ANNOUNCING THE LAUNCH OF
MAPCHESTER (BETA)
Mapchester (Beta)
Mapchester is currently at the Beta stage of development and at this time works with limited functionally. To make full use of the search and map linking functions the Map should be viewed using Internet Explorer only. As the Mapchester project evolves, cross platform usability will be incorporated. With the Artefact still in the early stages of development any thoughts or feedback concerning funtionallity and interaction would be very much welcomed. Email mapchester@futuresonic.com.
About Mapchester
Mapchester is a test-case for how a city could be mapped and a guide for a festival created on collaborative and open principles. It is a collaborative 'wikimap' project, generated and maintained by users in the same way as Wikipedia. Driven by OpenStreetMap.org, Mapchester offers a new type of Manchester map - produced by collective, community effort and completely free of traditional copyright restrictions on usage.
The inaugural Mapping Weekend brought together a wide array of different people, transforming them into map hackers and citizen cartographers: people who walked / cycled / drove / bussed / trained / skated the city streets recording GPS tracks and road names. These tracks were then uploaded to the OpenStreetMap database and edited into coherent map features.
From this data, a Manchester map has been created for Futuresonic 2006 - presented as a test-case for producing a usable, functioning city map and festival guide via this open source, collaborative approach.
Though still in its infancy, at an experimental stage with many glitches, the Mapchester online map includes the functionality that can be seen in commercial digital maps, and also features calendring tools. Not only static features such as venues and landmarks appear, but also time-based events. By scrolling across the time bar at the bottom of the screen, club nights, live music gigs, exhibition openings and other festival happenings appear and disappear across the city.
The cumulative result is a picture of a weekend in the life of Manchester, a map of events taking place across the city, a snapshot of its musical and creative culture.
This first version is designed to be "good enough" to function as a festival city guide. Please be aware that this beta version may have some errors, and is not appropriate for all uses. People using this map do so at their own risk.
Lead team:
Graham Bowden, Steve Coast, Martin Dodge, Jeff Flanagan, Andrew Forbes, Karen Gaskill, Drew Hemment, Mick Lockwood, Mikel Maron, Rod Martin, Alan Murphy, Chris Perkins, Andy Robinson, Ben Russell.
Mapchester mappers: Louise Bennett, C Boyko, Sarah Burns, Emily Campbell, Daniel Catt, David Coast, Steve Coast, Ben Cowburn, Damian Doyle, C Ekweozor, Stephen Elves, Ava Fatah, Anne Hill Fernie, Karen Gaskill, Lucy Gibson, Victor Gonzalcz, Zoe Goslyn, Steve Goslyn, Ian Harford, Conor Hartnett, Drew Hemment, Karl Hennermann, Alex Hough, Shreena Joshi, G Knox, Giacomo Lacava, Mick Lockwood, Karyna Luna, Gavin Macdonald, L Mackay, Cristina Porro, Ian Pattinson, Chris Perkins, Sam Prince, Lilesh Prodham, Andy Robinson, Jaime Solis, Mario Solis, Ian Stewart, Anna Thomson, David Tunbridge, Martin Turner, A Wilson.