The Atlanta Digital Mapping Initiative – putting Atlanta on the map!

As OpenStreetMap (OSM) continues to gain members from all corners of the world, the CloudMade Community Team is working to strengthen and expand the community of map contributors and groups who support OSM in the US.

One of the projects I am especially excited about is the Atlanta Digital Mapping Initiative, which aims to make Atlanta the most detailed US city on OpenStreetMap within the next six months.

The project was born out of a meeting with Georgia URISA, a non-profit association that promotes the effective and ethical use of spatial information. After learning about the history of OSM, how local businesses, students and civic groups can benefit from open geo data and some of the amazing projects being accomplished in other parts of the world; this g roup of GIS professionals and students became determined to make Atlanta standout as the first major American city to encourage widespread use of OpenStreetMap.

Any experienced mapper can attest that such a large project would be impossible without the help of dedicated partners and volunteers. After a few months of intensive work, what began as a series of conversations about the lack of options available to geo data consumers, grew in to a collaborative initiative to build the map of Atlanta. CloudMade and Georgia URISA are now pleased to be joined by: Georgia 4-H, the GeoGeorgia Initiative, the GeoTech Center, the Technology Association of Georgia, the Georgia GIS Coordinating Committee, the Gainesville State College Geospatial Alliance and dozens of neighborhood associations, community groups, students and private citizens in our effort to put Atlanta on the map.

Reaching our Goals

So far, the Atlanta OpenStreetMap community and their partners in the Atlanta Mapping Initiative have met a number of times to establish a set of goals for the project:

• Make Atlanta, Georgia (inside the perimeter of I 285) the most digitally mapped city in America.

• Form lasting ties with community groups in Atlanta and encourage them to add mapping to their regular activities.

• Obtain open data that can be added to OSM.

To reach our goals, the community will gather open data and work with OSM members, GIS students and partner organizations to upload it to OpenStreetMap. There will also be a series of large mapping parties to add layers of detail and richness to the map and build the OSM community in Georgia. Representatives from the Atlanta OSM community have also joined together to begin the process of bringing some of the oldest and most reputable organization in Georgia into the folds of the local OSM community.

In August the first major milestone was reached when the Georgia GIS Clearinghouse and the GeoGeorgia Initiative facilitated the donation of the Georgia GIS Clearinghouse to OSM. This donation is in addition to the efforts currently underway at Gainesville State College, Georgia Tech and Zoo Atlanta to add their maps to OSM. Similarly, Georgia 4-H Clubs are working to incorporate regular mapping activities into their Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) and Environmental Education (EE) curricula. We are looking forward to see the impact that these young mappers will have to OpenStreetMap over the next year.

The Atlanta Mapathon & Training Session

The first major mapping event in Atlanta, on September 12-13th, was the Mapathon Training Event. More than 50 people joined the Mapathon Planning Team (shown in the photo below) to take part in a training session where attendees learned how to map and received hands-on instruction on using a GPS, recording points of interest and tracks and making edits to OpenStreetMap. On Saturday the group met at Centennial Olympic Park and Sunday at Grant Park near Zoo Atlanta.

The official launch of the Atlanta Digital Mapping Initiative will take place on October 16th -18th with the Citywide Mapathon. During this event, OSM members, students and volunteers from our partner organizations will be hosting community mapping events at Central Library in Downtown Atlanta and 10 other Atlanta-Fulton Public Library branches. For more details about the Mapathon, visit the Atlanta homepage . If you would like to take part in the Mapathon, please register here. If you would like more information about hosting a mapping party in your neighborhood during the Mapathon, please contact Community Ambassador Thea Clay at thea@cloudmade.com.

I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

October 1st, 2009 - Posted by Thea Clay | 0 Comments

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