At Public Lab, we've grown the Grassroots Mapping community into a broader effort to enable communities to understand and respond to environmental threats with DIY techniques.
A kite aerial photography field report
Date of flight: January 27, 2013
Site: North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, Vermont
Occasion: Ice on Fire deep winter celebration
cross-posted from PBS's IdeaLab
Public Lab's balloon- and kite-based mapping approach is a new way to take aerial images from the ground. However, there are some considerations and things that can be learned from a few map stories.
Each map project has distinct characteristics in its time, place, and local atmospheric conditions. Here are several examples of how those factors make each balloon and kite map unique.
LAKE MERRITT (OAKLAND, CALIF.)
An ordinary looking concrete slab in Brooklyn - what story does it really tell ?
"To balloon or to kite, that is the question.."
Just after Independence Day 2012, the “Over My Dead Body” balloon mapping expedition set out to capture high resolution aerials of a very special grave site: America’s first ever military cemetery.
Their site of interest was none other than the fabled Marylander Burial Ground, rumored location of the first soldiers ever to die as Americans in the 1776 War of Independence.
This interview is from the summer issue of Grassroots Mapping Forum, our quarterly print publication. Subscribe here.
Shannon Dosemagen sat down with Scott Eustis of the Gulf Restoration Network to discuss the shifting sands and fortunes of the Mississippi Delta and the Chandeleur Islands
Can you tell me a bit about GRN, the work you’re doing with them, mission, some of the work that your co-workers are doing?
This was a bit lost in the hubbub over the Google announcement, but a few weeks ago we added a feature to order a print directly from MapKnitter and from the PLOTS map archive. Users can now click-through directly from their map details page. Public Laboratory map production is working towards a end-to-end open source solution:
This was a bit lost in the hubbub over the Google announcement, but a few weeks ago we added a feature to order a print directly from MapKnitter and from the PLOTS map archive. Users can now click-through directly from their map details page. Public Laboratory map production is working towards a end-to-end open source solution:
cross-posted from PBS's IdeaLab. How We Got Here: The Road to Public Lab's Map Project
Last week, Public Laboratory announced that public domain maps are now starting to show up on Google Earth and Google Maps. But how did the projects get there? Here's a timeline of a Public Laboratory map project.
MAKING A MAP
cross-posted from PBS's IdeaLab. How We Got Here: The Road to Public Lab's Map Project
Last week, Public Laboratory announced that public domain maps are now starting to show up on Google Earth and Google Maps. But how did the projects get there? Here's a timeline of a Public Laboratory map project.
MAKING A MAP
We held a Ballon Mapping and Kite Making Workshop on the Campus of San Marcos on Jan. 28, 2012 with a group of about 10 people from: Open Street Map Peru, Saberes Nomadas, and San Marcos Univ. (physics, geography, sociology, and geographic engineering depts.)
This post has been syndicated from EPSG4253.wordpress.com
Today, we had a balloon mapping experiment. For a very brief airtime, we got some really impressive images.
Are you embroiled in an cartographic dispute? Do you disagree with the official version of your geography? Contact us through the public mailing list.
Grassroots Mapping is part of the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, founded by a group of activists, educators, technologists, and community organizers interested in new ways to promote action, intervention, and awareness through a participatory research model.
We're now trying to learn from our balloon mapping experiences to develop new DIY tools with a variety of local communities. This is an open community and you are welcome to join, and encouraged to contribute!
Purchase the Grassroots Mapping Forum, our new community research journal/archive/zine/map, where we hope to share ideas, techniques, and stories from the Grassroots Mapping community. It is printed on a single 22.75x35" newsprint sheet, folded down to just over letter size, and includes a full color reproduction of a grassroots map along with essays, illustrated guides, and interviews on the reverse.
You can find out more, and purchase the first issue here for $17 shipped.
We're helping citizens to use balloons, kites, and other simple and inexpensive tools to produce their own aerial imagery of the spill… documentation that will be essential for environmental and legal use in coming yeas.We believe in complete open access to spill imagery and are releasing all imagery into the public domain.
You can see all of our data here: http://publiclab.org/archive/.
Browse some of our best imagery on Flickr.
Techniques and tools for people who want to make maps, on the Public Laboratory wiki. Includes readings and case studies on grassroots mapping projects.
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Instructions on how to use cameras on weather balloons to create high-resolution maps.
Want to start mapping? See the Balloon Mapping Materials List to get started.
