Welcome to the ECanGIS Beta website. This is a space where our team of GIS developers will be experimenting with data mashups to see how they can make our GIS info more accessible, useable and meaningful. We will be playing with new and different technologies, ideas, and concepts, and any feedback from our users and stakeholders will be valued – so don’t be afraid to leave us a comment as this is GIS democracy in the making!
What is a mashup?
A mashup is a web application that has combined two or more sources of data together, presenting the information in a new way, format, or idea. For example, we have “mashed” together our GIS data (all public) and Google Maps to provide a web application that allows you to see your wells on a Google map, easily view data about that well, and find other wells in your area.
Well done on getting a blog up AND getting a mashup out!
I’ve added this blog to the blogs aggregated on gis.org.nz.
One thing I’d like to see (as a Cantabrian) is greater access to recreational data that ECan holds. But not just in online maps and mashups. What I’d really like to see is one of two things:
1. Make the underlying shapefiles available under permissive licensing so that projects such as the community/volunteer NZ Open GPS Maps project or similar can publish GPS maps that allow us to take the data out in a disconnected state.
2. Produce Garmin GPS maps that we can download and install on our GPS units
Either way, I think there are massive recreational, tourism and safety benefits to be gained by making more information available for inclusion in these real-world systems rather than just making them available as online-only tools. The more this information can be used in the real world e.g. on handheld GPS, car GPS, and mobile phones such as Nokia and iPhone the better. And the cheaper it is the better – commercial solutions can restrict widespread deployment of information about the communities that we live, and play, in.
If you’d be interested in going down this path (and I’m thinking things like walking tracks, reserve boundaries, MTB tracks etc) and putting the data in a realworld usable form let me know.
But congrats once again on the good work!
Thanks Gavin for the great feedback.
Exactly the type of feedback we have wanted to receive from the community as to want spins their wheels etc.
re: underlying shape files. The data isn’t in this form rather in our geospatial database/server.
We are interested in enabling the public to have greater access to this spatial data (some exceptions to this rule for legal reasons of course). This mash-up example uses a javascript rest api that is publicly available now and this html page can be run anyway i.e. not even on our servers, since the data is public. (see link below). Also through tools like google earth(a free product), esri gis explorer (a free product), ArcMap or through programming re: the rest or web service api’s. Other interfaces for this data are WFS, WCS, WMS and KML.
rest api etc.
http://arcgis.ecan.govt.nz/ArcGIS/rest/services/Beta/Swimming_Water_Quality/MapServer
more help details on the rest api here
http://arcgis.ecan.govt.nz/arcgis/SDK/REST/index.html?catalog.html
There is an interesting example here from esri of being able to allow the end user to grab an area of interest and enter their email address and a geoprocess occurs on the server to create shape files and send them to the end user. This example is something we are interested in.
http://resources.esri.com/arcgisserver/apis/javascript/arcgis/index.cfm?fa=codeGalleryDetails&scriptID=15849
Re: garmin comment.
The arc explorer product can directly import the data from our internet site into the program. I believe there are some add-ons that people have written that can do what you are asking. I ask some of my GIS boffins and get back to you.
I like the ideas re: MTB tracks, I’ll pass that on to the group as a potential future project.
Cheers
Coomsie
Gavin,
http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=15488
this is the script I had a faint thought about in the above comment …. re: garmin import export etc.
Cheers
Coomsie
Thanks for the reply Coomsie.
I must hurry up and upgrade my Mac so I can explore with ArcExplorer in a Windows VM.
Re: shapefiles – I suggested shapefiles as they are still one of the defacto geospatial files that many applications recognise and can read (even though I recognise that internally ArcGIS is well down the path of moving to geodatabases). The ideal of course is to have a translator that provides information in the format that the end user desires.
The idea of extracting a section of a map is good, but this also has a failing that LINZ’s NZTopoOnline nicely highlights. You are only able to export at a scale of greater than 1:50k – and this makes it incredibly time consuming to, for example, download the road centrelines for the whole country. This is why I am very supportive of a means of bulk extracting/downloading data as well. Small area extracts are but one end use of geospatial data.
Just to elaborate on the GPS request, my main interest is in getting information off and away from the Internet, and included in offline devices such as recreational mapping GPS units such as the Garmin Colorado 300 etc. The general process to do this is to import a layer from a shapefile, configure it in a tool to produce Garmin maps that invoices setting the display, scale options etc, and then compiling it into a specific formats that are used with Garmin MapSource/RoadTrip and the GPS device itself.
Whilst an online mashup is nice for informationl use, planning, and the like, the information comes into its own when users can take it offline with them. This actually means having MTB tracks in a GPS when mounted to the handlebars, or hiking tracks in the handheld unit when climbing around the Port Hills
Cheers Gavin
Another thing I forgot to add, and this is one area that LINZ has failed in, and that is a process of accepting updated information from the community. Quite a few people have tried to get LINZ to updated information, e.g. roads in the topo dataset and they have ignored people – even from within their own organisation.
Have a look at the NZ Open GPS Maps feedback/corrections threads and see how active the community is in improving the quality of information.
http://gwprojects.org/forum/search.php?search_id=newposts
It would be great if you had a means – even as simple as a public bug tracker (such as Trac) where people could register a bug, attach a GPX tracklog, and let ECan decide whether to update the master info based on the submitted information etc.
well done gav – i endorse your idea of being able to give feedback, as when you look at some maps , knowing there are wrong sections, public feedback allows quick & concise corrections to be made, by including a garmin tracklog, and small explanation