people around the table. And that creates arguments and rationales for choices and makes arguments for explaining the space and the quality of the space.

You have used the map table in DiMDiCi – digital mapping with citizens with disabilities. What did you experience when using it in this special context?

JF: Well, we first experienced that is obviously difficult for people to work with the maptable. We learned that we have to design the maptable – better to say the OGITO software running on the maptable – more user-friendly. It’s a particular target group that should be enabled to work with such a tool. But software tools, also the tool that we had developed so far, were not yet made to be used for people with disabilities. That’s why we started dealing with the software code in the DiMDiCi Project. We started developing a software version of OGITO that enables people with disabilities to interact with the spatial content: for instance, visualization of the third dimension and including a 3D photorealistic visualisation of space on the maptable. People with disabilities, particularly with cognitive disabilities, often can’t read maps well. In scientific terms, we would say they have low spatial literacy. Last week we did a workshop in our case study area where we used another application that visualises space on a map. Related to the map there are photos and 3D visualizations of the street scene. You can walk through the streets on screen. And that enables people to orientate themselves and to navigate in space much better. So, here is a feature that we plan to include in the next version of OGITO. The new version will have 3D visualization with photorealistic images that allowed people to orientate, to know where they are and to describe or to experience the space.

Where do those 3D images come from? Are they from the PhotoVoice expedition or are there free software sources for this?

JF: Exactly. We found a library that’s called Mapillary. It’s a crowdsourcing platform where all kinds of users upload photos. We use these photos, and we are about to include them in our datasets. Also, co-researchers can take more photos and upload them to the platform and then they can be used in OGITO. So, we can enhance OGITO by adding new photos to the platform, including spatial recognition or spatial knowledge of space, and adding certain details to space.

The aim of DiMDiCi or one aim of DiMDiCi is to identify a better integration of diverse groups for planning of municipalities and so on. What is your experience among planning departments? Are they interested in designing planning-processes by involving diverse groups? Or in other words, what did you experience in the past?

JF: We work in two countries; we have a project with people with disabilities in the Netherlands and in Germany. In both countries, we are working together with municipalities on participatory projects with people with disabilities. The more cities are interested to also engage people with disabilities in the he context of urban development projects, the better. But often they don’t know how to start this participation process. That’s why we develop the tool as open-source. We find, generally speaking, openness and interest on the side of the cities, also for our tool: the maptable and OGITO. We also develop a new application for engaging people with physical disabilities in mapping access to public space. We will have a final workshop in six weeks from now, which staff from the municipality will join, they are interested to explore the value of the tool that we made. They’re even thinking of adding it to their website and making it available for people with disabilities in the long run. Again, in scientific terms: the tool would then be institutionalized.

If the municipalities‘ planning departments are interested in discovering the participatory solutions with OGITO and the map tables, … what do you think? Can they do it by themselves or whom can they contact if they need assistance?

JF: They can contact me. They can send me an email or can check out our website. We have a lab at the University of Twente that’s called the DISC, which stands for Design and Interactive Space for Co-creating. On our website we demonstrate different possibilities of how to use maptables for interacting and participating with stakeholders in planning processes.

The first version of OGITO is available on GitHub, but it needs a bit of programming skills to adapt it to your own project as a third party. In the long run, our goal is to make this platform available even for non-experts, who can adopt it, add their own data, and case studies to it and use it as a mapping tool.

So, this project or the goal of DiMDiCi and the aim of your work is to have an open interactive tool for spatial planning with the power to strengthen participation.

JF: Well, I couldn’t have said it better. You just phrased it right.

Dr. Johannes Flacke is Associate Professor for Spatial Planning and Decision Support Systems in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-Information Management, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente (UT), the Netherlands. His research centres on the co-design, development and use of geo-information and planning support tools for the transition of urban areas into sustainable places for all. He is the head of the DISC (Design and Interactive Space for Co-creating), a research lab on participatory and collaborative planning support at UT. Further research interests include local climate change adaptation planning, energy transition, and environmental health-related inequalities.

References:

Aguilar, R., Flacke, J., Simon, D., & Pfeffer, K. (2023). Stakeholders Engagement in Noise Action Planning Mediated by OGITO: An Open Geo-Spatial Interactive Tool. Journal of Urban Technology, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/10630732.2023.2190705

Aguilar, R., Calisto, L., Flacke, J., Akbar, A., & Pfeffer, K. (2021): OGITO, an Open Geospatial Interactive Tool to support collaborative spatial planning with a maptable. In: Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, Volume 86, Article 101591. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2020.101591.

Flacke, J., Shrestha, R., & Aguilar, R. (2020): Strengthening Participation Using Interactive Planning Support Systems: A Systematic Review. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. 2020; 9(1):49. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi9010049

Myriam Vittinghoff

Alle Beiträge anzeigen