contents

business
 
The People's Map Project Upgrades its Website

The People's Map project has launched a significant upgrade to its website bringing the vision of affordable mapping for all one step closer. The People's Map represents the democratisation of the mapping process. Anyone can register, contribute and use the map for private, non-commercial use for free apart from a small delivery charge. But the People's Map goes beyond this with fair perpetual licensing arrangements for commercial users with no derived data or ownership transferral restrictions, and entirely free of third party copyright. For many map users and producers who have fallen foul of Crown Copyright the People's Map will be a breath of fresh air.

The People's Map is a web-based mapping project, which allows users to create their own mapping online by 'drawing' over Getmapping aerial photography. Users simply register and map everything from roads and land use through to points of interest, using the simple online editing tools. Newly created data goes through a thorough verification process to ensure that it is accurate and correct before it is added to the final 'verified' People's Map layer, where it is rendered into 14 different scales. When new development postdates the aerial photography, GPS surveys can be added to ensure the most up to date mapping.

The People's Map also sports a growing range of derived mapping products. These can be delivered as hardcopy, from 1:10,000 through to 1:1,000,000 scales, and in electronic raster and vector file formats. It is also available as a web feed either through WMS or via the People's Map Javascript API. Vector datasets consist of the following data layers: Admin Boundaries, Buildings, Built Up Areas, Coastline, Contours, Drainage, Land use, Place name Gazetteer, Points of Interest, Roads and Railways. All these layers are available at all scales.



write your comments about the article :: © 2009 Computing News :: home page