EirePreneur

100 members of Irish GPS mapping project

Wow, we've just reached 100 members of the OpenEir GPS Mapping group. I've been very lazy about doing any serious mapping myself over the last few months but as the nights start getting longer now and the weather better (hopefully) I'm going to get going again on this. John Handelaar's geocoding script is a great boost to the group and hopefully we'll get more hackers producing 'localized' versions of these mapping mashups.

How to plot your street on an Irish map

John Handelaar says he's found the holy grail of Irish mapping. And that might just be no exaggeration! I tested it by throwing a number of Limerick streets at it and it worked every time.

Hopefully John will explain more about how we could use this clever hack over on the OpenEir mapping project.

Sketchup models for Google Earth..... wow!

A month ago I was saying that Google should buy @Last Software, the company behind Sketchup, the incredibly innovative 3D modelling software. Lo and behold @Last Software have now released a pre-beta utility to output Sketchup models to Google Earth KMZ format.

One example on the utility download page is for the Acropolis in Greece and after taking the bird's eye tour I have to say I now have a greater understanding of the historical landmark that I ever gleaned by reading numerous encyclopedia articles when I was a young lad. Sometimes I really envy today's students!

What a shame Sketchup is so out of my price range. If Google bought it and made it a free download I'd guarantee them a volunteer army of Google Earth 3D modellers. Microsoft's Virtual Earth would be left trembling.

Clonmacnoise in the OpenEir

Light blogging lately because I've been taking advantage of my flexible digital lifestyle again to travel around the country a bit. Now I love my sun holiday as much as any weatherbeaten Irishman but everytime I wander into a Timanfaya National Park I wonder why I haven't see more of my own native Ireland. How many Irish people do you know who've been to Kylemore Abbey, Glendalough and Clonmacnoise? I could count them on the pitchfork of the Timanfaya Devil.

So I decided to cross one of those places off the 'must see' list yesterday when I finally drove up to Clonmacnoise in Co. Offaly

And I've now uploaded the GPS trackpoints to the OpenEir group. Starting at Finnegans bar and restaurant, just off the last roundabout on the Dublin side of Limerick city where the new Limerick bypass joins the old road, we travelled along the N7 until we got to waypoint 002 which marks the turn-off for Killaloe at Birdhill. 003 is the Ballina side of the Killaloe/Ballina twinship. A few more waypoints for sigificant crossroads follow and then 009 marks the carpark of Clonmacnoise - the early Christian site founded by Saint Ciaran in the 6th century on the banks of the River Shannon.

I have to say it a very worthwhile destination. We were lucky with the weather and neither the multitude of tourists nor the constant stream of boats cruising down the Shannon managed to upset the wonderful sense of tranquility. Next up? Glendalough.

Take a virtual Kerry mountain walk

Robin Blandford has now added Google Earth tours for a few Irish mountain treks and waypoints for some Dublin DART stations to the OpenEir Yahoo! Group. And the fact that the mountain routes just happen to be in one of the few Irish locations covered by high resolution satellite map imagery makes them all the more interesting.

Take a virtual tour of the north west of Ireland

Martin McCreesh has submitted a great Google Earth tour of the north west of Ireland to the OpenEir Yahoo! Group and its only now that I can really appreciate the benefits of an open source map and virtual tours of the Emerald Isle.

That's because I feel like a tourist myself when I follow Martin's Google Earth tour for a part of the country to which I've never been. For instance I'd never even heard of Killykeen forest park until I saw the GPS waypoint, and now I'll be able to drive directly to the spot. In fact, and here's an interesting point, the fact that I now have GPS coordinates for attractions such as the forest, Scarden Waterfall, etc, means I'll be more determined than ever to pay a visit to that part of the country. Are you listening Irish Tourist Board?

Google just has to buy...

... Sketchup 5 which the Cool Tools blog raves about as an incredible productivity boost for 3D modelling. If Google bought it and gave it away as it did with Picasa it could easily recruit a huge team of volunteer 3D modellers to fill in the gaps on Google Earth. I for one would happily create a 'freehand' model of my local town. Wouldn't you?

Be sure to check out the movie demos if you've answered in the negative. Don't tell me that doesn't look like fun ;-)

Lifting OpenEir

A quick thanks to Damien Mulley and Justin MacCarthy for helping to raise the profile of OpenEir - the open source map of Ireland. A quick glance at my blog stats for today reveals that I've had Dutch, Italian, French, British, Russian and Canadian visitors of foot of Google searches for some combination of the keywords 'waypoints', 'GPS', 'map', and 'Ireland'. It never ceases to amaze me!

OpenEir explodes!

A big welcome to all new members of the OpenEir Yahoo! Group including Koen DePoorter who has already added a number of GPS Trackmaker files including ones for Irish cities, towns, villages, lakes & rivers, borders and hills. It looks like we're going ot have an interesting discussion on GPS formats and the merits, or otherwise, of GPX. But regardless of formats its great to see all this useful data added to OpenEir.

Finding Irish gems on Google Earth

There's a forum on the Google Earth (Keyhole) community website called Earth Browsing where the point seems to be nothing more than the simple pleasure of sharing interesting 'finds' in the high resolution areas. Outside of Dublin and Cork cities there are a few small patches of Irish countryside which have been blessed by the beam of the satellite, including sections of Kerry, Mayo, Wexford and Cork county.

One community member pointed to the beautiful beach at Barley Cove and after taking the tour I noticed that Mizen Head lighthouse and arched bridge are clearly visible. Just save and open this MizenheadIreland.kmz file to fly to the spot.

I just wish this high resolution imagery was available for the whole country.