Of Geotagging and and Maps

Andy and I have been talking about a large bid he is trying to get on to at the moment and it sounds like a bloody good project. Basically it will be a large website with maps of Bournemouth and a timeline. Thus you will be able to go back into different parts of Bournemouth's timeline and view all sorts of different things. We've been discussing how we could implement everything and what directions it could take.

We started off with the idea of a pretty large website that is constructed modularly with user accounts for putting in data, etc. Then we came up with the idea of using Flickr as an image deposit with a central account and then lots of smaller accounts for different schools and individuals to join and add to the image library. From that we could then get Microsoft involved and use PhotoSynth to build points of interest such as Bournemouth Pier. As another way of getting Microsoft involved we thought about using Deep Zoom to hold all the images that get collected about Bournemouth. Expanding upon the PhotoSynth idea we thought that you could have different photo sets from different time periods so you could see what different land marks looked like back through the ages.

From there we thought about getting local schools involved and having them start taking photos but also getting them to geotag the photos as we can pin them to the maps.
Thus it all starts to come together as a community project. Also by bringing in Microsoft and using their software we take down cost and time and also bring up the support level. Microsoft of course then get lots of advertising and a bloody good showcase for different bits and bobs, everybody wins.

I of course hopes he gets the bid because then he could employ me and help him with the research and I get something fantastic to do my dissertation on. Andy wants to take me along to a meeting about the bid on Monday to talk about everything we've discussed today and pitch it to the others in his team. I think they will agree with it, it's damn good as as long as it's built on a solid, modular framework it will be easily expandable and we can sell it on to other cities to do for themselves. If enough people take it on it would eventually become a huge, geotagged historic record of the country.