At CAAUK last week there was some discussion of Adobe PDF files being used to archive and disseminate information, and the dangers of using what is still a proprietary format. It looks like that’s about to change.
Whilst going through my RSS feeds this morning, a story on TechCrunch stood out. Adobe are going to relinquish “control over the PDF format to AIIM, the Enterprise Content Management Association, for the purpose of publication by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)”.
Both government and private industry have come to rely on PDF for the volumes of electronic records that need to be more securely and reliably shared, managed, and in some cases preserved for generations.
This looks very promising for those of us concerned with the archiving of digital data. PDF is a good way of preserving the original layout of a report, and doesn’t require the end user to have a copy of Microsoft Office, or to download the behemoth that is OpenOffice.org (even though that is a good idea!).
Yahoo have just released a service called TagMaps, allowing you to display a tag cloud of the most interesting terms attached to geotagged Flickr photos on an interactive map.
TagMaps are a new way to visualize text on geographic maps. TagMaps can be used to communicate key characteristics of location-based data in an easy-to-understand way.
A TagMap can be embedded into into your website (for non-commercial use):
It’s not as useful as it might first appear though. The only tags that show are the most “interesting” (often just the most tags for an area), hence the above example for Salisbury shows “cathedral, Old Sarum, and Salisbury” and nothing more granular than that. And you have to click the “View on World Explorer” text at the top to actually see the photos. The tag “cathedral” actually disappears when you zoom in closer, for example. There’s some work to go, it seems.
I like the idea though - it could have some useful heritage applications, which could be especially useful as satellite and aerial photography is improved on the service. Imagine looking at the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape - a big area indeed. Seeing words like “tin” or “copper” or “engine house” etc etc could enable you to explore some photos and narrow down where to go and visit according to your interest.
Just 4 months after publishing the success of Wessex Archaeology’s Archaeocast, which had just seen 20,000 downloads, a check of the server logs shows 35,414 complete downloads of the podcast to date.
That’s not bad going considering how rarely I get a chance to record them. It demonstrates, even in what is still only a niche medium, the thirst for information about our past is as strong as ever.
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English Heritage have introduced a new section to their website called “Free Sites Unlocked“, which provides audio tours for mp3 download. The tours are for their free sites (hence the imaginative name), adding a new dimension to unstaffed sites where the only information is via traditional interpretation panels, which can only incorporate a limited amount of information.
Of the 400 sites that English Heritage looks after, more than 240 are unstaffed and open to the public at all reasonable times. Free Sites Unlocked is a new English Heritage project seeking to improve the interpretation of these free sites. We are also improving our webpages by providing more information on the history of our sites and suggestions for further reading.
Although at the time of writing, there are only guides for three sites (Baconsthorpe Castle, Maiden Castle, and Netley Abbey), this is a great move by EH. With so many people owning an mp3-capable device, from cheap mp3 players to iPods and mobile phones, and with the penetration of broadband into the majority of households, there is great potential for this medium.
EH say that they are also updating information about their unstaffed properties online. Personally, I’d love to see some social networking techniques being used to help visitors to those sites help build up this information by submitting text, photos and videos to augment ‘official’ information as well. But if English Heritage keep having their funding cut year on year, that might be wishful thinking.
One of the stills I produced as part of the Arun Visualisation has been used by E-On Software to showcase their excellent EcoSystems Generation II instancing feature. Vue was used extensively for the animation, as well as 3ds Max, AutoCAD, XFrog, and numerous GIS and imaging packages.
It’s one of my favourite images, and I couldn’t quite believe the quality of it when the render finally finished. It’s nice to see it being used for more than just archaeology!
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