cavemaps.org

[underground]

I agree Footleg. We should be talking up and exploring the possibilities rather than moaning.

"And the third, I didn't click on, but it was MartinR's Mendip site which seems very far advanced in terms of utilising some open source code." makes little sense to me - I don't believe I used any 'open source code' .

Scroll wheel zoom is supported by Google Maps - at first it had its problems and I opted to disable it - I'll give it another try. Single Right click has recently been added to the API too, double right click does a zoom out. Currently I display UK grid and lat/long coords of the mousepointer in the browser's status bar. As this often requires the browser's (Firefox and MSIE7) security settings to be changed (to allow script access to the status bar) I am considering moving the data to a panel overlaid on the map.

Perhaps the most compelling reason for overlaying cave surveys and entrances on maps/imagery is to see how they relate to surface features.

It would be good to get some Geological maps on line with the caves too. I inquired of the BGS a year or so ago and got a No to a request for an on-line freebie of Mendip. However BGS are doing a new electronic series at present so it might be worth another try soon.

OK, my mistake, it's an implementation of a propriaetary API, which is 'open source esque' then.

The point is, I'm just a regular user, and I gave feedback. The site plain doesn't seem to work for me. I'm not moaning or being unduly negative, just stating the facts of my experience.

If someone explains to me, how to get the best out of cavemaps.org, then I will happily explore the possibilities - but until they do, it has no value to me as it is unuseable in its present form.

Some 'user expectations' then:

I'd expect the scroll wheel on my mouse to control the zoom. I'd expect the map detail at high zoom to be of sufficient scale as to show something other than green.
I'd like to see some coordinates when I select a cave- at present i see a 'bubble' with it's name, and a green pin in the map.

 

[bill chadwick]

I have turned on mousewheel zoom at http://www.bdcc.co.uk/mendip.html - works fine now.

I believe a > 50 year old Geological map of Mendip should be out of copyright. Perhaps one of the Mendip clubs has such a thing they would be willing to sacn for online use. I'll check the MCG Library at the weekend.

 

[Peter Burgess]

I believe a > 50 year old Geological map of Mendip should be out of copyright.

And I strongly suspect that you are wrong.

 

[Peter Burgess]

The Mining History list has had a recent discussion on Copyright Law. There may be something relevant there. Click....

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A1=ind0801&L=mining-history&D=0&T=0

And scroll down to the Copyright thread.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Crown Copyright (it says) is for 50 years. Sorry - looks like I was wrong!

 

[graham]

The Crown's unpublished material has, I believe a longer period of copyright, Peter. Don't recall the precise details, though.

 

[Peter Burgess]

But a geological map of Mendip is not unpublished is it? The nice 1:25000 one I bought many years ago, which Dep hasn't returned yet (hint hint), was published or I couldn't have bought it in the first place.

 

[footleg]

Over 50 years ago Peter? Could be just what is needed.  :ang:

 

[Les W]

Crown copyright is for 50 years from the date of publication but that only applies to the Ordnance Survey mapping data.
The geological information was produced by the BGS and as a constituent part of NERC the copyright is vested in them.

What I am unable to confirm is wether NERC is a Crown organisation or if they have commercial copyright.

If they are not Crown then the copyright period was extended to 70 years although that was only recently so I would think a 50 year old geological map would be out of copyright now.

Peter, it's a good job you have resigned as the forum pendant. 
Kay, I am surprised you haven't responded yet.  :tease:

 

[kay]

What I am unable to confirm is wether NERC is a Crown organisation or if they have commercial copyright.

Kay, I am surprised you haven't responded yet.  :tease:

I've only just read this thread. But, if you insist
wether: A male sheep, a ram; esp. a castrated ram
:tease:

 

[Peter Burgess]

Tee hee. That'll teach Les to be a 

 

[kay]

What I am unable to confirm is wether NERC is a Crown organisation or if they have commercial copyright.

Its a Non-Departmental Public Body, established by Royal Charter and an independent legal body outside of Government, accountable to Parliament. I don't know where that gets us.

 

[Cookie]

I have turned on mousewheel zoom at http://www.bdcc.co.uk/mendip.html - works fine now.

Even more fun to use. Cheers 

 

[footleg]

I have turned on mousewheel zoom at http://www.bdcc.co.uk/mendip.html - works fine now.

Even more fun to use. Cheers 

I sent a similar code update for the Matienzo googlemap to Juan at the weekend, along with a load of new tiles for the Riano and Ukueka surveys. So they should be online soon. It makes a big difference being able to quickly zoom in and out using the mouse wheel. The same enhancement has been made in Tunnel which I am using to draw up the Matienzo surveys, and it works really well there too.

 

[Cave Mapper]

Some 'user expectations' then:

I'd expect the scroll wheel on my mouse to control the zoom. I'd expect the map detail at high zoom to be of sufficient scale as to show something other than green.
I'd like to see some coordinates when I select a cave- at present i see a 'bubble' with it's name, and a green pin in the map.

I'll add scroll-wheel support as soon as I get chance. I've never got into the habit of using the wheel so I've never missed it.

The detail at high zoom is dictated by Google, and for the Yorkshire Dales caving region it's stunning - you can see individual sheep, rocks, stone walls and shakeholes. Where were you looking?

I chose to provide GPS coordinates in downloadable format, including GPX so that you can load them directly into your GPS receiver, or display them in other software such as MemoryMap. I didn't see much value in putting them in the info bubble. However, I am thinking of putting more info into the bubble (maybe just a link to the relevent page in the Caving Wiki), but this site is not meant to be any kind of a guidebook to caves - it's prime function is a map.

 

[underground]

Some 'user expectations' then:

I'd expect the scroll wheel on my mouse to control the zoom. I'd expect the map detail at high zoom to be of sufficient scale as to show something other than green.
I'd like to see some coordinates when I select a cave- at present i see a 'bubble' with it's name, and a green pin in the map.

I'll add scroll-wheel support as soon as I get chance. I've never got into the habit of using the wheel so I've never missed it.

The detail at high zoom is dictated by Google, and for the Yorkshire Dales caving region it's stunning - you can see individual sheep, rocks, stone walls and shakeholes. Where were you looking?

I chose to provide GPS coordinates in downloadable format, including GPX so that you can load them directly into your GPS receiver, or display them in other software such as MemoryMap. I didn't see much value in putting them in the info bubble. However, I am thinking of putting more info into the bubble (maybe just a link to the relevent page in the Caving Wiki), but this site is not meant to be any kind of a guidebook to caves - it's prime function is a map.

I suspect the scroll wheel option is certainly a personal preference but as a frequent Google maps user I found it very intuitive to go straight for the scroll wheel on the cavemaps page too.

In terms of the coordinates issue, how would one go about downloading them? I think the trouble I had was that the Google map detail doesn't show very much, so at high zoom the page is just solid green (I agree, the satellite resolution is very good as you said), and in the absence of a coordinate set for example, I'd then struggle to relate the info to anything tangible.

 

[Cave Mapper]

In terms of the coordinates issue, how would one go about downloading them?

1) Click on the 'About this site' link
2) Select the 'Data' tab
3) Right-click one of the GPX links and select 'Save Target As...'
4) You now have a file on your PC containing all the GPS locations for a whole guidebook area.
5) Use a text editor, such as Notepad, to delete the caves that you aren't interested in
6) Load the file into your GPS receiver. You can use free software such as GPSU for this, or you can use something like MemoryMap

At step 5, you may also choose to rename the caves to good abbreviations, otherwise your GPS might just truncate the names to 6 characters, and that can make it hard to distinguish between caves with similar names.

 

[Cave Mapper]

still can't find the Birks Fell reference that martin mentions

1) Select 'Yorkshire Dales - Wharfedale'
2) Expand the 'Upper Wharfedale' section
3) Click on 'Birks Fell'

How hard is that?

 

[Cave Mapper]

We could co-ordinate a national/regional repository of rasterised cave surveys for display in Google Maps.

That would be superb. And the first step is very simple:

The copyright owners, e.g. caving clubs, need to declare that their surveys (all of them or just some of them) are licensed for use under one of the Creative Commons licenses. This simple step, which could even be done via this forum, would immediately enable people such as Bill, myself, FootLeg, Martin, DaveH and others to do the work of scanning, processing and uploading. Before long we would have an exceptionally valuable and interesting resource that everyone would benefit from.

I am confident that this will happen, and probably sooner rather than later:

- The Craven Pothole Club are leading the way by releasing their entire back catalogue in this way
- Kendal CC have already made all their publications available on CD - it's a small step from there to a Creative Commons License.
- ULSA's Kingsdale Resurvey Project is being undertaken under a Creative Commons License. If they're happy with the principle for their new survey, then they should be able to do the same for their older surveys
- Several other clubs have made their back publications available via their own websites. This shows willing, but it's the hard way of doing things, because they can't tap into the wider pool of capable and willing volunteers.

For an explanation of Creative Commons licensing, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_commons

or

http://creativecommons.org

 

[bill chadwick]

Well the OS have finally opened their web map API 'OpenSpace' for use (like Google Maps but not as much use).

I have put together a little full screen browser at http://www.bdcc.co.uk/OpenSpace.htm . There are no 1:25K maps or imagery and the 1:10K streetmaps are generally not much use in the countryside but bizarely, around Bull Pot Farm and elsewhere in the Dales, the 1:10K shows a smattering of spot heights, cave names and minor water courses - bit of a teaser.

I expect that all this will be useful for is for printing a map before venturing into the outdoors. I doubt I shall bother moving the Mendip cave map on to it.