Data Sharing (GoogleEarth for Sailors)

[hackoon]

What about to set up some central server for sharing waypoints, tracks, soundings and comments?
needs some code for exporting and importing data via airmail or http to synchronise local and remote data.

Just gathering feedbacks to this idea....

[idpnd]

This has been discussed widely around here and would be fantastic indeed; I had actually suggested using KML (or KMZ = KML plus an overlay file), the standard used by google earth, to facilitate aerial photo/point of interest/database overlays, which could easily be made user contributable.

The Openseamap gurus would also concur I'm sure . The German site Skipperguide offers placemarks for wiki contributed user entries, and a forum resident provider of marina data offered up his (albeit proprietary) database for connection to this end.

There is quite a lot of data sharing amongst cruisers anyhow (anchorages, reef entrances, etc ppp), although this is informal and not particularly efficient.

[tomperanteau]

Would be great! I use it frequently to help in planning trips.

[bewitched]

It's a great idea and I agree with idpnd with the format

[sredna]

Why not use GPX, very common for exchange of waypoints and routes? If a feature is lacking (overlay image) it can be added by defining an extension, and openCPN already have support for loading/saving to gpx.

Anders

[idpnd]

That's what Hamish suggested in another thread.. There are existing overlays of this sort for google earth..

It would be great to have a truly open database/wiki platform for user contributions of this sort, a bit like panoramico on google earth now.

[ActiveCaptain]

Originally Posted by idpnd

It would be great to have a truly open database/wiki platform for user contributions of this sort, a bit like panoramico on google earth now.

I'm very confused. First, I assume you're referring to panoramio? That's the company now owned by Google. You can upload images to them and maybe they'll accept them - there's no guarantee that they will be displayed. They evaluate and sort the images based on their own criteria.

How is it that Panoramio is "open" and a "platform for user contributions" but ActiveCaptain is categorized as proprietary?

It's the same thing...you'll see as other software adopts support for it.

[idpnd]

It is not a great example for an open platform but it permits all users to license their contributions individually, including the creative commons license to ensure their data stays free and is not exploited commercially by third parties.

[ActiveCaptain]

The real difference is that a photograph is a stand-alone entity. No company would edit out a red sunset because they don't like the way it looks. However, when someone writes something that is spelled wrong, or added to other comments in-line, the ownership gets very confused.

When you update something in Wikipedia and then your text gets edited by someone else, how much ownership of the characters left standing do you think you have?

[ActiveCaptain]

One more point...Google is in this to make money. Big money. Why is it OK when a very large, successful company does it but when a smaller one specializing in our vertical market does it, it's considered "devil's work"?

[sredna]

About waypoint databases:

What about Wikimapia - Let's describe the whole world!
category "seaport": 3.369
category "marina" :1.534
category "anchorage" 78
category "city: 162.581

"WikiMapia is an editable interactive map.
The Goal of Wikimapia is to create and maintain a free, complete, multilingual, up-to-date map of the whole world"

Wikimapia allows you to create an API key and query objects in a bounding box of a specified category, or a keyword search with a lat/lon coordinate, results ordered by distance.

It is also possible to display POIs from wikipedia, for example the KDE globe http://marble.kde.org has a plugin doing that.

[idpnd]

Originally Posted by ActiveCaptain

When you update something in Wikipedia and then your text gets edited by someone else, how much ownership of the characters left standing do you think you have?

Wikipedia is naturally commonly owned; historically, the commons were public land where poor locals could conduct some farming (we'd call it sustainable agriculture nowadays) until the English aristocrats starting putting fences around it. By contributing to wikipedia your contribution effectively becomes public property, stopping people from stealing it and putting up fences. Incidentally, the same applies to the fotos: If they're under a protective license, they cannot be copied, modified, etc ppp, if the author elects a creative commons license, they are free to use.

[idpnd]

Originally Posted by sredna

Wikimapia allows you to create an API key and query objects in a bounding box of a specified category, or a keyword search with a lat/lon coordinate, results ordered by distance.

It is also possible to display POIs from wikipedia, for example the KDE globe http://marble.kde.org has a plugin doing that.

Superb idea.. In fact, there's already a marina category, and further categories could be easily added (anchorage, shallows, reef pass etc.)

[scotte]

FWIW, One of my favorite sites along these lines is http://wikiloc.com/ - and while it's not sailing/boating related it provides some of the core ideas on how to do one of these things right. All the data is open and anyone can access it, download it, and so on.

[idpnd]

Superb site - even though I don't really believe in prancing about in the dirt

For a boating site, there would have to be some accommodation of the lack of internet access, e.g. downloadable regional packages or a database cache, which would have to be dynamically updated with contributions once a connection becomes available.