Map mashups, Web 2.0 and the GIS revolution

Michael Batty; Andrew Hudson-Smith; Richard Milton; Andrew Crooks

Map mashups, Web 2.0 and the GIS revolution

A. Hudson-smith

Andrew Crooks

2010

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13 pages

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Abstract

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.

Figures (5)

Figure 1. The OSM Crowd-sourced Map of Baghdad, May 2007 (from http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Baghdad).

Figure 2. MapTube and Crowd-Sourcing: The Credit Crunch Mood Map. (a) Radio 4 iPM Web Page on the Mood Map for the Credit Crunch, (b) The User Web Questionnaire, (c) Early Response Distribution, (d) After 23000 User Responses.

Figure 3. London Maps Imported into MapTube. The rise in computing power, specifically graphic card technology, collaborative techniques and changes in data licensing models is rapidly moving map data into the 3D environments. These were originally represented by Computer-Aided Design (CAD) but have now been extended into a range of multimedia, particularly virtual worlds and a wide range of gaming environments that are being opened up for the addition of external content. Free mapping sources based on ‘virtual globes’ from the biggest software vendors have also been extended to 3D with Google Earth and Bing Maps (formally Microsoft Virtual Earth) being the most widely known but with others One last point is relevant to these kinds of middleware that support map mashups. They can be used not only for maps but also for any data that needs to be displayed in 2 dimensions and which requires the functionality that is offered by the basic map platform, of which pan and zoom

Figure 4. Three-dimensional Mashups Using Google Earth. (a) Conventional Import of a KML file of GDP (b) Exporting 2D Thematic Maps from a Land Use Transport Model into Google Earth.

Figure 5. Importing Mashups Made Using GMapCreator into Second Life. The potential audience for ma and diverse as is clearly apparent from this summary of the state of the art. So far, there are potential users especially at the novice level as to how such mashups might be achieved and much depends on the inge- nuity of the user in Google Trends (20 searching t 0) indicate p mashups is extremely wide few services in place to advise he web. Over the last 5 years, s that the number of searches involving the word ‘map’ worldwide has risen by 200%, with domination by the Englis quite clear. In terms of this term is abou of the word 40% per y h speaking world and Europe ‘mashups’, the rise in the use ear but this looks as though it is now rising at a decreasing rate. This is likely to change as maps and mashups based and new da themselves become more internationally a sources for other parts of the world emerge. We do not have good data on the absolute number of any of these types of search with respect to maps but the JISC Geospatial Working Group state in their vision state- ment that ‘In 2004, map-based searching was the top activity online in the United States’ JISC GWG 2010). What we nave not discussed here 1s the proliteration of open source GIS software or freeware GIS. Many such systems now exist and there are many tools such as GeoTools for example (see http://www.geotools.org/) that allow professional users and programmers to embed func- tionality in their own programs or devise strings of modules that can be used to enable more focussed tasks than those that are accomplished in more generic systems. Moreover, increasingly tools are available that bypass traditional GIS software. For example, the mashup that we illustrated above in Figure 4b which is based on a visually driven land use ransportation model for Greater London contains rudimen- ary mapping capabilities designed specifically to quickly and continuously illustrate spatial data being manipulated and produced throughout the modelling process. None of his visualisation has any of the basic features such as pan and zoom that are standard in GIS or computer cartography. But by linking this directly to Google Earth through the import and export of KML files, then all of these capabilities and more can be easily grafted onto the system.

David Burden

International Journal of Health Geographics, 2008

Mashup' was originally used to describe the mixing together of musical tracks to create a new piece of music. The term now refers to Web sites or services that weave data from different sources into a new data source or service. Using a musical metaphor that builds on the origin of the word 'mashup', this paper presents a demonstration "playlist" of four geo-mashup vignettes that make use of a range of Web 2.0, Semantic Web, and 3-D Internet methods, with outputs/end-user interfaces spanning the flat Web (two-dimensional -2-D maps), a three-dimensional -3-D mirror world (Google Earth) and a 3-D virtual world (Second Life ® ). The four geo-mashup "songs" in this "playlist" are: 'Web 2.0 and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) for infectious disease surveillance', 'Web 2.0 and GIS for molecular epidemiology', 'Semantic Web for GIS mashup', and 'From Yahoo! Pipes to 3-D, avatar-inhabited geo-mashups'. It is hoped that this showcase of examples and ideas, and the pointers we are providing to the many online tools that are freely available today for creating, sharing and reusing geo-mashups with minimal or no coding, will ultimately spark the imagination of many public health practitioners and stimulate them to start exploring the use of these methods and tools in their day-to-day practice. The paper also discusses how today's Web is rapidly evolving into a much more intensely immersive, mixed-reality and ubiquitous socio-experiential Metaverse that is heavily interconnected through various kinds of user-created mashups.

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