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OK I admit it my programming/coding skills aren't up to it!

 

Rutson's right, if the Geograph Project is going to go anywhere, people need to be able to upload their Geographs directly to the website and thereby claim squares as their own.

 

It would then become an interesting cross between Geocaching, digital photography and Geography with a potentially useful outcome.

 

If anybody out there knows how to set this up properly and can spare the time to help I'd be very grateful.

 

Please could you contact me by email using editor@geocachingtoday.com if you can help?

 

thanks and best wishes

Gary

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Rutson's right, if the Geograph Project is going to go anywhere, people need to be able to upload their Geographs directly to the website and thereby claim squares as their own.

Removing all those redundant 5s would help. A grid square is eg. SK5420. A point in the grid square is SK545205, but reading that is much harder. If the extra precision is due to GPS use, then why not call it SK5450020500 since GPSes work to 10 figure grid refs?

 

(Can you tell they're really getting to me now!)

 

[edit: Over the whole grid, it'll take over 1MB of storage just to hold the 5s, and that's if each one only appears once - which they don't]

 

Another point... would it be worth specifying a fixed aspect ratio for the pictures or even a fixed size. That will make it a lot easier when further down the line you decide it'd be nice to make montages. I'd personally say something like 640x480 landscape orientation.

 

Cheers,

 

Stu

Edited by stu_and_sarah
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Is it worth submitting photos now or would it be better holding fire until the pages have been redone?

There is that.

 

Has anyone stopped to think what a huge project this is?

 

I've done a couple of projects involving a large number of images.

 

One fell over because the work involved in hand-editing, resizing, approving was just too great. The total number of images expected on that site was around 200. I dropped out at around 100 because of the effort.

 

The other was a completely automated webcam project, generating a photo every 15 minutes over a period of time. Before I reached 10,000 images, the storage and cataloguing system became too cumbersome. I was running into the limits of the number of files possible in a directory and that sort of thing. That one's on hold until I can fix the technical issues.

 

It's not easy. I think if this project's going to work, then a lot of robust design and consideration needs to be done before people start bombarding it with photos.

 

You know in the hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy, where they say "Space is big. Really big." well... this is similar. It will involve many photos. Really many.

 

I don't want to knock the project - I'd love to see it succeed - but some advance thought will go a long way, I think.

 

Cheers,

 

Stu

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As long as Inukshuk can organise the photos in some fashion, it's worth sending them in. When time allows, the system can be improved until it's really slick, but the really difficult bit is obtaining the photos in the field. The quicker we get on with that the better! I've sent in about 20 so far.

 

The photos are all named by grid square, so they'll be of value even if the current version of the Geograph has to be thrown away and begun again - there will be no need to throw away the photos.

 

Although it's probably impossible to get every single square photographed, I think the results will be very valuable once perhaps 25% has been done - that's still a lot of photos to gather though!

 

HH

Edited by Happy Humphrey
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The photos are all named by grid square, so they'll be of value even if the current version of the Geograph has to be thrown away and begun again - there will be no need to throw away the photos.

No they're not. They're named by a 100m square within the grid square :o

 

Anyway... back to geocaching... :huh:

 

Fair point about collection of photos - unless any of the other issues I raised are important. That'll be a heck of a lot of work getting them resized, cropped, etc. if it's decided to go for a standard size.

 

Not knowing what Inukshuk plans for the project, I can't really comment. I'd be very interested to see large montages with all the photos in their correct places. The towns should then show up in their local brick colours, heaths in bracken colour, rocks in grey etc. I think it'd make a great poster.

 

Ooh... now there's a project. A square photo of the ground in the middle of each grid square... :o

 

Stu

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That'll be a heck of a lot of work getting them resized, cropped, etc. if it's decided to go for a standard size

I suspect Inukshuk already uses software which has the facility to automate this processing for a folder of photos, so that's not likely to be a problem.

 

I think we should just support Inuk's idea by sending in more photos if we can't help with the web programming. Hopefully someone will come forward to help with that side.

 

HH

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Thanks for all the comments and support folks. all taken onboard.

 

1) Ive had an offer of help with the coding and someone is now working on a design to make it possible for users to log and upload images for squares.

 

2) Server/hosting requirements are being considered

 

3) If you can resize images to 640 x 480 before sending them please do so. There'll be a file size limit <100kb.

 

4) Please rename images according to the 4 fig references ie SD2317 before sending

 

5) If you like the idea and want to start collecting photos please do. Either store them up yourself ready to be logged or send them in and I'll store them until a better logging site is ready. I'll do my best to keep up to date with logging files onto the site as it is until the next version is available - may not be too long :rolleyes:

 

6) Only one file per grid square will be accepted in the next version. users can do it for the geographical interest or as a bagging squares game or for the photography or best of all, all three!!

 

7) You're right about the fives, we'll use 4 figure references in the next version

 

Please keep the comments and the support coming :tired:

 

thanks and best wishes

Inuk

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Is it too much to ask that photo's be submitted at the correct size to start with?

As soon as I noticed that Inukshuk was reducing the size of my pix down to a standard width of 504 pixels, I started to reduce them to that size myself before sending them to him, in order to save him a wee bit of time.

 

I've now got a backlog of nearly a dozen which I'm holding onto until he indicates whether he's cleared any backlog he may have at his end.

 

This is a wonderful project. Every bit as good as the Degree Confluence one and potentially much better that the Doomsday Project of 1986. That project was very well planned and resourced, making excellent use of schools to provide material about their own areas and turning in good quality pictures and lots of micro-research. Where that Project failed was in their choice of medium. The internet was not yet widely available or even known about by non-techies, so they put the resultant Survey onto video discs. They were hugely expensive and were in a format which was destined to go the way of the 8-track and Betamax.

 

The Internet is an ideal distribution medium for Inukshik's "Geograph" project and geocachers are a great bunch of people to choose as contributors. Once an upload system has been put in place, I'm sure this project will be a great success and I wish it well.

 

Cheers, The Forester

NS9171

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Any body happen to know the max number of files per directory in Linux?

I think it's moderately unbounded - the directory will just take more inodes if it catalogues more files.

 

However, I came across problems when using wildcards on a directory with more than about 6,000 files, I think. It really didn't like that.

 

The site sounds like it's going to be great - we'll hopefully be spending a day on Sunday getting a bunch of photos from our local squares.

 

Cheers,

 

Stu

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I'm a web software developer with experience of large datastores (I manage 15 terabytes of online data, I've learned a few tricks there!). I'd love to contribute to the project in any capacity.

 

The CIA World Factbook says the UK has an area of 241,590 sq km. Lets assume a maximum of 200KB per image+thumbs, that comes to 46GB (assuming one image per square). Not too large really, even if the "average" pictures-per-square is >1. You just need to ensure you have a good backup procedure in place.

 

The idea of a poster is cool though, I'd love to have a crack at writing the software to build that!!

 

Incidentally, check out the new Google Maps beta - it's a nice interface (US only) particular when you scroll the map. It would nice to have a similar interface for browsing the project....

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How about a grid square reservation register so people's effort isn't duplicated?  A reservation could remain active for a fixed period and then become available again.

Good idea, but what sort of time limit?

 

24 hours? That means that if you're going out tomorrow you can reserve it today. It means that if you're about to set out on a trip, you can see if it's pointless to grab a single squre. Seems like a good idea.

 

Longer than that and you could find yourself missing opportunities. Would there be a penalty (what sort?) for reserving and then not supplying a photo?

 

If the object is to get as many photos as possible, then a first-come-first-served system may be better. The site doesn't care if two people take a photo - as long as it receives at least one picture.

 

But then what of the quality of photos? Will people rush out to bag a square and not think about getting the best photo they can? Will the slower people take better photos?

 

I was surprised by the high quality of photos on the site, and although I took a couple of pictures yesterday, I'm going to go back out at the weekend and redo my squares because the quality wasn't that great. Anyone know any good sites with tips on photographing landscapes and architecture?

 

This project is getting better and better - I have 30 squares planned for one of the weekend days, let's hope the weather is nicer, so we don't get dull, grey, lifeless photos. A couple of new caches may get placed at the same time, too.

 

I've also been spreading the word on my blog and at work. It's really exciting. I'd like to present a gold star to Inukshuk for the original idea. goldstar.jpg

 

Cheers,

 

Stu

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A nice feature which would encourage contributions is to have a list of the latest photos added - perhaps the last fifty or so. At the moment I wouldn't know where to look, but it would be nice to see the latest contributions or at least be able to see some photos without first knowing which square to look at.

 

Someone might have added a great photo from northern Scotland, but at the moment it will remain hidden.

 

A gold star from me as well!

 

goldstar.jpg

 

HH

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How about a grid square reservation register so people's effort isn't duplicated?  A reservation could remain active for a fixed period and then become available again.

Good idea, but what sort of time limit?

 

24 hours? That means that if you're going out tomorrow you can reserve it today. It means that if you're about to set out on a trip, you can see if it's pointless to grab a single squre. Seems like a good idea.

.......

Cheers,

 

Stu

I was thinking more like a week or two. people could then plan it into a holiday or whatever then.

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I've had a couple of fantastic offers of help.

Thank you very much to those people.

A new site will be set up for the project but until then the existing site will continue to be updated and information already submitted will not be lost.

News re the new site can be foundhere

 

Please continue to collect and/or send in pics and make suggestions re the site. They'll all be received constructively. Like the mag site - the new site will be made by cachers for cachers but hopefully will appeal more widely for its geographical content and to digital photographers etc.

 

thanks once again.

best wishes

Inuk

Edited by Inukshuk
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