| 1 | <html> |
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| 2 | <head> |
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| 3 | <title>FAQ | New Popular Edition Maps</title> |
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| 4 | </head> |
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| 5 | |
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| 6 | <body> |
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| 7 | |
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| 8 | <h2>Free the postcode lite</h2> |
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| 9 | |
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| 10 | <h3>What is it?</h3> |
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| 11 | |
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| 12 | <p>There are a lot of applications on websites for being able to tell where |
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| 13 | people are from their postcode. For example "Where is my nearest |
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| 14 | B&Q?". Unfortunately this data is expensive to licence (a few |
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| 15 | thousand pounds/year for a website). <a |
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| 16 | href="http://www.freethepostcode.org">Free the postcode</a> are doing a |
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| 17 | good job, but it is hard to contribute to their database as you |
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| 18 | need a GPS, so they have few postcodes.</p> |
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| 19 | |
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| 20 | <p>Our goal is to collect postcode data by getting users to locate |
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| 21 | themselves on a map of the country. They need only give the first part |
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| 22 | of their postcode, and if we can collect locations for all of these |
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| 23 | parts then we can create a database that is good enough for many |
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| 24 | applications. We are also accepting complete postcodes and 'partial' |
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| 25 | postcodes including the number portion of the second half of the postcode, |
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| 26 | in order to improve our accuracy. |
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| 27 | </p> |
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| 28 | |
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| 29 | <h3>What licence will the data have?</h3> |
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| 30 | |
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| 31 | <p>The data will be will be in the public domain; consequently, users |
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| 32 | submitting data agree to their submission being in the public domain |
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| 33 | when they enter their postcode.</p> |
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| 34 | |
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| 35 | <h3>Where's the data, then?</h3> |
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| 36 | |
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| 37 | <p>We are still in the early stages of collecting data. We want to make |
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| 38 | sure that the data is in an appropriate format, that we have some quality |
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| 39 | control, and that we release the data in an appropriate format, before |
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| 40 | doing so. |
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| 41 | </p> |
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| 42 | |
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| 43 | <p> |
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| 44 | If you desperately want the data sooner, <a href="reportBug.html">get |
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| 45 | in touch</a>. |
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| 46 | </p> |
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| 47 | |
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| 48 | <h3>What maps are you using?</h3> |
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| 49 | |
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| 50 | <p>We have scans of out of copyright OS maps of England and Wales. |
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| 51 | You can <a href="scotlandAndNI.html">register interest in future |
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| 52 | projects involving Scotland and Northern Ireland</a>.</p> |
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| 53 | |
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| 54 | <h3>So can I do what I like with your scans/tiles?</h3> |
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| 55 | |
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| 56 | <p> |
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| 57 | No. The scans and tiles have been placed under a |
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| 58 | <a href="tileLicence.html">licence</a>; they are not in the public |
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| 59 | domain. |
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| 60 | </p> |
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| 61 | |
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| 62 | <h3>Okay; I can use the tiles for some things; can I download the complete set?</h3> |
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| 63 | |
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| 64 | <p> |
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| 65 | Not yet. We need to make sure we've uncovered all the obvious flaws with |
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| 66 | the current tiles (eg human error in cropping and numbering the tiles) |
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| 67 | and have worked out an efficient distribution format. |
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| 68 | <a href="reportBug.html">Let us know</a> if you want to |
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| 69 | use the tiles; please don't try and crawl our tileserver to obtain the entire |
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| 70 | set. |
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| 71 | </p> |
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| 72 | |
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| 73 | <h3>Isn't orthowotsiting an old map hard?</h3> |
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| 74 | |
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| 75 | <p>Luckily we're going to work in the OSGB coordinate system that |
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| 76 | matches up with the grid lines on the map; this means we don't have to |
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| 77 | distort the maps too much. We also are not overly fussy about the |
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| 78 | accuracy, so this step can be done quickly.</p> |
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| 79 | |
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| 80 | <h3>Why don't you use maps created from <a |
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| 81 | href="http://www.openstreetmap.org">OpenStreetMap</a> data?</h3> |
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| 82 | |
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| 83 | <p>Because they are licensed under Creative Commons Share-alike |
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| 84 | licences, so we wouldn't be able to make our data public domain.</p> |
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| 85 | |
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| 86 | <p>There are people who believe that locating a point on a map creates a |
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| 87 | derived work, and hence requires a licence. We don't want to be the first |
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| 88 | to prove them wrong in a court, as that will be pricy.</p> |
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| 89 | |
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| 90 | <p>Also, the OpenStreetMap maps are not yet complete enough to achieve our |
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| 91 | goal of country-wide coverage</p>. |
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| 92 | |
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| 93 | <h3>Will this data be imported back into Free the Postcode?</h3> |
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| 94 | |
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| 95 | <p>It might be, that will depend on someone working out how to store |
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| 96 | partial postcode data in Free the Postcode. We are importing Free the |
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| 97 | Postcode data into our database.</p> |
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| 98 | |
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| 99 | <h3>If you are using scans of old maps, how accurate will the locations |
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| 100 | be?</h3> |
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| 101 | |
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| 102 | <p>Some of the scans are out by a degree or two but they are fairly |
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| 103 | good. We hope to be able to get better than 100 metres accuracy out of it in |
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| 104 | the end. This is more than good enough to locate a region as large as |
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| 105 | the first half of a postcode, and hopefully as much as the 'partial' |
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| 106 | postcodes described in the answer to 'What is it?' above.</p> |
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| 107 | |
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| 108 | <h3>My house isn't on a 1950s map</h3> |
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| 109 | |
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| 110 | <p>Find some local landmarks and guess where your house is. This is |
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| 111 | accurate enough for our purposes.</p> |
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| 112 | |
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| 113 | <h3>I know exactly where I am, and what my postcode is</h3> |
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| 114 | |
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| 115 | <p>If you have a GPS, enter your data into <a |
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| 116 | href="http://www.freethepostcode.org">Free the Postcode</a> and make the |
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| 117 | world a better place.</p> |
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| 118 | |
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| 119 | <h3>So, how do I use it?</h3> |
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| 120 | |
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| 121 | <p>Find your location on our map, click where your postcode is, enter |
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| 122 | the postcode, agreeing to release your data.</p> |
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| 123 | |
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| 124 | <h3>Psst, I have a copy of the codepoint database. Wanna look?</h3> |
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| 125 | |
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| 126 | <p>No thanks, we want free data so we don't have to keep paying the nice |
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| 127 | codepoint people. </p> |
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| 128 | |
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| 129 | <h3>Won't you drive codepoint out of business?</h3> |
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| 130 | |
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| 131 | <p>We don't think so. There are a lot of places where this level of |
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| 132 | accuracy just isn't enough. Those people will still have to pay until |
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| 133 | <a href="http://www.freethepostcode.org">Free the Postcode</a> improves |
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| 134 | its coverage.</p> |
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| 135 | |
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| 136 | <h3>The map doesn't join up.</h3> |
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| 137 | |
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| 138 | <p>Yes, it isn't perfect. The OS didn't publish a single map of the whole |
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| 139 | country, so you have to scan then stick together data from several maps. |
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| 140 | We don't really know how to correct it perfectly. It would be really cool |
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| 141 | if someone could write software to detect the gridlines and automatically |
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| 142 | cut the images up on the lines and make them square.</p> |
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| 143 | |
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| 144 | <h3>The wonkiness is so annoying it drives me mad, and I have experience of orthrectifying maps. Please let me straighten your maps.</h3> |
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| 145 | |
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| 146 | <p>Cool. Contact us, that would be great.</p> |
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| 147 | |
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| 148 | <h3>Why didn't you use proj/gdal?</h3> |
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| 149 | |
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| 150 | <p>Because we don't know how to work them. If you feel like improving how this |
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| 151 | works, let us know.</p> |
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| 152 | |
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| 153 | <h3>Why don't you have good mapping data of Scotland and Northern Ireland?</h3> |
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| 154 | |
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| 155 | <p>I don't think they were part of the New Popular Edition at 1 inch to the |
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| 156 | mile. If you have free higher resolution images of either of these places |
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| 157 | (we only have quarter inch to the mile) then we might be interested in them.</p> |
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| 158 | |
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| 159 | <h3>Who did the work?</h3> |
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| 160 | |
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| 161 | <p> |
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| 162 | <ul> |
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| 163 | <li>Richard Fairhurst acquired and scanned the maps,</li> |
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| 164 | <li>Dominic Hargreaves and David Sheldon straightened and tiled the maps,</li> |
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| 165 | <li>Matthew Westcott, David Sheldon, Dominic Hargreaves and Nick Burch worked on the user interface.</li> |
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| 166 | <ul> |
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| 167 | </body> |
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| 168 | </html> |
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