Loc.alize.us + Flickr

Loc.alize.us + Flickr, originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

Loc.alize.us is a "bookmarklet" that you can add to your bookmarks toolbar. Then, when you click on it when you are in one of your flickr photo windows.
Presto! map interface.
Click: search place
Enter: location
That's it. Your photo is geotagged and on your fickr map. It is also accessible in the loc.alize.us map which can be embedded in a website.

I found out about this cool tool in the GeoTagging Flickr group forum. go to:
loc.alize.us - All Our Flickr Photos on Google Maps!

Neo-Geo Notebook

MapWarper, originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

Andrew Turner came to New Orleans last week to meet up with NetSquared New Orleans and faculty at the Tulane School of Architecture. Both meetings were quite informative and very valuable. These are a few of my notes.

1. MapWarper. This tool is in development and indeed comes with the following warning: Proto-Alpha - expect it to break and stuff to get deleted!

MapWarper is a tool for creating a custom basemap. My source map was from a Tulane student project in 1950, documented on 35mm slide and scanned into the New Orleans Virtual Archive. Basically the user indicates matching points between two maps. And a new map layer is born. I picked a tricky source, so my map is a bit more warped than it should be. I asked Andrew about the next step after MapWarper and I think that's where it flies a bit over my head. Nevertheless a cool tool to play with a have a better understanding of how one could create a custom basemap for a presentation. I would love to have a virtual library of historic basemaps stored in layers, so one could view data on different maps. Just layering two maps together can provide some interesting information about the changes in urban fabric over time.
2. EyeFi Explore. This is a souped up memory card. It can automatically upload photos to your computer or online photo storage service, like flickr or picasa. It also geocodes the photos (and records this info in photo EXIF profile) IF there is a wireless hotspot. I used this card last week in a trial session. It worked fairly well, but was unfortunately not accurate enough. And was of course ineffective in sites without wireless hotspots, like the Lower Ninth Ward. Interesting tool, but not as good as a gps.

3. Flickr Commons. Another great resource. Some top institutions (Library of Congress, Smithsonian) are uploading archival images with no known copyright restrictions to the Flickr Commons for all to use. The Commons encourages the public to assist with the description and tagging of the photos.

4. SlideShare. This service allows one to upload a powerpoint or keynote presentation. Very nice. Review Andrew's presentation at Tulane here: Rebuilding a City through Community Participation, Neogeography and GIS

Many thanks, Andrew!

MapSquared

robinson24Holy Cross, originally uploaded by jeff lamb. Source: Robinson’s Atlas of the City of New Orleans, Louisiana, 1883, New Orleans Notarial Archives

The NetSquared experience was more than a bit intense: two extended days of discussions with the progressive and powerful. We were one of 21 projects recognized for our efforts to use the internet for social change. We came home to our swampy fertile crescent with a bit of seed money to get our project going. It's a small seed, but it's an official start. So, thank you NetSquared. I've been asked to define this project in terms of its benefits. How does the development of this mapping application directly create positive change? How will people use it? How will the benefits be realized?

Our project will create a visualization tool that can be used to document the historic significance of neighborhoods. Yesterday I spoke with Liliana at the Partnership for Transformation of Urban Communities about how we can help map their photo census of Pontilly. Pontilly is the neighborhood organization for Ponchartrain Park and Gentilly Woods. These are early and mid-20th century neighborhoods that have joined forces to lobby for historic district status. Our photo-mapping presentation tool can help them achieve that goal. They are so close. They have already created the photo census of the neighborhood and uploaded the photos to a server. Their data is in a spreadsheet. The photos and data just need to be integrated into a dynamic map to help tell their story.

Open data. Open source. Open access. We will make it clear to participants upfront that they are contributing to the creation of a virtual public library. Any data sets integrated into our maps will be licensed though Creative Commons. Our maps will provide information about the sources for the data, recognizing the work of the people, organizations and archives who are creating and providing the data and photos. The data sets themselves will be exportable as KML for re-mashing. We have so much more to gain by sharing this information, than by keeping it proprietary.

Our project will create a library of historic base maps and data sets. This is a dream come true. Every architect I know (and I know more than my share) would love to have the ability to review different historic site maps online and then be able to actually USE those maps to present their work. Not only will architects use this feature, but so will the academy, the non-profits, the government, city planners, the schoolchildren, the tourists.

We are creating a site-specific presentation tool for telling stories. The Neighborhood Story Project's mission is "Our stories told by us." In a collaboration with Tulane City Center, they produced Cornerstones, celebrating the everyday monuments of New Orleans culture and neighborhoods. They are accepting nominations to expand their registry of everyday monuments, sites which other people just don't see. It's such a beautiful project. We have partnered with the Tulane City Center to help integrate their photos, oral histories, video and building plans into a dynamic map.

I don't think I would be so engaged in this mapping project, were it not so incredibly loaded with potential. Our crescent city is such fertile ground for mapping and data collection and photo documentation. We need to strike while it's hot.

The map that launched a thousand ships

Green Space Map, originally uploaded by Karen Apricot New Orleans.

I can’t believe I kind of forgot about the green dot map. Karen Gadbois emailed it to me Saturday morning and suggested we look into it to help tell our story at netSquared.

The "green dot plan" was generated by the Urban Land Institute for the Mayor’s Bring New Orleans Back Commission. It was released in January 2006.* The six big green dots: “approximate areas expected to become green space.”

This is the plan that launched a thousand ships, an armada of civic pride and activism. It was a plan that united us to fight against it. I started thinking about how this map could tell the stories of the People under those dots. How could it tell a story of the Buildings? The Neighborhoods? The Cornerstones? We can use this map against itself to tell the story of our defense of New Orleans. In this mashup, we can integrate citizen-created content into those green dots. Of course, we would also need to tell the story of the creation of that map. The story of Czar Canizaro and the Urban Land Institute. And we would need to actually layer this plan over a real map and discover the actual boundaries of those seemingly arbitrary dots.

It’s interesting on another level as well. Up to now, we have been thinking of the stories that get told by the data. This reverses the process as it starts with a historic map from the recent past. Through our mashup, the map becomes a virtual archive of its own significance. a meta-map. very cool.

* Note: The green dot map is missing from the Times-Picayune graphics archive online. The archive has no graphics from January 2006. Original plan: 2005. November 29. Urban Land Institute's Rebuilding Plan.

The links below are only abstracts. The Times-Picayune makes one subscribe online to read the full articles. There are many more listings on the Urban Land Institute's plan in the paid archive. I only posted a few abstracts here.

2006. January 11.
4 MONTHS TO DECIDE ; Nagin panel says hardest hit areas must prove viability city's footprint may shrink; full buyouts proposed for those forced to move. New housing to be developed in vast swaths of New Orleans' higher groundNagin panel would restrict rebuildingNeighborhoods would have 4 months to prove viability. by Frank Donze and Gordon

2006. March 19.
Land use debate recalls St. Thomas controversy ; Canizaro had role in creating River Garden by Brian Thevenot.

2007. April 1.
Will plan lift the Curse of the Green Dot? by Stephanie Grace

topophilia :::::::::::::::: a love of place

The New Orleans mashup for Citizen Monitoring of the Recovery is really gaining momentum. Yesterday as it bucketed with rain, Alan Gutierrez and I had long and productive phone conversations with three of our partners: Denice Warren Ross of the GNOCDC, Andrew Turner of Mapufacture and Karen Gadbois of Squandered Heritage. In the in-between-time, Alan met with the Neighborhood Coworking Project and I created a slideshow of a few of my favorite maps of New Orleans.

But back to the conversations:

New Orleans is a ripe or fertile environment for mapping. - Denice Warren Ross

No one knows this better than GNOCDC. In 1997 the Greater New Orleans Data Center was founded to democratize information from administrative data sets. The GNOCDC is offering us a wealth of wisdom gained through their years of experience. How to actually use this medium to create a map with context: one that tells a story. How to design a product for a specific audience with a specific purpose and then test it in the field. The GNOCDC methodology includes field usability testing for mapping systems. While they will not be supplying us with data, they are offering us the use of some of their seminal maps, especially the Neighborhood Boundaries Map and the Planning Districts Map. Their support of this project provides us with a strong foundation. Thank you, Denise.

Mapufacture provides dynamic, customizable geographic information and collaborative mapping. - Andrew Turner

Andrew is the project engineer on our team. Two days ago, I posted in the GIS Forum a recipe for a demo map for us to help us tell the story of the plight of the public schools in New Orleans. And just 3 hours later, Andrew had presented us with a preliminary mashup of various data set with the School Facilties Master Plan building reports. This is a work in progress. The ultimate product should incorporate photos from Flickr on a historic basemap. I can't say thanks enough, Andrew.

Dead House Walking - Karen Gadbois

Karen and I talked at length last night about her story. She began Squandered Heritage in April of 2006 after returning home. Her neighborhood lost a significant block of houses to fire. Pritchard Place at South Carrollton. Can we all put our heads together and conjure up that memory? I know I've tried. Karen tried. She went searching for photos and could turn up no visual archive. So Squandered Heritage began as a Memory Project. Which is a lot. But it's become much more. It started as place to visually document the memory of buildings. And as the stories of the buildings got told, it became more focussed on the various plights of the people who have lost so much. We are all indebted to Karen for continuing to fight, for continuing to keep us informed. For her diligence and dedication to the defense of New Orleans culture, our varied architectural heritage and the preservation of our neighborhood communities.

We all saw those 24 pages of addresses of houses to be demolished that was published in the Times-Picayune in the summer of 2007. I sat and stared at that paper. Gutted. I've spent years developing a New Orleans Virtual Archive (coming soon... coming soon). But my collection is based heavily in the 19th century city, the sliver by the river, the aisle of denial. We got that documented. But what about the other 80% that sat under water? What I could I do? How does one begin to tackle that scale of a documentation project? The scope of loss was Unfathomable. But while I sat frozen at the kitchen table, Karen started working. She is an absolute inspiration to me. Her success gave me the confidence to attempt to document modernism in New Orleans. Muchas muchas gracias.

Now for a shout out for that Times-Picayune insert. If anyone has it, please please please let me borrow it and scan it. I would really like to take it to netSquared. It's a perfect artifact to help tell our story.

Manifesto for a Mashup

At the end of the month Alan Gutierrez of Think New Orleans, Andrew Turner of Mapufacture and I will pitch a Mashup for Citizen Monitoring of the Recovery in the 2008 NetSquared Mashup challenge.

Challenge, indeed. As an artist-curator-historian, I'm not exactly Silicon Valley savvy.

But I do know what I like in a map: Layers. Think about this with me.

Imagine a Google map that allows one to select a historical view of the topography, New Orleans before or after the storm. Imagine being able to integrate past and present. Being able to view current data on the recovery on old Sanborn maps. And historic data from archives on contemporary maps. And being able to turn on and off different sets of data simultaneously. In this way, one could see if a historic house is on a demolition list. Imagine that. Making information more accessible, meaningful and interesting.

Mapping gives life to spreadsheets (demolition lists or building permits). Suddenly these droning lists of addresses form patterns and relationships. We can now go to a house, photograph it, blog it and sometimes actually save it. Usually not. But in the very least, it has been documented before it's history. The current push for demolition before the FEMA money runs out weighs heavy on the collective soul of New Orleans.

As we plan for the future, we ought to revisit the past. I'm thinking about Storyville and the Iberville Housing Projects. The "Big Four" are almost gone. What will rise up in their place? Can we see their old street grids amidst the live oaks? I'm thinking about having a better understanding of the history of all our neighborhoods, not just the 19th century ones.

The 20th century city of New Orleans suffered the most from the flooding. It had nothing to do with race or income. It's geography. Mapping is destiny and people all over the city are trying to map the madness away. Citizen created content in Google Maps track housing demolitions, housing project locations, shootings in 2008, mid-century modern architecture, unopened schools, schools to be demolished, the Housing Conservation District Review Committee (HCDRC) agenda, and of course New Orleans music.

I'm obviously keen on the idea of integrating geo-tagged photos as well. So this Mashup could potentially link recovery data, archival data and geo-tagged photos into a central space with layers of historic and contemporary maps of the city. The humble hope: to assist the recovery of New Orleans by increasing awareness of what we have, what is lost and for what we will fight to the end to preserve.

on the road + online

Lake Ponchartrain Causeway, originally uploaded by regional.modernism.
Photo courtesy of the New Orleans Virtual Archive (coming soon!)

I'm working on a method of translating the processes learned in this semester's course into a system for capturing the digital photos taken by summer study programs and travel fellowships. I have a number of recommendations for integrating or mashing up different technologies. The online toolkit includes: EditGrid, MapBuilder, Flickr and Blogger.*

ITINERARY IN EDITGRID.

Before the trip, I can assist the faculty in setting up a spreadsheet for the base itinerary in EditGrid.** EditGrid is a online spreadsheet that can be shared and updated by multiple users. It's a great tool for a collaborative project.

ITINERARY DATA WILL BE USED TO GENERATE DESCRIPTIONS AND TAGS FOR PHOTOS.

1. We will keep the data simple and relevant:building name, architect(s), and location (street address, city, country).
2. We will also add a group tag or ID to all sites: This could be a course ID (DSGN652) or relevant word string (TSAJapan08). Essentially, this tag that will identify any images uploaded to different Flickr accounts as being part of this image collective.
   

ITINERARY UPDATES.

1. The EditGrid itinerary spreadsheet should be updated regularly to reflect actual sites visited.
2. This task can be delegated and shared by members of the group.
3. If anyone in the group has an iPhone, the itinerary can be updated in real time.

MAPPING THE INTINERARY.

1. In EditGrid, export as csv.
2. Then go to MapBuilder, and import the intinerary.
3. MapBuilder will generate coordinates for latitude and longitude.
4. One can also then export the data from MapBuilder and import it into Google Maps or Google Earth via GPSVisualizer.

IMAGE DESCRIPTIONS IN FLICKR.

• Upload images to Flickr using the Flickr Uploadr relevant to your OS:
• Upload images of a single building at a time
• Place them into a Set
• Set name = Building name
• Copy and paste the relevant line of data from the EditGrid itinerary
• into the description
• and into the tag
• Photographers should also add their own name
• into the description
• and as a tag
• Tags
• Place phrases in quotes.
• Individual words do not need quotes.
• ex. "Bibliotheque Nationale" "Henri Labrouste" "11 Quai François-Mauriac, Paris, France" tsaParis08 "Victor Jones"
• Images should also be mapped / geo-tagged in Flickr.
• Flickr> Map> Organize > Your Map
• Select: Your non-geotagged content
• Shift-select images to map
• Find a location: enter location data
• Drag images to the appropriate point

BLOGGING THE TRAIL. Travel groups or fellowships may wish to set up a blog to create an online travel journal. Then one can simply select an image in Flickr and click "blog this" to generate a post.

Presentation at Tulane School of Architecture on Wednesday, April 30 at 11 am. Richardson Memorial Hall (#4 on campus map) room 204.

*One will need to register in EditGrid and MapBuilder. Flickr requires a yahoo mail account and Blogger requires a Google mail account.

**I would have used EditGrid in our course mapping project, but I only discovered it (with thanks to Alan Gutierrez) after the maps had been created.