Mapping Hacks

Mapping Hacks

by Schuyler Erle, Rich Gibson, Jo Walsh
Released June 2005
Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN: 9780596007034

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Book description

Since the dawn of creation, man has designed maps to help identify the space that we occupy. From Lewis and Clark's pencil-sketched maps of mountain trails to Jacques Cousteau's sophisticated charts of the ocean floor, creating maps of the utmost precision has been a constant pursuit. So why should things change now? Well, they shouldn't. The reality is that map creation, or "cartography," has only improved in its ease-of-use over time. In fact, with the recent explosion of inexpensive computing and the growing availability of public mapping data, mapmaking today extends all the way to the ordinary PC user. Mapping Hacks, the latest page-turner from O'Reilly Press, tackles this notion head on. It's a collection of one hundred simple--and mostly free--techniques available to developers and power users who want draw digital maps or otherwise visualize geographic data. Authors Schuyler Erle, Rich Gibson, and Jo Walsh do more than just illuminate the basic concepts of location and cartography, they walk you through the process one step at a time. Mapping Hacks shows you where to find the best sources of geographic data, and then how to integrate that data into your own map. But that's just an appetizer. This comprehensive resource also shows you how to interpret and manipulate unwieldy cartography data, as well as how to incorporate personal photo galleries into your maps. It even provides practical uses for GPS (Global Positioning System) devices--those touch-of-a-button street maps integrated into cars and mobile phones. Just imagine: If Captain Kidd had this technology, we'd all know where to find his buried treasure! With all of these industrial-strength tips and tools, Mapping Hacks effectively takes the sting out of the digital mapmaking and navigational process. Now you can create your own maps for business, pleasure, or entertainment--without ever having to sharpen a single pencil.

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Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Foreword
  3. Credits
    1. About the Authors
    2. Contributors
    3. Acknowledgments
  4. Preface
    1. Why Mapping Hacks?
    2. Maps Tell Stories
    3. Location: It’s Everywhere
    4. Never Be Lost Again (Even If You’d Rather Be)
    5. Toward a Semantic (Geo)web
    6. Locative Media As a Two-Way Street
    7. Brother, Can You Spare a Polygon Layer?
    8. A Geoscope in Every Home
    9. The Adventure Continues...
    10. How to Use This Book
    11. How This Book Is Organized
    12. Conventions Used in This Book
    13. Using Code Examples
    14. Color Images Available Online
    15. How to Contact Us
    16. Got a Hack?
  5. Mapping Your Life
    1. Put a Map on It: Mapping Arbitrary Locations with Online Services
      1. More on the MapQuest LinkFree service
      2. Mapping with Yahoo! Maps
      3. See Also
    2. Route Planning Online
      1. Route Calculation
      2. Driving Instructions
      3. Turn Right, Gone Wrong
      4. See Also
    3. Map the Places You’ve Visited
    4. Find Your House on an Aerial Photograph
      1. Searching Terraserver
      2. Hacking Terraserver
      3. Other Good Online Sources of Aerial Photographs
    5. The Road Less Traveled by in MapQuest
      1. Get the Right Scale
      2. There’s More Than One Way to Get There!
      3. Using Estimated Time
      4. Tricking MapQuest with Multiple Routes
    6. Make Route Maps Easier to Read
      1. Making a LineDrive Map
      2. How LineDrive Works
    7. Will the Kids Barf?
      1. Getting the Data
      2. More Information
    8. Publish Maps of Your Photos on the Web
    9. Track the Friendly Skies with Sherlock
      1. How Does This Work?
    10. Georeference Digital Photos
      1. How Does This Work?
      2. Aim and Composition
      3. Conclusion
    11. How Far? How Fast? Geo-Enabling Your Spreadsheet
      1. Importing GPS Waypoints into Your Spreadsheet
      2. Importing GPS Tracklogs into Your Spreadsheet
      3. Calculating Cumulative Distance and Speed
      4. Geo-Enabling Other Spreadsheets
    12. Create a Distance Grid in Excel
      1. Making Your Own Grid
      2. Let’s Go Diving
    13. Add Maps to Excel Spreadsheets with MapPoint (1/2)
    14. Add Maps to Excel Spreadsheets with MapPoint (2/2)
  6. Mapping Your Neighborhood
    1. Make Free Maps of the United States Online
      1. Browsing the Web Interface
      2. Mapping a List of Points
      3. Hacking the Hack
      4. Mapping Census Data
      5. The Pros and Cons of the TIGER Map Service
    2. Zoom Right In on Your Neighborhood
      1. The Code
      2. Running the Code
      3. More Ballistic Tomfoolery
      4. Install Boomzoom on Your Own Site (Please!)
    3. Who Are the Neighbors Voting For?
    4. Map Nearby Wi-Fi Hotspots
      1. The Art of Wardriving
      2. Collecting Data with NetStumbler
      3. Uploading Your NetStumbler Logs
      4. Warning, Traffic Ahead!
    5. Why You Can’t Watch Broadcast TV
      1. Getting Started with SPLAT!
      2. Making Terrain Models for SPLAT!
      3. Finding Your Radio Frequency Transmitter
      4. Drawing Maps with SPLAT!
      5. Adding Context to the Coverage Map
      6. Hacking the Hack
      7. Caveats
    6. Analyze Elevation Profiles for Wireless Community Networks
    7. Make 3-D Raytraced Terrain Models
      1. Getting the Terrain Data
      2. Modeling Terrain With POV-Ray
      3. Color Your Terrain with an Image Map
      4. Rendering Hand-Drawn Maps in 3-D
    8. Map Health Code Violations with RDFMapper
      1. The RDFMapper Web Service in Depth
      2. Hacking RDFMapper
  7. Mapping Your World
    1. Digging to China
    2. Explore David Rumsey’s Historical Maps (1/2)
    3. Explore David Rumsey’s Historical Maps (2/2)
    4. Explore a 3-D Model of the Entire World
      1. Getting the Software
      2. Basic Navigation
      3. Exploring the Available Data Sets
      4. A Sneak Peek into the Past
      5. Final Thoughts
    5. Work with Multiple Lat/Long Formats
      1. A Couple of Easy Ways to Convert
      2. Converting Lat/Long to Lat/Long on Paper
      3. Converting Lat/Long to Lat/Long using PROJ.4
      4. Converting Lat/Long to Lat/Long in Perl
    6. Work with Different Coordinate Systems
      1. Converting with the PROJ.4 Toolkit
      2. Perl to the Rescue (Again)
    7. Calculate the Distance Between Points on the Earth’s Surface
      1. The Code
      2. Other Considerations
      3. See Also
    8. Experiment with Different Cartographic Projections
      1. Cylindrical Projections
        1. The Mercator projection
        2. The Transverse Mercator projection
        3. The Peters projection
        4. The Equidistant Cylindrical projection
      2. Azimuthal Projections
        1. Stereographic projections
        2. Orthographic projections
        3. The Azimuthal Equidistant projection
        4. The Gnomonic projection
      3. Conic Projections
        1. Lambert’s Conformal Conic projection
        2. Albers Equal-Area Conic projection
      4. Pseudocylindrical Projections
      5. Plotting Locations with GMT
      6. See Also
    9. Plot Arbitrary Points on a World Map
      1. Finding Base Maps on the Web
      2. The Code
      3. Running the Code
      4. Why Use Any Other Projection, if This One Is So Simple?
      5. See Also
    10. Plot a Great Circle on a Flat Map
      1. Great Circles on a Mercator Projection
      2. Great Circles on an Orthographic Projection
      3. Great Circles on a Gnomonic Projection
      4. Great Circles of Perl
      5. See Also
    11. Plot Dymaxion Maps in Perl
      1. The Code
      2. Running the Code
      3. See Also
    12. Hack on Base Maps in Your Favorite Image Editor
      1. Drawing the Political Boundary Layer
      2. Importing the Map Layers
      3. Combining the Layers to Make a New Map
      4. See Also
    13. Georeference an Arbitrary Tourist Map
      1. The Web Interface
      2. The World File
      3. The Matrix Transformation
      4. Projecting Arbitrary Maps in SVG
    14. Map Other Planets
      1. Making Flat Maps of Other Planets
      2. Rendering 3-D Imagery of Other Planets
      3. Other Otherworldly Resources
  8. Mapping (on) the Web
    1. Search Local, Find Global
      1. Hacking Local Search URLs
      2. Looking for More
    2. Shorten Online Map URLs
    3. Tweak the Look and Feel of Web Maps
    4. Add Location to Weblogs and RSS Feeds
      1. Adding Location Tags to Movable Type
      2. Adding Location Tags to Radio Userland
    5. View Your Photo Thumbnails on a Flash Map
      1. Adding Thumbnail Links to Your RSS Feed
      2. Configuring worldKit to Display the Thumbnails
    6. Plot Points on a Spinning Globe Applet
      1. Display and Interact with Points on the Geosphere
      2. Use the Geosphere to Plot Your Own Coordinates
        1. Add coordinates with HTML
        2. Add coordinates with JavaScript
    7. Plot Points on an Interactive Map Using DHTML
      1. Adding the Star to the Interface
      2. The Code
      3. Running the Code
      4. Hacking the Hack
      5. Hacking Other Projections
    8. Map Your Tracklogs on the Web
      1. Making Tracklog Maps on the Web
        1. General map parameters
        2. Track options
        3. Waypoint options.
    9. Map Earthquakes in (Nearly) Real Time
      1. Hacking the Hack
    10. Plot Statistics Against Shapes
      1. The Web Interface
      2. Rolling Your Own
      3. The Code
    11. Extract a Spatial Model from Wikipedia
      1. Modeling Wikipedia
        1. Countries
        2. Cities and other spatial things
      2. Graphing Wikipedia
      3. Hacking the Hack
    12. Map Global Weather Conditions
  9. Mapping with Gadgets
    1. How GPS Works
      1. Leave your own breadcrumbs: tracklogs and waypoints
      2. Understanding tracklog options
      3. What about precision?
    2. Get Maps on Your Mobile Phone
    3. Accessorize Your GPS
      1. Waterproof Floating Cases
      2. Mounting the GPS
      3. Batteries?
      4. External Antennas
      5. Power and Data Cables
      6. Make Your Own Garmin Data Cable
      7. Maps
    4. Get Your Tracklogs in Windows or Linux
      1. Garnix for Linux, Windows, or DOS
      2. An Important Lesson
      3. See Also
    5. The Serial Port to USB Conundrum
      1. Configuring and Using the Serial-to-USB Adapter Under OS X
      2. Configuring and Using the Serial-to-USB Adapter Under Windows
      3. Configuring and Using the Serial-to-USB Adapter Under Linux
      4. Troubleshooting
    6. Speak in Geotongues: GPSBabel to the Rescue
      1. Using the Graphical User Interface
      2. Using GPSBabel from the Command Line
      3. Exchanging Waypoints and Tracklogs with a GPS
      4. Using GPSBabel to Merge Files
      5. Using Filters
    7. Show Your Waypoints on Aerial Photos with Terrabrowser
      1. Live Tracking in Terrabrowser Version 1.1.0
      2. Using Terrabrowser to View and Edit Waypoints
    8. Visualize Your Tracks in Three Dimensions
      1. Loading the Example
      2. Loading Your Own Data
      3. Loading New Elevation Models
      4. Adding Elevation to a Tracklog
      5. Hacking the Maps
      6. Three-Dimensional Terrain Models in 3DEM
    9. Create Your Own Maps for a Garmin GPS (1/2)
    10. Create Your Own Maps for a Garmin GPS (2/2)
      1. Hacking the Hack
    11. Use Your Track Memory as a GPS Base Map
      1. Turn Off Your Base Map to Turn On Your Own Story
      2. See Also
    12. Animate Your Tracklogs
      1. Hacking the Hack: Do More with Geo::Track::Animate
      2. See Also
    13. Connect to Your GPS from Multiple Applications
      1. Installing gpsd
      2. Running gpsd
      3. Visualizing the Output of gpsd
      4. Hacking the Hack
      5. See Also
    14. Don’t Lose Your Tracklogs!
      1. GPS Data Loggers
      2. Hacking the Hack: Build Your Own Data Logger
    15. Geocode Your Voice Recordings and Other Media
    16. Improve the Accuracy of Your GPS with Differential GPS
      1. How Does GPS Error Correction Work?
      2. Setting Up DGPS-over-IP on Linux
      3. Setting up DGPS-over-IP on Windows
      4. Getting Better Differentials
    17. Build a Map of Local GSM Cells
      1. The Code
      2. Running the Code
      3. Evaluating the Data
      4. See Also:
    18. Build a Car Computer
      1. Connecting a GPS to Your Car Computer
      2. Displaying GPS Data in a GUI Application
    19. Build Your Own Car Navigation System with GpsDrive
      1. Installing and Using GpsDrive
      2. Adding Your Own Maps
      3. Playing Nice with Others
  10. Mapping on Your Desktop
    1. Mapping Local Areas of Interest with Quantum GIS
      1. Selecting Our Area of Interest
      2. Finding Our Spot
      3. Getting the Data
      4. Displaying the Data
      5. Adding Vector Data
        1. Projection problems
        2. Dealing with it
        3. Making it line up
      6. In Conclusion
    2. Extract Data from Maps with Manifold (1/2)
    3. Extract Data from Maps with Manifold (2/2)
    4. Java-Based Desktop Mapping with Openmap
      1. Preparation
      2. Take a Spin Around Openmap
      3. Add Data from the Web
      4. Hacking the Hack: Preserve Your Settings
      5. The Results
    5. Seamless Data Download from the USGS
    6. Convert Geospatial Data Between Different Formats
      1. Converting Raster Data Between Different Formats
      2. Clipping and Warping Raster Data
      3. Once More from the Top, with Vectors
      4. Points and Lines and Polygons, Oh My
    7. Find Your Way Around GRASS (1/2)
    8. Find Your Way Around GRASS (2/2)
      1. See Also
    9. Import Your GPS Waypoints and Tracklogs into GRASS
    10. Turn Your Tracklogs into ESRI Shapefiles
      1. The Code
      2. Running the Code
      3. Understanding the Code
      4. Hacking the Hack
    11. Add Relief to Your Topographic Maps
      1. Getting the Data
      2. Creating a New Location in GRASS
      3. Making a Composite Elevation Model
      4. Applying the Hill Shading
      5. Hacking the Hack
    12. Make Your Own Contour Maps
    13. Plot Wireless Network Viewsheds with GRASS
      1. Loading the Terrain into GRASS
      2. Making the Radio Viewshed Layer
      3. Generating the Line-of-Sight Layer
      4. Superimposing Line-of-Sight and Base Map Layers
      5. Caveats
      6. See Also
    14. Share Your GRASS Maps with the World
      1. Publish Raster Maps as PNG Images
      2. Publish PNG Images via the Display Monitor
      3. Publish GRASS Maps as PostScript Files
    15. Explore the Effects of Global Warming
      1. Importing the Elevation Data
      2. Method 1: Hacking the Color Table
      3. Method 2: Applying Raster Algebra
      4. Adding Population Data into the Mix
      5. Estimating Population Displacement
    16. Conclusion
    17. Become a GRASS Ninja
      1. Objective #1: Secure the World’s Borders
      2. Objective #2: Reunite the World’s Nations
      3. Objective #3: Recover the Missing Plans
      4. The Path to Ninjahood
  11. Names and Places
    1. What to Do if Your Government Is Hoarding Geographic Data
      1. If you’re in the U.S.
      2. If you’re in Canada
      3. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand
      4. If you are in Denmark
      5. If you’re elsewhere in the EU
      6. If you’re in India
      7. If you’re in Japan
      8. If you are in the Asia/Pacific area
      9. If you are in South America
      10. If you’re in Africa
    2. Geocode a U.S. Street Address
      1. The Birth of geocoder.us
      2. See Also
    3. Automatically Geocode U.S. Addresses
      1. Geocoding with XML-RPC
      2. Running the Hack
      3. Geocoding with the RDF/REST Interface
      4. Geocoding a List of Addresses
      5. Setting up your own Geocoding server
      6. See Also
    4. Clean Up U.S. Addresses
      1. The Code
    5. Find Nearby Things Using U.S. ZIP Codes
      1. Who Is Nearby?
    6. Map Numerical Data the Easy Way
      1. Hacking the GIF Palette
      2. Getting the Data
      3. Tying It All Together
      4. See Also
    7. Build a Free World Gazetteer
      1. The Web Interface
      2. The Data
      3. The Code
      4. Hacking the Hack
    8. Geocode U.S. Locations with the GNIS
      1. Running the Hack
    9. Track a Package Across the U.S.
      1. Preparation
      2. Getting Location Information
      3. The Code
      4. Running the Hack
      5. The Results
  12. Building the Geospatial Web
    1. Build a Spatially Indexed Data Store
      1. Set Up the Database
      2. Getting Data into PostGIS
        1. Import a shapefile into PostGIS with shp2pgsql
        2. Import many formats into PostGIS with ogr2ogr
    2. Load Your Waypoints into a Spatial Database
      1. Consider Your Database Design
      2. Create Database and Tables
      3. Importing Waypoints
      4. Calculating Distances in PostGIS
      5. Not Quite a Cross Tab Query
    3. Publish Your Geodata to the Web with GeoServer
      1. Setting up GeoServer
      2. Starting up GeoServer
        1. Configuring GeoServer
        2. Setting global settings and contact information
        3. Applying and saving your changes
      3. Publishing Your Own Data
      4. Viewing Your Data with GeoServer’s WMS
    4. Crawl the Geospatial Web with RedSpider
    5. Build Interactive Web-Based Map Applications
      1. Getting and Installing MapServer
      2. Directories
      3. The Map File
      4. Adding Interactivity
      5. Adding a Point
      6. See Also
    6. Map Wardriving (and other!) Data with MapServer
      1. The Shapefile of Things to Come
      2. From Wardriving to Shapefiles
      3. Map This Shapefile!
      4. Hacking the Hack: Adding Aerial Photographs
      5. GeoTIFF
      6. Create a Tile Index
      7. Create a Map File
      8. Projection Issues
  13. Mapping with Other People
    1. Node Runner
      1. Rich person’s location finding
      2. Poor person’s location finding
      3. Other Wireless Games
    2. Geo-Warchalking with 2-D Barcodes
      1. Big in Japan
      2. Making 2-D Geobarcodes
      3. Why-Not Questions
        1. Why not use RFID?
        2. Why not just use a pointer or a URI?
        3. Why not use n3 triples?
        4. Why not zip/gzip the data first?
      4. See Also
    3. Model Interactive Spaces
      1. Naming Spaces
      2. Making Models Without Maps
      3. Making Models with Maps
      4. Interactive Interfaces
    4. Share Geo-Photos on the Web
      1. Create an RDF Feed of Photo Metadata
      2. Create a Dynamic SVG Map with Pop-Up Photographs
      3. See Also
    5. Set Up an OpenGuide for Your Hometown
      1. Installing OpenGuides from CPAN
      2. Configuring Your OpenGuide
      3. Configuring Your Web Server
      4. Customizing Your OpenGuide
      5. Make Maps of Your OpenGuide
      6. Plotting Places over Open Space
      7. Plotting Places over Online Map Services
    6. Give Your Great-Great-Grandfather a GPS
      1. See Also
    7. Map Your Friend-of-a-Friend Network
      1. A Simple FOAF File
      2. Crawling the FOAF Web
      3. Making Your Own FOAF World Map
      4. Identifying People with FOAF
    8. Map Imaginary Places
      1. Generate an Ellipsoid and Datum for an Imaginary World
      2. Generate Imaginary Topography
      3. Gazetteer for Imaginary Places
      4. Spatial Index of Imaginary Places
      5. Web Services about Imaginary Places
  14. Index (1/3)
  15. Index (2/3)
  16. Index (3/3)

Product information

  • Title: Mapping Hacks
  • Author(s): Schuyler Erle, Rich Gibson, Jo Walsh
  • Release date: June 2005
  • Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
  • ISBN: 9780596007034