What Maps can we use when the Internet is DOWN?
Posted November 28th, 2009 by ke6nyt
Beings this is for emergency use, there is an issue that when the internet is down, which would happen in an emergency, what maps can I use that I will be able to zoom in and out on? When we use UI-View for APRS, it uses Chicago Mapping that has given thrid parties the source in order to use their map data. I understand that the GPS coords and address location may or may not work using this to plot new icons, but I still need to zoom in and out during an emergency and still need streets, etc. UI-View utilizes Chicago Mapping maps and it is able to do streets and GPS coor lookups.
Thanks for all that you guys are doing,
Dan
KE6NYT
Comments
Offline Use
Dan--
I had to test this to make sure I gave you the right answer. Depiction saves all the data you bring in to a given depiction when you save the file. The system also caches all of the background tiles you use as you zoom in and out in the depiction. So, when you're offline, you data is all there and still interacts, and the background can feed off that cache.
Be sure to do a lot of zooming all around the areas you use most, and you'll be fine for that part of offline operations. (in the test I just ran, I had lots from OpenStreetMap, but not so much NAIP or any other source).
As for the address lookups (geocoding, as we call it), we don't have an offline solution at this time. Your suggestion may prove useful, and I will pass it on.
Thanks, and Happy Depicting!
George
Depiction Support
George, if I understand you
George,
if I understand you correctly, when I am connected to the internet with Depiction running, I need to do a lot of zooming in which will then capture the different screens then when it is saved, it will save all of the screens and I will be able to utilize them off line? Is that correct?
Thanks
Dan
Yep
That's what I'm saying.
Keep us posted on your results.
Thanks,
George
At the risk of sounding REALLY old... but here's an idea
Back In The Day. (can't believe that it has been 35 years ago) Banks had to report to Uncle Sam regarding the "red-lining" of areas in reference to lending practices with relation to their customer base.
Zip codes weren't a sufficient level of detail and "zip+4" hadn't been invented yet. Since I was "the new guy" at the bank and having just left DoD employ (don't ask for whom
), I was given the task of geo-coding about 1/4-million customer accounts.
The Census Bureau had a geographical dataset available on magnetic tapes (1/2", 1600 bpi - state of the art!) of every address (almost) and their lat/long.
It's still around. The old name was DIME (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_Independent_Map_Encoding) files. Which begat TIGER files (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topologically_Integrated_Geographic_Encoding_and_Referencing).
Along the way, hazmat became a serious issue for first responders and EMAs, and the EPA and NOAA collaborated on the development of the CAMEO suite. Along the way, there was a recognized need for a vendor-neutral GIS, the US Geological Survey joined in and the end product is LANDVIEW. LANDVIEW 6 is available on two DVDs (www.census.gov/geo/landview/) for the Eastern and Western US at $129 for the set, which includes CONUS, Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico. www.census.gov/mp/www/cat/geography/landview_6_dvd.html
Depiction could really help us ALL by taking a hard look at the LANDVIEW GIS data and not re-invent the wheel. It was developed specifically for CAMEO and Emergency Managers. It works very nicely without an Internet connection on almost any Windows box with a DVD-ROM drive. Since you're already working on a CAMEO solution, it only makes sense to eat the entire apple, not just one byte. (pun intended)
73s,
john
PS. Yup, we managed to geocode all of those customers using the new (1972) Census data on an IBM 370/145 with 768Kbytes of RAM. I wrote the software in Assembler and with all of data on magtape it geocoded about 250K customers with > 95% accuracy in just a few hours. You can indeed push a pea up a mountain with your nose given some imagination.