The Edinburgh Geomob met for the first time on Tuesday the 26th of March 2024 at Codebase, just off Lothian Road. Thanks to Gala Camacho for hosting.

Of all the technical communities I’ve encountered, the geospatial data community is the most inclusive, diverse and welcoming. Maybe that’s why I keep coming back despite it being for me more of a hobby than a career. Gala’s closing remarks helped me to understand why I feel this way: “Geo comes from the real world.”

To collect or to make use of geodata you have to get off the internet, get out the house, and get into the real world. Maybe I’m reading too much into that, but it makes sense to me.

The Geomob is the first tech meetup I’ve attended in Edinburgh for almost a decade, and to get back in the mood it was just right. A relaxed half hour of mingling, remembering old faces, and snacking before talks began. 15 minutes for each speaker, enough to tell a story without overwhelming. Done after an hour with plenty of time for more chat over afterbeers.

Looking forward to the next one on Tuesday the 25th of June 2024.

The rest of this post shares my thoughts on the three talks.

Robert Coup from Koordinates presented “Kart: Practical versioning for geodata”.

Robert said few geodata projects have a robust versioning system. Maybe they use one static copy of the data for the lifetime of the project, or they make changes willy-nilly and end up with files named my_geodata_2024-03-30_edited_version3_FINAL.shp.

As a software engineer Robert is used to versioning all his program files using tools such as Git. Kart builds on top of Git versioning with features that make it easier to work with geodata. Robert didn’t give us a demo, so my understanding of Kart remains theoretical. I hope to see it in action to answer some questions.

I asked, “Why not just work directly with Git?” If you track changes to your geodata in a Git repo you’ll already be in a better place. One consideration is size and selectivity. Some of Robert’s customers store several terabytes of data and work on different sections at different times. Basic Git is clumsy for handling large files. Kart supports this use case with a spatially filtered clone.

The spatial filter sounds like a compelling feature. I wanted to know more but missed the chance to ask more details at the geobeers. Does it work like a geoindex over Git’s own index? Does it partition the source file into smaller spatial chunks?

In 2017 the Windows source code contained 3.5M files and when added to a Git repo used 300GB of space. At that scale, many Git commands would take 30 minutes up to hours and a few would never complete. So to make it usable Microsoft extended Git with a Virtual File System that avoids downloading all the data. Does Kart reuse any of that work?

Andrew Bladon from Esri presented “How mapping technology can optimize route planning for climbers”.

Andrew loves climbing mountains, less so when it’s wet and windy. It’s not just unpleasant to be outside but dangerous on such difficult terrain. It might be sunny somewhere nearby, but checking all the possible locations and local conditions is too much for one person.

After enough miserable ascents and cancelled plans, Andrew did something about it. He made a mobile app that he described as a “conditions navigator”. I’d call it a “good weather” map. It comes preloaded with Andrew’s favorite peaks, pulls in weather forecasts from OpenMeteo, and builds on Esri’s own mapping technology to apply traffic-light coloring to the peaks. Red: stay away; Yellow: only the brave; Green: perfect conditions, get up there!

I loved this talk because of how personal it was. We learned a lot about Andrew and what drove him to build this app. He told a great story and showed some beautiful pictures! In a way, this was just an excuse for a mountain climber to show off his beautiful clear-day summit photography. And it’s welcome because we have geodata to thank for it.

The audience asked whether it could be used for other outdoor activities such as camping. Andrew agreed although he’d need to reload the app with different points of interest or include a feature that allows different users to have their own points.

When I tried it for my own trip this weekend, I found the app on GitHub, and you need a lot of developer tools to get it up and running. I’d love to see this up on the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store so more people can try it.

Read Andrew’s own story at the Esri Developers blog, “Creating an application to identify climbing locations using a weather forecast API”, and see the views that make it all worthwhile.

Moral Masuoka from Beautify Earth (BE) presented “Art Walls: Mapping potential points of connection through murals”.

BE is part mural catalog, part agency for talent and real estate. The company’s mission is “street art connections”: connecting people with street art across the US and UK.

The company’s transatlantic scope is due to Moral’s personal journey from Los Angeles (LA) to Edinburgh. Each place challenges our ideas of what a city should be. While Edinburgh may beat LA for walkability, LA has a lot more art going up on its walls.

We toured Moral’s favorite murals through the BE mural map, the Jersey City Mural Arts Program (JCMAP) powered by CANVS, and Street Art Cities.

Maybe it was just a fluke, but it surprised me in LA how clean the walls next to the murals were! I compared it to central Barcelona’s Raval neighborhood, where if you don’t paint the shop shutters then some vandal is going to do it for you. So you might as well pay an artist to do it for you and make it look nice.

I made a note from Moral’s slide deck: “Seeing North Edinburgh through the eyes of the Internet”. This appears to have been an event promoted by Edinburgh Council in February 2023 hosted by the Data Civics team at the Edinburgh Futures Institute exploring North Edinburgh via Instagram, Twitter, Google Earth, street photography and community archive.

I asked how BE designs for two competing use cases, that of the graphic designer who wants the mural to look great on a digital display and that of the touring visitor who needs to find the physical original. They’re still figuring it out as they find the best way to run a sustainable business while serving the needs of both groups.

Anything that may brighten up our drab public spaces and encourage civic pride is welcome. Today the BE site shows just a few murals in UK, so I hope the venture takes off and gives us a whole-island catalog of street art to enjoy.

After the talks there was a quick word from the sponsor Geovation. It’s a sort of business incubator for geospatial startups. I think they get funding from the Scottish government and the UK Ordnance Survey. I’m grateful to them for enabling such an entertaining evening.

Finally we poured ourselves into the Hanging Bat pub to compare notes and mingle with the community over geobeers. The pub is on Lothian Road, perfectly placed to relax with a pint before getting the bus home.