We have some exciting news to share – Google Earth is now using 45 of the maps the Public Laboratory community produced!
The Public Laboratory Archive includes many public domain-released maps - so that they can be redistributed without "friction". Such is the case with today's announcement -- Google is now publishing finished maps from our archive that have the public domain designation. We are excited that Google has connected with our open data archive, and hope that other organizations will choose to do the same. The Google Geo "Lat Long Blog" has a nice post on the new maps in Google. We hope to continue distributing our maps to Google several times a year. This first wave of maps includes 45 total maps and 9 that are showing up in Google Maps as well as Google Earth.
We’re preparing a news release now, which we'll hopefully send out later today, but in the meantime, it would be great if people could help spread the word about this exciting initiative. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks once again to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation -- whose generous Knight News Challenge grant helped make this possible.
Thanks, Stewart
-- Stewart Long director of geography and data publiclaboratory.org +1-760-888-5287
Congratulations everyone, this is a big moment for our community.
I wanted to call out a couple maps which made it to the "primary layer" and are now actually visible in Google Maps, not just the historical time slider:
> We have some exciting news to share – Google Earth is now using 45 of the > maps the Public Laboratory community produced!
> The Public Laboratory Archive includes many public domain-released maps - > so that they can be redistributed without "friction". Such is the case with > today's announcement -- Google is now publishing finished maps from our > archive that have the public domain designation. We are excited that Google > has connected with our open data archive, and hope that > other organizations will choose to do the same. The Google Geo "Lat Long > Blog" has a nice post on the new maps in Google. We hope to continue > distributing our maps to Google several times a year. This first wave of > maps includes 45 total maps and 9 that are showing up in Google Maps as > well as Google Earth.
> We’re preparing a news release now, which we'll hopefully send out later > today, but in the meantime, it would be great if people could help spread > the word about this exciting initiative. Please let me know if you have any > questions.
> Thanks once again to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation -- whose > generous Knight News Challenge grant helped make this possible.
> Thanks, > Stewart
> -- > Stewart Long > director of geography and data > publiclaboratory.org > +1-760-888-5287
I toured some of the maps in google earth. Congratulations! this is really exciting! We have two beautiful maps of places in Jerusalem, I'm a bit slow, but soon will upload...
A few of you will also notice that some of the images from the archive didn't show up in Earth, since they didn't make it through our processing correctly. We'll try again later, and add them to the KML file if/when they go live. You may find a few other images that did make it into Earth, but had incorrect geo-referencing so they are distorted and/or shifted away from where they should be. These are not included in the KML either, but we'll add them if/when we get a chance to fix them. Also, we only used Public Domain <http://publiclaboratory.org/maps/all/publicdomain> licensed data in the visual spectrum (plus one infrared scene that slipped in). We might be able to use the Creative Commons Attribution<http://publiclaboratory.org/maps/all/cc-by> data in the future, but it would take some more legal work to figure out the licensing.
I'm sure many of you want to know if and when we will add more Public Laboratory imagery to Google Earth. I personally hope that we can, but unfortunately I can't promise anything right now. Processing these images into our databases is relatively labor intensive per unit area, since they are significantly smaller than the large satellite datasets we usually work with, and the geo-referencing quality is more variable. If you all post a lot more interesting, high-quality data, and can show interesting use-cases for having it in Google Earth, it'll make it easier to justify the effort on our end... and of course, we'll keep you posted. I'll look forward to reviewing the archive with the Public Labs folks in 6 months or so, to look at any new data that is available, and see what we can do.
Feel free to send any questions, comments or feedback my way.
Looking forward to working with you all in the future! -Christiaan
> A few of you will also notice that some of the images from the archive > didn't show up in Earth, since they didn't make it through our processing > correctly. We'll try again later, and add them to the KML file if/when > they go live. You may find a few other images that did make it into Earth, > but had incorrect geo-referencing so they are distorted and/or shifted > away from where they should be. These are not included in the KML either, > but we'll add them if/when we get a chance to fix them. Also, we only > used Public Domain <http://publiclaboratory.org/maps/all/publicdomain> > licensed data in the visual spectrum (plus one infrared scene that > slipped in). We might be able to use the Creative Commons Attribution<http://publiclaboratory.org/maps/all/cc-by> data > in the future, but it would take some more legal work to figure out the > licensing.
> I'm sure many of you want to know if and when we will add more Public > Laboratory imagery to Google Earth. I personally hope that we can, but > unfortunately I can't promise anything right now. Processing these images > into our databases is relatively labor intensive per unit area, since they > are significantly smaller than the large satellite datasets we usually work > with, and the geo-referencing quality is more variable. If you all post a > lot more interesting, high-quality data, and can show interesting use-cases > for having it in Google Earth, it'll make it easier to justify the effort > on our end... and of course, we'll keep you posted. I'll look forward to > reviewing the archive with the Public Labs folks in 6 months or so, to look > at any new data that is available, and see what we can do.
> Feel free to send any questions, comments or feedback my way.
> Looking forward to working with you all in the future! > -Christiaan
>> A few of you will also notice that some of the images from the archive >> didn't show up in Earth, since they didn't make it through our >> processing correctly. We'll try again later, and add them to the KML >> file if/when they go live. You may find a few other images that did make >> it into Earth, but had incorrect geo-referencing so they are distorted >> and/or shifted away from where they should be. These are not included in >> the KML either, but we'll add them if/when we get a chance to fix them. Also, >> we only used Public Domain<http://publiclaboratory.org/maps/all/publicdomain> >> licensed data in the visual spectrum (plus one infrared scene that >> slipped in). We might be able to use the Creative Commons Attribution<http://publiclaboratory.org/maps/all/cc-by> data >> in the future, but it would take some more legal work to figure out the >> licensing.
>> I'm sure many of you want to know if and when we will add more Public >> Laboratory imagery to Google Earth. I personally hope that we can, but >> unfortunately I can't promise anything right now. Processing these images >> into our databases is relatively labor intensive per unit area, since they >> are significantly smaller than the large satellite datasets we usually work >> with, and the geo-referencing quality is more variable. If you all post a >> lot more interesting, high-quality data, and can show interesting use-cases >> for having it in Google Earth, it'll make it easier to justify the effort >> on our end... and of course, we'll keep you posted. I'll look forward to >> reviewing the archive with the Public Labs folks in 6 months or so, to look >> at any new data that is available, and see what we can do.
>> Feel free to send any questions, comments or feedback my way.
>> Looking forward to working with you all in the future! >> -Christiaan
>> ---------------------------------- >> Christiaan Adams >> Google Earth Outreach http://earth.google.com/outreach >> Google Crisis Response, Google.org http://www.google.org >> ----------------------------------
>> On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 11:15 AM, Stewart Long < >> stew...@publiclaboratory.org> wrote:
Great coverage = lots of visitors to the site = some downtime this morning, sorry about that! Below are a few links to the most traffic-generating blogs. Check out the stories and consider adding your informed voice to the comments sections where people are discussing the ramifications:
shan...@publiclaboratory.org> wrote: > I've attached the news release for those of you that requested it. Please > feel free to pass around to others that you think would be interested.
> Shannon
> On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 9:27 PM, Liz Barry <eba...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Christiaan, >> Thank you for all your help with this! >> Liz
>> On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 4:16 PM, Christiaan Adams <csad...@google.com>wrote:
>>> Hi Public Laboratory and Grassroots Mapping communities,
>>> A few of you will also notice that some of the images from the archive >>> didn't show up in Earth, since they didn't make it through our >>> processing correctly. We'll try again later, and add them to the KML >>> file if/when they go live. You may find a few other images that did make >>> it into Earth, but had incorrect geo-referencing so they are distorted >>> and/or shifted away from where they should be. These are not included in >>> the KML either, but we'll add them if/when we get a chance to fix them. Also, >>> we only used Public Domain<http://publiclaboratory.org/maps/all/publicdomain> >>> licensed data in the visual spectrum (plus one infrared scene that >>> slipped in). We might be able to use the Creative Commons Attribution<http://publiclaboratory.org/maps/all/cc-by> data >>> in the future, but it would take some more legal work to figure out the >>> licensing.
>>> I'm sure many of you want to know if and when we will add more Public >>> Laboratory imagery to Google Earth. I personally hope that we can, but >>> unfortunately I can't promise anything right now. Processing these images >>> into our databases is relatively labor intensive per unit area, since they >>> are significantly smaller than the large satellite datasets we usually work >>> with, and the geo-referencing quality is more variable. If you all post a >>> lot more interesting, high-quality data, and can show interesting use-cases >>> for having it in Google Earth, it'll make it easier to justify the effort >>> on our end... and of course, we'll keep you posted. I'll look forward to >>> reviewing the archive with the Public Labs folks in 6 months or so, to look >>> at any new data that is available, and see what we can do.
>>> Feel free to send any questions, comments or feedback my way.
>>> Looking forward to working with you all in the future! >>> -Christiaan
>>> ---------------------------------- >>> Christiaan Adams >>> Google Earth Outreach http://earth.google.com/outreach >>> Google Crisis Response, Google.org http://www.google.org >>> ----------------------------------
>>> On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 11:15 AM, Stewart Long < >>> stew...@publiclaboratory.org> wrote:
>>>> (look for the horses and goats in the NW pasture)
>>>> and a few more to call out: >>>> Jamison Square. Portland, Oregon (turn off 45 degree imagery to see the >>>> vertical map): http://g.co/maps/f2mxj <http://g.co/maps/f2mxj>
>>>> Foothills Community Park . Boulder, Colorado (turn off 45 degree >>>> imagery to see the vertical map) : http://g.co/maps/hwybt
Liz, Thanks for the coverage reports. Great to see it getting some traction. It's always "interesting" to see which bits the reporters get right or not when they cover tech stuff. :-\ The comments are unfortunately typical of what we often see from a vocal few, but since I suspect many more people read the article than the comments, I'm not too worried. Still, it would be good if community members could respond to the uninformed comments about data ownership, collection, and privacy.
Hope the website wasn't down too long... thanks for getting it back up!
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 6:40 AM, Liz Barry <eba...@gmail.com> wrote: > Great coverage = lots of visitors to the site = some downtime this > morning, sorry about that! > Below are a few links to the most traffic-generating blogs. Check out the > stories and consider adding your informed voice to the comments sections > where people are discussing the ramifications:
>>>> A few of you will also notice that some of the images from the archive >>>> didn't show up in Earth, since they didn't make it through our >>>> processing correctly. We'll try again later, and add them to the KML >>>> file if/when they go live. You may find a few other images that did make >>>> it into Earth, but had incorrect geo-referencing so they are distorted >>>> and/or shifted away from where they should be. These are not included in >>>> the KML either, but we'll add them if/when we get a chance to fix them. Also, >>>> we only used Public Domain<http://publiclaboratory.org/maps/all/publicdomain> >>>> licensed data in the visual spectrum (plus one infrared scene that >>>> slipped in). We might be able to use the Creative Commons Attribution<http://publiclaboratory.org/maps/all/cc-by> data >>>> in the future, but it would take some more legal work to figure out the >>>> licensing.
>>>> I'm sure many of you want to know if and when we will add more Public >>>> Laboratory imagery to Google Earth. I personally hope that we can, >>>> but unfortunately I can't promise anything right now. Processing these >>>> images into our databases is relatively labor intensive per unit area, >>>> since they are significantly smaller than the large satellite datasets we >>>> usually work with, and the geo-referencing quality is more variable. If >>>> you all post a lot more interesting, high-quality data, and can show >>>> interesting use-cases for having it in Google Earth, it'll make it easier >>>> to justify the effort on our end... and of course, we'll keep you posted. >>>> I'll look forward to reviewing the archive with the Public Labs folks in 6 >>>> months or so, to look at any new data that is available, and see what >>>> we can do.
>>>> Feel free to send any questions, comments or feedback my way.
>>>> Looking forward to working with you all in the future! >>>> -Christiaan
>>>> ---------------------------------- >>>> Christiaan Adams >>>> Google Earth Outreach http://earth.google.com/outreach >>>> Google Crisis Response, Google.org http://www.google.org >>>> ----------------------------------
>>>> On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 11:15 AM, Stewart Long < >>>> stew...@publiclaboratory.org> wrote:
>>>>> (look for the horses and goats in the NW pasture)
>>>>> and a few more to call out: >>>>> Jamison Square. Portland, Oregon (turn off 45 degree imagery to see >>>>> the vertical map): http://g.co/maps/f2mxj <http://g.co/maps/f2mxj>
>>>>> Foothills Community Park . Boulder, Colorado (turn off 45 degree >>>>> imagery to see the vertical map) : http://g.co/maps/hwybt
