If you’re creating many similar objects in OpenStreetMap using the JOSM editor – in my case it was rooms inside the library building, but it could be streets or buildings or parking meters – it can be handy to set up a “tagging preset,” a template that lets you automatically fill in some tags for the objects you’re creating, and prompt you for others. There’s out of date documentation for this in the JOSM wiki, but the concept hasn’t changed much, and the defaultpresets.xml file is well-commented and a good model to follow.

New tagging presets are created by crafting an XML file; mine looks like this:

When I install this preset, and then use it to tag an object, it presents me with a dialog that looks like this:

The buildingpart and indoor tags are filled automatically, I’m prompted for a required ref tag, and an optional name tag.

To install a new tagging preset XML file, in the JOSM preferences, select Map Settings and then Tagging Presets and click on the plus (+) sign beside “Active Presets” and select the XML file you saved. Once added, you’ll need to restart JOSM for it to take effect.

Once the new tagging preset file is installed, just select an object on your map and then Presets on the JOSM menu and select the name of the preset you created, like this:

By setting up a tagging preset like this, I was able to quickly make work of drawing and tagging the rooms and corridors of the main level of Robertson Library, to the point where it now looks like this:

While waiting for the Ethernet jack to go live in my office on campus (which it has, now), I’ve been working from my downtown office, doing some more experimenting with the IndoorOSM tagging scheme for OpenStreetMap, work I started last week. Along the way I’ve taken a short detour to look at BuildingLayer, a purpose-built web-based indoor mapping tool built on top of OpenStreetMap. BuildingLayer shows some promise, as it shelters the user from the complexities (and the flexibilities) of the standalone JOSM editor; it’s not ready for primetime, and it’s not currently possible to use it to edit indoor mapping data that will become part of the OpenStreetMap base layer, but I’ll keep an eye out as it matures.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying my hand at mapping the interior spaces of Robertson Library. I’ve become much more comfortable with using JOSM – a much improved tool since I first used it in its much-earlier incarnations – and I’ve got it pretty well tuned now. My first task was to georeference the PDF map of the main level, and then to use that to improve the existing building shape of the l library on the OpenStreetMap base layer; this transformed a simple polygon that looked like this:

Into a much more detailed set outline that looks like this (which is what you’ll see now if you look at OpenStreetMap

I also took the opportunity to enhance the OpenStreetMap tagging for the building itself:

With this more-accurate building shape in place, and the floor plan georeferenced under it, I was set up to start drawing rooms:

Looking at other similar projects, like the excellent work in this University of Heidelberg project, it seemed like the best approach to take for drawing room shapes was to draw discrete “ways” for each room inside the building polygon itself, rather than trying to latch on to and extend the building “way” itself, so that’s what I did, beginning with the administrative areas on the main level:

When I was finished with this area, I had this:

I’ve now uploaded all of the detail to OpenStreetMap, meaning that if you edit the UPEI campus in the web-based Potlatch editor you’ll see the shapes I created, and the associated tags:

There’s still a lot of the library left to map, and issues about corridors, doorways and windows and how to properly tag them, but I think I’ve found a good model for proceeding.

I’ve been thinking a lot about technology in education over the past several years prompted, in part, by [Oliver]’s experiences as a public school student, and, in part, by my work on behalf of the PEI Home and School Federation on the technology file. I have become convinced that, despite having smart, imaginative people throughout the system, we are missing tremendous opportunities to leverage education technology, not only in the practical application of hardware and software tools, but as an overarching educational philosophy that sees Prince Edward Island as a member of a global community.

I was fortunate to encounter JP Rangaswami at reboot several years ago, and since then his thinking on privacy, technology and education has been a great influence on me. A recent post of his, Singin’ In The Rain, struck a chord with me, and summed up my own feelings about what he calls the “digital revolution” more succinctly than I could myself:

The ability to observe. The ability to imitate. The ability to try it out for yourself. The ability to get quick feedback. Four critical requirements for learning.

We’re in the midst of a digital revolution. Everything that happens can be observed by more people than has ever been possible before. The internet is a copy machine, the ability to share and to imitate has never been cheaper. Tools continue to be invented to make it possible for all of us to be able to try more things for ourselves than we could ever do before.

This digital revolution is a learning revolution. As long as we don’t waste it. Waste happens when we constrain the ability to observe, to imitate, to try out, to get feedback. Particularly when we have the opportunity to make it all affordable, ubiquitous.

Education drives the solution to so many of our perceived problems. Education is so incredibly accelerated, assisted, augmented by digital infrastructure. If we let it.

We who are here on earth today can make a difference to that earth by ensuring that we don’t waste this incredible opportunity, of using digital infrastructure to enfranchise everyone, to provide the opportunity for all to learn.

Since becoming a digital citizen — and I’ve been one for more of my life than almost anyone — I’ve been as much a skeptic and contrarian about the societal ramifications of digital technology, but when I think about the trajectory of my own life, and what digital technology has allowed me to be, to do, to express, to participate, to engage, I can’t help but agreeing with JP.

I’ve come to believe that the challenges standing in the way of this transformation are not money nor resources, for, with motiviation and creativity, these are easily obtained or obviated: what’s standing in our way is fear and ignorance.

Those with the power to unleash the digital revolution, to take the chains off and allow us to truly explore its potential and its boundaries, are not themselves digital citizens, and so they tend to regard education technology, at worst, as an extension of typing class, and, at best, as a non-essential supplement to the outdated core education metaphors.

I go to meetings of bureaucrats and educators, well-meaning, smart people all, and come away flummoxed by how discussions get consumed with bureaucratic minutiae, with trying to keep the Internet genie in the bottle, and with a benign resignation toward lack of funding and license on a political level.

I truly believe, in my heart of hearts, that marginal jurisdictions like Prince Edward Island have the chance to most leverage the positive potential a digital revolution can beget. We have the raw materials — people, technologies, connections to networks. What we lack is determination, leadership, and the imagination and courage to look beyond our own fears of change and power rebalancing to the positive outcome that lies ahead.

Like JP says, If we let it.

I borrowed the third volume of Anaïs Nin’s diaries, on interlibrary loan, from the public library; it covers the period 1939 to 1944 in New York City, a period where, in part, she and Gonzalo Moré ran a print shop. Early in the book is this passage about confronting social life in New York City after years in Paris; it seemed only appropriate to give a go and print the passage on my letterpress.

Here’s an early draft pulled from the roughly-set type; still pondering the best way to justify this before printing.

The paragraph continues:

The faces reveal no interest, no responsiveness.

Unfortunately, in the 24 pt. Futura I’ve set this in, I needed 23 lower-case letter o and I only had 22. So I had to stop short. Perhaps I’ll set that sentence later, in an uninteresting nonresponsive colour.

Earlier this month, by chance, I noticed an ad in The Buzz for a Japanese bookbinding course in Bonshaw this past weekend. I registered right away, as I’ve always been fascinated by bookbinding. After my experiments with perfect-bound books last year, I wanted to try my hand at more sophisticated bookbinding techniques, and Jennifer Brown’s course seemed like just the thing.

It was.

A happy group of about a dozen of us gathered in Bonshaw yesterday – Home of the Fisheman’s Breakfast! – and, over three hours, were walked through two bookbinding techniques. Jennifer is a kind and patient teacher, and her setup was well-outfitted with tools and materials, so all we needed to bring was our creativity and willingness to learn.

We started off making an accordion-fold book: two pieces of cardboard covered with Japanese paper and joined together with accordion-folded paper. This involved a lot of exact folding and persnickety gluing, but was relatively easy to pull off (and, to boot, I learned a lot of good, basic paper-folding skills).

Our second book used “kangxi” binding: we took a two pieces of heavy Japanese paper for the covers, sandwiched 12 sheets of paper inside, punched five holes through the edge with an awl, and then sewed the binding using heavy cord. The geometry of the sewing pattern makes perfect sense once you’ve done it once or twice (and is somewhat perplexing up until that point), and the main challenge of this technique, at least for me, who seldom touches needle and thread, was simply the physics of sewing.

The hole in the cover over a stamp glued on top of a red piece of paper glued to the first page was an after-market-upgrade that I installed once the book was finished.

With the basics of these two techniques under my belt, I’m really excited to make an end-to-end book now, making the paper, printing on the letterpress, and then binding together. Stay tuned.

I have been a fan of, and contributor to, the OpenStreetMap project for several years now, and recently became interesting in the work that’s being done on indoor mapping. To allow me to dip my toe in these waters, I decided to try my hand and creating an indoor layer for Robertson Library.

While the library has patron-focused floor plans on its website, they aren’t georeferenced, and, while useful as wayfingers, as static GIF files, aren’t much use if the goal is integration with other GIS systems to allow for things like annotation, editing, etc.

Fortunately I was able to come up with more accurate floor plans for the library. To do this I first found the URL for the Facilities Management office and then did a targetted Google search for:

site:http://www.upei.ca/facilities pdf robertson

hoping that this would turn up some PDF files for the library floor plan. As it turns out, it did:

As the URL for the “level 3” floor plan was:

• http://www.upei.ca/facilities/files/facilities/floorplans/Robertson%20Library%20Level%203.pdf

I guessed, as it turns out correctly, that the floor plans for levels 1 and 2 would follow the same pattern:

• http://www.upei.ca/facilities/files/facilities/floorplans/Robertson%20Library%20Level%201.pdf
• http://www.upei.ca/facilities/files/facilities/floorplans/Robertson%20Library%20Level%201.pdf

So, now I had geographically accurate floor plans for a three levels of the library.

Next, I grabbed an updated copy of the excellent JOSM editor for OpenStreetMap. I downloaded the OpenStreetMap data for the area around the UPEI campus, and zoomed in on the Robertson Library building, which had earlier (perhaps by me?) been roughed in.

Next, I installed the PicLayer plugin (plugins can be installed from within JOSM from the Preferences | Plugins section) and then, following the guidance on the OpenStreetMap site I copied the level 1 floor plan to the clipboard on my Mac and then selected PicLayer | New picture layer from clipboard. This loaded the floor plan into my current OpenStreetMap view. Selecting the new layer, I click on the “green arrow” icon in the JOSM toolbar to allow me to identify reference points on the layer that I could match with the satellite imagery and roughed-in Robertson Library footprint. Finally, clicking the “red arrow” icon, I dragged the reference points to match the underlying points on the OpenStreetMap layer (adjusting the opacity of the Piclayer helped a lot here), with the result looking like this:

With the georeferenced floor plan in place, matched to the shape of the building itself as it appears on the Bing satellite map, I could then make minor adjustments to accommodate the nooks and crannies of the building that hadn’t been a part of the original OpenStreetMap building object.

Next step: use the floor plan to add interior detail, using the IndoorOSM markup as a guide, and then repeat for the other two levels of the building. Once I’m done, I should be able to create a visualizer similar to this one to expose the new data to the public.

It’s been a long time since I took a look at the state of the art in optical character recognition (OCR): the last time I really paid attention was when Delrina’s Winfax program gained OCR capabilities in 1994 (I used to do DIY OCR by faxing myself things).

Man, has the state of the art ever advanced. And the shiny object attracting my eye tonight was Tesseract, an open source OCR engine that was developed originally at HP labs.

Tesseract has the benefit of being dead simple to install on a Mac with Homebrew; you just:

brew install tesseract

And, blamo, about 8 minutes later your Mac is a powerful OCR machine.

To take Tesseract out for a short ride, I used Robertson Library’s Plustek OpticBook A300 scanner (which is awsomely fast) to scan the 1924 book by D.B. Updike, In the Day’s Work into 44 TIFF files (each 330ppi, and about 8MB in size). And then, proof-positive of how easy it is to use Tesseract, I did:

tesseract printing0008.tif page8

And, about 3 seconds later (yes, it is fast), I had:

On the
Planning if Printing

,T must of necessity be,” said Sir
Ioshua Reynolds, “ that even works
of genius, like every other effect, as
they must have their cause, must also have their
rules; it cannot be by chance that excellen-
cies are produced with any constancy or any
certainty, for this is not the nature of chance:
but the rules by which men of extraordinary
parts—-and such as are called men of genius—-
work, are either such as they discover by their
own peculiar observations, or of such a nice
texture as not easily to admit being expressed in
words. Unsubstantial, however, as these rules
may seem, and difficult as it may be to convey
them in writing, they are still seen and felt in the
mind of the artist; and he works from them
with as much certainty as if they were embod-
ied upon paper. It is true these refined princi-
ples cannot always be made palpable, as the

[3]

from this:

By my count, there were only 3 errors: “if” instead of “of” in the italic title, an understandable issue with pulling the “I” out of the ornament at the beginning of the paragraph, and Joshua being read as Ioshua.

Back in the mid-1980s I volunteered for a time as a FORTRAN programmer in the Vertebrate Palaeontology department of the Royal Ontario Museum, working with the great and kind curator and palaeontologist Chris McGowan.

Despite being a simple volunteer, I was allowed access to the ROM whenever I liked, and, on occasion, I would find myself in the department after closing, when everyone else had gone home, hacking away on FORTRAN (doing statistical analysis of swordfish larvae).

One night like this I found myself suddenly very hungry. Scrouging around in the departmental fridge, I found the motherlode: a package of chocolate covered almonds hidden away in the freezer. I wolfed down a mouthful. Only. To. Find. That. They were not chocolate covered almonds at all, but rather chocolate covered coffee beans. Espresso beans, in fact.

This, I realized, was my punishment for taking food that wasn’t mine, and I resolved never to cross that line again (a line I have, nonetheless, crossed many times since, often at my peril).

I thought of that night tonight as I arrived at the second floor of Robertson Library, after library closing hours.  I picked up a LG E2551 external monitor this afternoon ($139 on sale at Future Shop), and I wanted to get it set up in the office, and figured “after dark” would be a good time to do this. (And, after all, who doesn’t have boyhood dreams about being inside the library after everyone else has gone home for the night!).

I opened the door to room 322 only to find that the light wouldn’t turn on. I reasoned that I must be the victim of an after-hours-electricity-conservation program and wandered around for a while trying to find the master switch. But it evaded me.

Not wanting to waste the trip, I placed a quick call to Chief Librarian Mark Leggott, who, alas had never found himself in the same situation, and couldn’t point me right. A second call, however, to crack Digitization Initiatives & Systems Librarian Don Moses, paid off: “walk into the tiny room beside the circulation desk, he said, and then look on the wall on the left before you turn,” he told me. And, sure enough, there I found:

I hit the switch marked “Upper” and poked my head out to see what had happened: all the lights on the second floor had turned on (the granularity of the lighting panel leaves something to be desired, obviously), including the light in room 322. So, here I am in my tiny light-filled room, lighting up the entire second floor of the library as a result, working away (note to self: buy a floor lamp to avoid having to do this in future).

To avoid being arrested by eagle-eyed security (“breaker, breaker, we’ve got a lights-on in the library, code 79, code 79, swarm… swarm”), I placed a quick call to alert them of my presence.

And now I am ready for hacktion.

Catherine and I started off as neighbours on George Street in Peterborough. I remember clearly the first time I laid eyes on her: she was wearing clothes covered in paint. Over the months of that summer as I began my slow, slow wooing process I experienced her life as a working artist mostly through the sounds of her pounding on some piece of metal or another in her backyard-cum-studio. Fortunately, Catherine accelerated the wooing process – my “five year plan” was much under her patience threshold – and by Thanksgiving we were a couple. We’ve been together ever since – 22 years.

When we moved to Prince Edward Island in 1993, one of the first magical things that happened was that Catherine took up residence in a studio on Victoria Row, a spot that, until the week before we arrived, had been Lester O’Donnell’s law office. She worked there for two years, and then reluctantly gave it up when we moved to the country. When we returned to town and Catherine went looking for a studio again, the magic was obviously still in the air, as she was able to move back in when Ben Stahl, who had been there in the intervening 13 years, moved out.

Almost since the day she moved back in, she has been working on a body of work – in fibre these days, mostly, not metal – related to Prince Edward Island and land use and the environment. Along the way Oliver and I have had a backstage pass to the creation of everything from fabric potato plants to a large wall hangings. I’ve schlepped a dory around, helped her figure out how to scan $20 bills, and, mostly, watched from the sidelines as her studio slowly filled with work.

The rest of you, I am happy to say, will get a chance to see what we’ve been seeing, as in February the Confederation Centre Art Gallery is mounting a show of Catherine’s recent work, Changing Environs. The show opens to the public on February 2, there’s an opening on February 24th, 2013 in the afternoon (Facebook event), and the show will be in place all spring. You should make sure to see it; it is, if I don’t say so myself, rather wonderful.

Just over a year ago, in December of 2011, [[Oliver]] created a Christmas Word Search and I posted it here for all to see. A year later it proved very popular (relatively speaking) over the Christmas 2012 season, garnering 3,055 page views (5.85% of the total traffic to this blog) from 63 countries:

When I was 12 years old (in 1978, when pocket calculators were just coming on the scene) if you told me that I could make up a word search and it would end up on screens around the world I would have thought you were talking magic.

Such is life for today’s adolescent; blows my mind.