5 ms·

OpenTreeMap: Urban tree inventory and ecosystem services calculations tool

9 points by rkda 12y ago

privong 12y ago
I found their other website[0] to be a bit more informative about what the project was actually aiming for. (Of course, the github page is better for working with the code.) It's an interesting (and useful) project idea, but the subscription rates seem _very_ steep to me. It also isn't clear why there isn't a minimum free version for individuals to utilize? It seems like having a free tier to encourage individuals to add info to the database (a la openstreemaps) would be the easiest way to grow the database of information -- once that database exists, it could be monetized using the subscriptions they have. I'd probably walk around and add info to their system, but I wouldn't pay $90/mo to do that. Is that the purpose of the open source code? Would I then have to run my own database? [0] https://www.opentreemap.org/ https://www.opentreemap.org/
- andrewbt 12y ago
  Hello! Glad you're interested in the OpenTreeMap project! My name is Andrew Thompson, and I work for Azavea, the GIS company behind OpenTreeMap (OTM). To answer your questions, I feel a clarification is needed. The subscription levels and pricing aren't really meant for end users like yourself, but for the larger governments and agencies, environmental nonprofits, schools and campuses, tree care companies, and other organizations that have a need to conduct urban tree inventories and ecosystem benefits analyses. We have several such organizations as clients, from TreePeople (nonprofit) in Los Angeles, the City of Edmonton, Canada (government), and the Open University in Great Britain (academic). For each of these maps and others where the map-owning organization has decided it wants public "crowdsourced" contributions to its tree inventory (OTM provides the option of private maps and editing permissions too, though we encourage clients to take advantage of crowd sourcing and open data), we provide FREE Android and iphone mobile apps (which are open source too) and a public tree map website that's free for public contributors to view and edit data. If you live in Tampa, Grand Rapids, Philadelphia, Seattle, Asheville, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego, Edmonton, or Great Britain, there's a public OpenTreeMap available for your area that would love to have your data contributions! Also, the maps in Tampa, Asheville, and Seattle were created from the open source code we have at github.com/opentreemap. So we're glad to have a growing open source community around the project in addition to our SaaS subscription cloud offering. We're a certified "B Corporation" (bcorporation.net) that works on civic software for social impact. Interested in working on projects like OpenTreeMap that advance open data, open source, and open government? We have several positions open at http://jobs.azavea.com/ http://jobs.azavea.com/ !
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    Are any of your clients sharing their raw data with the public? (By 'raw' I mean in a format that is complete and convenient for machine processing)
    - andrewbt 12y ago
      Yes! Azavea built the City of Philadelphia's official open data catalog (http://www.opendataphilly.org/ http://www.opendataphilly.org/), we represent Philadelphia as a "node" in the Open Data Institute (theodi.org), and we are huge proponents of machine-readable, bulk, open data (http://www.azavea.com/blogs/atlas/2014/05/which-candidates-for-governor-of-pennsylvania-support-open-data/ http://www.azavea.com/blogs/atlas/2014/05/which-candidates-f...) Right now, most of our client tree maps have elected to make their raw data downloadable to the public. On most/all of the OpenTreeMap version 1 sites, on the bottom of the map, there's a few links: "Export this search: KML | CSV | Shapefile". KML is the format native to Google Earth but is really an XML-based, officially adopted open geographic data standard many tools support (http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/kml http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/kml). Shapefile is a semi-open geodata format invented by Esri - even though it's only a de facto standard per se, the vast majority of GIS analysis tools use and support it (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Shapefiles http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Shapefiles). CSVs are, well, CSVs. On our OpenTreeMap version 2 sites, running on our SaaS infrastructure (the only major public ones at the moment are Edmonton http://www.opentreemap.org/edmonton/ http://www.opentreemap.org/edmonton/ and Los Angeles http://treemapla.org/ http://treemapla.org/), there is an "Export Search Results" button that allows you to download a CSV of bulk data. (I believe in the future we would like to support other formats than CSV again, but don't quote me yet and that's "down the roadmap" anyway...) Sites with bulk downloads: Version 2 (SaaS): https://www.opentreemap.org/latreemap/ https://www.opentreemap.org/latreemap/ - LA https://www.opentreemap.org/edmonton/ https://www.opentreemap.org/edmonton/ - Edmonton Version 1 (self-hosted, sometimes Azavea built, sometimes built from open source code): http://phillytreemap.org/map/ http://phillytreemap.org/map/ - Philly http://treemap.urbanforestproject.com/map/ http://treemap.urbanforestproject.com/map/ - Grand Rapids, MI http://urbanforestmap.org/map/ http://urbanforestmap.org/map/ - San Francisco http://greenprintmaps.org/map/ http://greenprintmaps.org/map/ - Sacramento area http://sandiegotreemap.org/map/ http://sandiegotreemap.org/map/ - San Diego http://treezilla.org/ http://treezilla.org/ - Great Britain (yes, they are aiming to cover the entire country) http://seattletreemap.org/map/ http://seattletreemap.org/map/ - Seattle (open source and they re-wrote a lot of the client side in Dart!) http://www.tampatreemap.usf.edu/map/ http://www.tampatreemap.usf.edu/map/ - Tampa, FL (open source but with some consulting by Azavea) http://ashevilletreemap.org/map/ http://ashevilletreemap.org/map/ - Asheville, NC (open source)
chippy 12y ago
Does OpenTreeMap use OpenStreetMap?
- dalek2point3 12y ago
  I have the same question. OpenStreetMap definitely has the necessary infrastructure see: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:natural%3Dtree http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:natural%3Dtree People have also added a large number of trees on OpenStreetMap -- see: http://sk53-osm.blogspot.com/2013/02/quicker-mapping-of-street-trees.html http://sk53-osm.blogspot.com/2013/02/quicker-mapping-of-stre...
- maxerickson 12y ago
  If you poke around on the site privong linked they even show what looks like Google tiles in their apps, so I guess not.
- andrewbt 12y ago
  Andrew Thompson from above again - OTM uses Leaflet.js to display our maps, so we can and do give our clients the option of using OpenStreetMap tiles, but most have opted for GoogleMaps so far.

9 points by rkda 12y ago

I found their other website[0] to be a bit more informative about what the project was actually aiming for. (Of course, the github page is better for working with the code.) It's an interesting (and useful) project idea, but the subscription rates seem _very_ steep to me. It also isn't clear why there isn't a minimum free version for individuals to utilize? It seems like having a free tier to encourage individuals to add info to the database (a la openstreemaps) would be the easiest way to grow the database of information -- once that database exists, it could be monetized using the subscriptions they have. I'd probably walk around and add info to their system, but I wouldn't pay $90/mo to do that. Is that the purpose of the open source code? Would I then have to run my own database? [0] https://www.opentreemap.org/ https://www.opentreemap.org/

andrewbt 12y ago
Hello! Glad you're interested in the OpenTreeMap project! My name is Andrew Thompson, and I work for Azavea, the GIS company behind OpenTreeMap (OTM). To answer your questions, I feel a clarification is needed. The subscription levels and pricing aren't really meant for end users like yourself, but for the larger governments and agencies, environmental nonprofits, schools and campuses, tree care companies, and other organizations that have a need to conduct urban tree inventories and ecosystem benefits analyses. We have several such organizations as clients, from TreePeople (nonprofit) in Los Angeles, the City of Edmonton, Canada (government), and the Open University in Great Britain (academic). For each of these maps and others where the map-owning organization has decided it wants public "crowdsourced" contributions to its tree inventory (OTM provides the option of private maps and editing permissions too, though we encourage clients to take advantage of crowd sourcing and open data), we provide FREE Android and iphone mobile apps (which are open source too) and a public tree map website that's free for public contributors to view and edit data. If you live in Tampa, Grand Rapids, Philadelphia, Seattle, Asheville, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego, Edmonton, or Great Britain, there's a public OpenTreeMap available for your area that would love to have your data contributions! Also, the maps in Tampa, Asheville, and Seattle were created from the open source code we have at github.com/opentreemap. So we're glad to have a growing open source community around the project in addition to our SaaS subscription cloud offering. We're a certified "B Corporation" (bcorporation.net) that works on civic software for social impact. Interested in working on projects like OpenTreeMap that advance open data, open source, and open government? We have several positions open at http://jobs.azavea.com/ http://jobs.azavea.com/ !
- maxerickson 12y ago
  Are any of your clients sharing their raw data with the public? (By 'raw' I mean in a format that is complete and convenient for machine processing)
  - andrewbt 12y ago
    Yes! Azavea built the City of Philadelphia's official open data catalog (http://www.opendataphilly.org/ http://www.opendataphilly.org/), we represent Philadelphia as a "node" in the Open Data Institute (theodi.org), and we are huge proponents of machine-readable, bulk, open data (http://www.azavea.com/blogs/atlas/2014/05/which-candidates-for-governor-of-pennsylvania-support-open-data/ http://www.azavea.com/blogs/atlas/2014/05/which-candidates-f...) Right now, most of our client tree maps have elected to make their raw data downloadable to the public. On most/all of the OpenTreeMap version 1 sites, on the bottom of the map, there's a few links: "Export this search: KML | CSV | Shapefile". KML is the format native to Google Earth but is really an XML-based, officially adopted open geographic data standard many tools support (http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/kml http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/kml). Shapefile is a semi-open geodata format invented by Esri - even though it's only a de facto standard per se, the vast majority of GIS analysis tools use and support it (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Shapefiles http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Shapefiles). CSVs are, well, CSVs. On our OpenTreeMap version 2 sites, running on our SaaS infrastructure (the only major public ones at the moment are Edmonton http://www.opentreemap.org/edmonton/ http://www.opentreemap.org/edmonton/ and Los Angeles http://treemapla.org/ http://treemapla.org/), there is an "Export Search Results" button that allows you to download a CSV of bulk data. (I believe in the future we would like to support other formats than CSV again, but don't quote me yet and that's "down the roadmap" anyway...) Sites with bulk downloads: Version 2 (SaaS): https://www.opentreemap.org/latreemap/ https://www.opentreemap.org/latreemap/ - LA https://www.opentreemap.org/edmonton/ https://www.opentreemap.org/edmonton/ - Edmonton Version 1 (self-hosted, sometimes Azavea built, sometimes built from open source code): http://phillytreemap.org/map/ http://phillytreemap.org/map/ - Philly http://treemap.urbanforestproject.com/map/ http://treemap.urbanforestproject.com/map/ - Grand Rapids, MI http://urbanforestmap.org/map/ http://urbanforestmap.org/map/ - San Francisco http://greenprintmaps.org/map/ http://greenprintmaps.org/map/ - Sacramento area http://sandiegotreemap.org/map/ http://sandiegotreemap.org/map/ - San Diego http://treezilla.org/ http://treezilla.org/ - Great Britain (yes, they are aiming to cover the entire country) http://seattletreemap.org/map/ http://seattletreemap.org/map/ - Seattle (open source and they re-wrote a lot of the client side in Dart!) http://www.tampatreemap.usf.edu/map/ http://www.tampatreemap.usf.edu/map/ - Tampa, FL (open source but with some consulting by Azavea) http://ashevilletreemap.org/map/ http://ashevilletreemap.org/map/ - Asheville, NC (open source)

chippy 12y ago

Does OpenTreeMap use OpenStreetMap?

dalek2point3 12y ago
I have the same question. OpenStreetMap definitely has the necessary infrastructure see: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:natural%3Dtree http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:natural%3Dtree People have also added a large number of trees on OpenStreetMap -- see: http://sk53-osm.blogspot.com/2013/02/quicker-mapping-of-street-trees.html http://sk53-osm.blogspot.com/2013/02/quicker-mapping-of-stre...
maxerickson 12y ago
If you poke around on the site privong linked they even show what looks like Google tiles in their apps, so I guess not.
andrewbt 12y ago
Andrew Thompson from above again - OTM uses Leaflet.js to display our maps, so we can and do give our clients the option of using OpenStreetMap tiles, but most have opted for GoogleMaps so far.