HGIS

hGIS @ cartoninjas.net project (formerly known as „WIG Maps into the 21st century”) was launched by Cartomatic. The main scope of the project is to popularise the achievements of the Polish pre WW2 military cartographers of WIG (Military Geography Institute) by making their work available through a modern web mapping tool. This will enable folks without GIS or cartographic skills such as: historians, students, teachers, genealogy or history enthusiats to broaden their knowledge and gain an easy access to the information that was difficult to extract due to the lack of the appropriate tools.

Power GIS users were not forgotten - not only a standardised web interface was made available but also an extensive list of web services such as WMS or services offering prerendered map tiles. Such services can be consumed as data sources by desktop GIS applications and can be used as data sources by customised web applications.

The first stage of the project was scoped at providing WIG maps in 500k, 300k & 100k scales. The proces of georeferencing, transforming and mosaicking of the maps was automated and designed with a flexibility in mind - it will be possible to add more resources to the stack easily.

Next steps are to extend the data set geographically (mainly to the east) and thematically (by adding other Polish maps and maps covering Poland).

The main tool for browsing the maps is the geoportal integrated with the services of the Polish National Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) and enhanced with Google Earth technology. It allows users to browse the maps in the context of the up-to-date reference spatial data making it easy to compare the accuracy of the historic maps, find old place names or see the changes to the geographic area. Google Earth enables users to view the old topographic maps in 3D.

A mobile version of this geoportal was also created. It was designed to work with tablet devices (it is also possible to browse it using desktop browsers based on webkit, i.e. Chrome or Safari).

This project is not commercial, all the data are available for all the interested parties without any constraints and follow the TOC of the owner of the scanned WIG maps – „Map Archive of Wojskowy Instytut Geograficzny 1919 - 1939”.

Student apprenticeship

The process of georeferencing, transforming and mosaicking of the topographic maps is extremally resource and time consuming. In order to make this project happen we decided to invite studens of the 'geo' departments of Universities of Warsaw and offer them a 'summer apprenticeship' in the field of modern GIS.

We were positively surprised by the amount of students willing to take a part in this project. Eventually students of two Warsaw Universities were involved in the project:

University of Warsaw:

Badowiec Cezary
Grabowska Anna
Jacoszek Krzysztof
Kluczek Wioleta
Kurek Paulina
Miś Katarzyna
Sokołowska Ada
Szymaniec Marek
Nankiewicz Katarzyna
Witak Monika

and

Agricultural University:

Błaszkiewicz Magda
Ciesielski Mariusz
Koć Magda
Kowalewska Daria
Kwaczyński Marcin
Zalewska Kasia

During the apprenticeship students had a two day GIS training based on Manifold System. They then prepared control points needed for further automated map processing. The final stage of the apprenticeship was to test the accuracy of the transformed maps against Bing Maps and other Polish topographic maps. Students were also trained to be able to configure and use Geoserver in conjunction with data base stored data sets and consume geoserver services through simple clientside application based on OpenLayers.

Video of the student apprenticeship below:

One of the project targets was to provide services so others can consume historical map data in GIS environment and create their own client applications. Below is a list of data sources used by the hgis geoportal @ hgis.cartoninjas.net.

Maps projected to the Polish National Coordinate System 1992 (EPSG:2180)

Prerendered data:

WIG 100, 300 & 500k maps
- address: http://tiles0.hgis.cartoninjas.net to http://tiles7.hgis.cartoninjas.net
- OpenLayers.Layer.XYZ definition example: http://tiles0.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?request=getmap&format=jpeg&maptype=wig&z=${z}&x=${x}&y=${y}
- maxExtent: 0, 0, 1228800, 819200
- maxResolution: 1600
- numZoomLevels: 13

Messtischblatt 25k maps
- address: http://tiles0.hgis.cartoninjas.net to http://tiles7.hgis.cartoninjas.net
- OpenLayers.Layer.XYZ definition example: http://tiles0.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?request=getmap&format=jpeg&maptype=m25k&z=${z}&x=${x}&y=${y}
- maxExtent: 0, 0, 1228800, 819200
- maxResolution: 1600
- numZoomLevels: 13

WMS:

WIG 100, 300 & 500k maps
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=WigAll to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=WigAll

WIG 100k maps
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=Wig100k to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=Wig100k

WIG 300k maps
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=Wig300k to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=Wig300k

WIG 500k maps
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=Wig500k to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=Wig500k

Messtischblatt 25k
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=m25k2180&map=m25k to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=m25k2180&map=m25k

WMS without scale restrictions:

WIG 100, 300 & 500k maps
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=WigAllnsr to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=WigAllnsr

WIG 100k maps
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=Wig100knsr to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=Wig100knsr

3WIG 00k maps
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=Wig300knsr to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=Wig300knsr

WIG 500k maps
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=Wig500knsr to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig2180&map=Wig500knsr

Messtischblatt 25k
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=m25k2180&map=m25k to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=m25k2180&map=m25k

Maps projected to WGS84 (EPSG:4326)

Prerendered data:

WIG 100, 300 i 500k maps
- OpenLayers preview: http://sandbox.cartoninjas.net/wig/ge.html
- Google Earth preview: http://sandbox.cartoninjas.net/wig/ge_gePlugin.html
- KML: http://sandbox.cartoninjas.net/wig/ge.kml

WMS:

WIG 100, 300 & 500k maps
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig4326&map=WigAll to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig4326&map=WigAll

WIG 100k maps
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig4326&map=Wig100k to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig4326&map=Wig100k

WIG 300k maps
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig4326&map=Wig300k to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig4326&map=Wig300k

WIG 500k maps
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig4326&map=Wig500k to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=wig4326&map=Wig500k

Messtischblatt 25k
- http://wms.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=m25k4326&map=m25k to http://wms7.hgis.cartoninjas.net/?source=m25k4326&map=m25k

List of project changes/updates

01.10.2011

New data sources

Messtischblatter - German topographic map in 1:25 000 scale

Technical changes:

The portal interface is now also avalaible in English
Re-designed interface
Toolbar is now located on left side of the map
Now you can add you own WMS data sources - layer can be added to the project only if it matches current map projection
WMS data sources window - displays always in center to the map
Location search window - displays always in the left bottom corner of the map
Added "Panoramio" and "Wikipedia" layers
Added mouse coordinates display
Added scalebar and numeric scale info
When right click is used on Layers Tree you might now remove single layers or layers groups from the map
If layers added from external WMS sources support WGS84 projection (EPSG:4326) - they can be displayed in Google Earth panel.

Visual changes

New banner designed and created by Ola Stokowska - thanks!

01.09.2011

hGIS @ cartoninjas.net goes on-line.