Google Mapping Party Minsk. OpenStreetMap Belarus Team is visiting!
On Tuesday, March 16, Igor Makhaniok sent an invitation to the Google-group of Belarusian cartographers to visit the Minsk Google Mapping Party. The OpenStreetMap Belarus team simply could not disregard such an event, and on the same day it was decided: we must prepare for a meeting with a star!
A group of volunteers ( Komäpa , timerov , andrewsh , Haryaalcar ) immediately began preparations. Hind , a cat from Moscow, drew us wonderful OpenStreetMap cat t-shirts.
So, on March 19, at the appointed time of 18:00, our company came to the office where the Google Mapping Party was held. The atmosphere of the party at the party was not initially observed; rather, it felt the presence of a party that can always find you - an old Soviet computer class with new computers (17 "CRT monitors, some mice without wheels - it's good that you captured yours!), google.com is open to everyone in Google Chrome. Everything in order to stop communication between people - “sit up straight and draw our map”.
')
After we listened to the splendid speech of Ekaterina Hubchik (watch the presentation , briefly: “you will draw, and then we will show”), Igor gave a master class on editing in Google MapMaker. For a start, the building in which we were located was mapped onto MapMaker, although for some reason slightly in the wrong place:
Then there was an attempt to draw something in the city of Cherven , on which Google did not have satellite images - the whole city was closed by a terrible cloud. It is necessary to pay tribute to Igor, he instantly oriented and instead of actually editing the city showed how to make branches from the roads using the example of M4.
The key word "Questions?" Timerov asked me to tell in more detail what a Mapping Party is. "Google is conducting a mapping party so that everyone can draw a map of familiar places ..." - "Can I use your projector and tell more?" - "... yes. But only if not for long."
My way out. I download a PDF with a presentation from a home server on the spot, and I start a story about what it really is - the Mapping Party. On the first slides with the map, the audience was about to fall asleep by habit, but the slide with a photo of an evening barbecue on the coast of the Isle of Wight made everyone wake up.
On the slide about photogrammetry and the story that maps can be created not only on the basis of satellite images or GPS tracks, but also on the basis of three-dimensional models of objects obtained from many photographs taken with an ordinary camera, the presentation was listened to attentively even by those who were present at the event. photographer. [Thanks to zedlik for the amendment that the photographer was not hired.]
Already after this presentation a real interest awakened in the people. “What is it? And why, why? Will you have a mapping party? Call? ". However, it didn’t work to answer all the questions - the organizers reminded people that they came here to circle the pictures in Google MapMaker and at the end we are awaiting the presentation of diplomas to the most active.
But the questions on our part for Google are not over. “Is it possible to use Google Maps data in tourist GPS-navigators that do not have access to the Internet?” - “We do not provide such services”. And, perhaps, the most interesting thing that we found out: the Google Maps service in Belarus is not running . It is absent on the google.by domain, and what is on google.com is considered to be absent .
It's funny that in the process of drawing people turned to me as experienced in Google MapMaker. At first I honestly tried to help, but the number of glitches and illogicalities in the system is so high that the person who sent a total of more than five hundred thousand points to OpenStreetMap did not manage to figure out the reasons for this behavior. The moderation system of lousy (if someone corrected the object, it cannot be corrected until the more experienced edits are moderated; if you trimmed the street - they are blocked and everything adjacent to it) showed itself in all its glory, and Haryaalcar, who decided to try not to draw only in OSM, rested in the restriction of the length of the object - 5 km. Agree, for the river is not enough.
In the process, when people started talking about three-dimensional models, I was presented to the public by an isometric render of OpenStreetMap.org data from mapsurfer.net on my sandbox at latlon.org/maxi . Liked. Comrade, which has something to do with Wikipedia, was also presented a multilingual rendering of the Republic of Belarus map with switchable inscriptions in Latin, Russian and Belarusian, and clarified some questions about licensing.
Another limitation of MapMaker is that you can only use the types allowed by Google. When I asked Igor how to draw a lawn for me, he rummaged around the list of types for a long time, switched the language to English (among other things, the service has a very mediocre translation into Russian, sometimes making it impossible in principle to use some interface elements), I searched , I double-checked the translation options for the word “lawn” in the dictionary, and then, with obvious disappointment, said that unfortunately, the lawns in the map-maker will not work.
At the pizza break, we managed to have a bite (thanks to the organizers for not forgetting) and talk with other participants of the meeting. It was there that it turned out that there were a dozen of real users of MapMaker there, all the rest were BSU students who were invited by teachers for free. To office is not empty, and it was someone to distribute T-shirts.
At the end of the event, after the distribution of T-shirts and a group photo, a “solemn” presentation of “special” certificates took place. Once again, the OSM Belarus Team took away half of their total number as the most sociable and asking the most questions.
After handing me the certificate I gave Igor our flyer the same way. “Thank you, I already know all this,” - “then go ahead to Google,” - “they also know there,” - “then why did the mapmaker do it?” - “A sick question ...”
When the event ended, and as the last one who left we were given the rest of the pizza-pause food ("do not be lost as good!"), We went out on the porch. Then we noticed where the event took place at the CIRC:
I would like to express my gratitude to Google for drawing public attention to the topic of cartography. Let not everything go so far smoothly, but that’s the development :)
PS Photo reports: timerov: http://picasaweb.google.com/timerov/MinskGmp# , andrewsh: http://picasaweb.google.com/Andrew.Shadoura/OSMGMM#
UPD. Photos from the Google Mapping Party, view from Google: generation.by/doc14-372.html (thanks bezymov ). You can also read the event report (in Belarusian, Russian version ) and compare it with what was described above.
A group of volunteers ( Komäpa , timerov , andrewsh , Haryaalcar ) immediately began preparations. Hind , a cat from Moscow, drew us wonderful OpenStreetMap cat t-shirts.
So, on March 19, at the appointed time of 18:00, our company came to the office where the Google Mapping Party was held. The atmosphere of the party at the party was not initially observed; rather, it felt the presence of a party that can always find you - an old Soviet computer class with new computers (17 "CRT monitors, some mice without wheels - it's good that you captured yours!), google.com is open to everyone in Google Chrome. Everything in order to stop communication between people - “sit up straight and draw our map”.
')
After we listened to the splendid speech of Ekaterina Hubchik (watch the presentation , briefly: “you will draw, and then we will show”), Igor gave a master class on editing in Google MapMaker. For a start, the building in which we were located was mapped onto MapMaker, although for some reason slightly in the wrong place:
Then there was an attempt to draw something in the city of Cherven , on which Google did not have satellite images - the whole city was closed by a terrible cloud. It is necessary to pay tribute to Igor, he instantly oriented and instead of actually editing the city showed how to make branches from the roads using the example of M4.
The key word "Questions?" Timerov asked me to tell in more detail what a Mapping Party is. "Google is conducting a mapping party so that everyone can draw a map of familiar places ..." - "Can I use your projector and tell more?" - "... yes. But only if not for long."
My way out. I download a PDF with a presentation from a home server on the spot, and I start a story about what it really is - the Mapping Party. On the first slides with the map, the audience was about to fall asleep by habit, but the slide with a photo of an evening barbecue on the coast of the Isle of Wight made everyone wake up.
On the slide about photogrammetry and the story that maps can be created not only on the basis of satellite images or GPS tracks, but also on the basis of three-dimensional models of objects obtained from many photographs taken with an ordinary camera, the presentation was listened to attentively even by those who were present at the event. photographer. [Thanks to zedlik for the amendment that the photographer was not hired.]
Already after this presentation a real interest awakened in the people. “What is it? And why, why? Will you have a mapping party? Call? ". However, it didn’t work to answer all the questions - the organizers reminded people that they came here to circle the pictures in Google MapMaker and at the end we are awaiting the presentation of diplomas to the most active.
But the questions on our part for Google are not over. “Is it possible to use Google Maps data in tourist GPS-navigators that do not have access to the Internet?” - “We do not provide such services”. And, perhaps, the most interesting thing that we found out: the Google Maps service in Belarus is not running . It is absent on the google.by domain, and what is on google.com is considered to be absent .
It's funny that in the process of drawing people turned to me as experienced in Google MapMaker. At first I honestly tried to help, but the number of glitches and illogicalities in the system is so high that the person who sent a total of more than five hundred thousand points to OpenStreetMap did not manage to figure out the reasons for this behavior. The moderation system of lousy (if someone corrected the object, it cannot be corrected until the more experienced edits are moderated; if you trimmed the street - they are blocked and everything adjacent to it) showed itself in all its glory, and Haryaalcar, who decided to try not to draw only in OSM, rested in the restriction of the length of the object - 5 km. Agree, for the river is not enough.
In the process, when people started talking about three-dimensional models, I was presented to the public by an isometric render of OpenStreetMap.org data from mapsurfer.net on my sandbox at latlon.org/maxi . Liked. Comrade, which has something to do with Wikipedia, was also presented a multilingual rendering of the Republic of Belarus map with switchable inscriptions in Latin, Russian and Belarusian, and clarified some questions about licensing.
Another limitation of MapMaker is that you can only use the types allowed by Google. When I asked Igor how to draw a lawn for me, he rummaged around the list of types for a long time, switched the language to English (among other things, the service has a very mediocre translation into Russian, sometimes making it impossible in principle to use some interface elements), I searched , I double-checked the translation options for the word “lawn” in the dictionary, and then, with obvious disappointment, said that unfortunately, the lawns in the map-maker will not work.
At the pizza break, we managed to have a bite (thanks to the organizers for not forgetting) and talk with other participants of the meeting. It was there that it turned out that there were a dozen of real users of MapMaker there, all the rest were BSU students who were invited by teachers for free. To office is not empty, and it was someone to distribute T-shirts.
At the end of the event, after the distribution of T-shirts and a group photo, a “solemn” presentation of “special” certificates took place. Once again, the OSM Belarus Team took away half of their total number as the most sociable and asking the most questions.
After handing me the certificate I gave Igor our flyer the same way. “Thank you, I already know all this,” - “then go ahead to Google,” - “they also know there,” - “then why did the mapmaker do it?” - “A sick question ...”
When the event ended, and as the last one who left we were given the rest of the pizza-pause food ("do not be lost as good!"), We went out on the porch. Then we noticed where the event took place at the CIRC:
I would like to express my gratitude to Google for drawing public attention to the topic of cartography. Let not everything go so far smoothly, but that’s the development :)
PS Photo reports: timerov: http://picasaweb.google.com/timerov/MinskGmp# , andrewsh: http://picasaweb.google.com/Andrew.Shadoura/OSMGMM#
UPD. Photos from the Google Mapping Party, view from Google: generation.by/doc14-372.html (thanks bezymov ). You can also read the event report (in Belarusian, Russian version ) and compare it with what was described above.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/88307/
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