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Webmapping in India and Crowdsourcing Map Data
posted by Satri
on Thursday July 26, @11:40AM
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from the if-indian-webmapping-can-be-as-good-as-indian-food dept.
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from the if-indian-webmapping-can-be-as-good-as-indian-food dept.
A few recent geoblogs entry discussed the status of webmapping in India. There's Dan Karran's entry on Google's approach to crowdsourcing map data in India, which is on the same topic as the GEB's entry about local knowledge power for India mapping and APB links to an article about tackling urban problems with GIS in India. From the first link: "I was curious about this after the State of the Map conference but it seems last week Michael Jones, the CTO of Google Earth, shone a little light on the subject of Google's crowdsourced maps of India (along with other geo things from Google) at the Cambridge Conference.
I've transcribed the part of the podcast that really interested me (see below), describing what they've built up in terms of geodata for 50 Indian cities and how they are doing it with a pilot project to deploy a 'care package' to countries to let the citizens map it for themselves based on local knowledge and Google's excellent aerial imagery sources." See also numerous Indian-related stories below.
Related Stories
India NRSA to respond to Google : Image Atlas
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GeoPlace runs a story on the Indian initiative for web mapping. From the article: "NRSA's bouquet of high-resolution images will not carry features of defence installations and, therefore, be of no use to the enemy.
Unlike the outline maps produced by the Survey of India, NRSA's ‘image atlas' will comprise high-resolution pictures showing the physiographic features of the globe. "
Industry: India and Russia to Jointly Develop GPS Satellites
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All Points Blog links to a The Hindu article informing us India and Russia will jointly develop the GLONASS-K GPS satellites. From the short article: ""Under the space co-operation agreements signed during President Vladimir Putin's India visit, both countries will jointly develop new generation GLONASS-K satellite for the GLONASS global positioning system, which will function parallelly with the American GPS," Indian Ambassador Kanwal Sibal said. Addressing an internet press conference last evening, he said Russia intends to operationalise GLONASS by 2010 by completing the cluster of 24 satellites."
Industry: Indian President on Cartography in India 2 comments
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All Points Blog links to a The Hindu article on the Indian president on cartography and law in India. From the related press release: "President A P J Abdul Kalam today suggested enactment of a law to govern the use of outer space and regulate the use of data acquired from remote sensing satellites, particularly of sensitive installations. [...] He said stereo satellite images, which are available for 90 per cent of the country, could also be used for better urban planning, cadastral level information of land and water resources. Suggesting six missions for cartographers, Kalam said a network of organisations and persons working in the field of mapping should provide inputs for the development of modern cartographic products required by national mission."
GIS Made Easy in Rural India
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All Points Blog links to an article about the use of GIS in rural India. From the article: "Users at the district level downward can today query independent and offline systems that are replete with monthly data, and figure out the most economical and feasible solutions for infrastructure projects. For instance, if a bureaucrat wants to plan a school, he would like to know the number and location of existing schools in the village concerned before deciding where the school must be built."
Industry: Google Maps Adds India, Singapore and Hong Kong
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The Map Room tells us Google Maps added streets and imagery for India, Singapore and Hong Kong. Screenshots from the Google Maps Mania blog for India and for Singapore and Hong Kong.
India Launches Four New Satellites, Including Cartosat-2
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Slashdot tells us India successfully launched four satellites yesterday. From the article: "Of the four satellites, the ISRO's Cartosat-2 is for mapping purposes and its SRE will be a forerunner to the ISRO mastering the re-entry, recoverable and re-usable launch vehicle technologies." This is related to the previous announcement of 12 new indian satellites in 4 years.
Application Domains: The U.S. National Map Corps
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Very Spatial discuss the U.S. National Map Corps: "By volunteering you receive an area (quad sheet or less) in which you and your trusty GPS unit go out and gather information on commonly mapped features (churches, schools, communications) and send in the information to be included in the National Map. [...] A cool idea that has been echoed more recently in TomTom’s Mapshare and of course the more ambitious OSM." Here's the official National Map Corps site. This is quite different from the GIS Corps discussed two years ago.
Application Domains: Opportunities and Challenges in Indian GIS Segment
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All Points Blog links to an article named "Opportunities and Challenges in Indian GIS Segment". From the article: "Having said that, there are several major challenges that the industry still faces:
1. GIS and remote sensing application software require high end computers with high end graphics cards etc, which at the moment are comparatively expensive in India. But this problem will cease to persist gradually as prices of hardware keep going down.
2. GIS awareness and education levels are still low in India. It has yet to proliferate fully in the formal technical education space (graduate degree programs, diploma's, etc), even though many universities and colleges have started teaching GIS in PG programs.
3. The last but the biggest constraint is the easy availability of spatial data. In India, most of the organizations that have adopted GIS are still spending a lot of money and time on building data. One of the reasons attributable to this is the disparity between the various systems from which the data has to move from one form to another before the final desired output is available. The second reason is very tight government control on spatial data acquisition and high cost of satellite and aerial data." I also included below a whole bunch of India-related geospatial news.
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