The FINANCIAL — Georgian maps will be ready to be put on Google Maps in the first quarter of 2011 or even earlier, according to Jeff Haack, Open Map Caucasus (OMC) country director. From then on travellers in Georgia can search their location on Google Maps using their smartphones.
OMC has almost finished the project of mapping Georgia including all the regions. The map in BETA version is already accessible at mapspot.ge and information/data on the map will be renewed regularly, adding businesses and different organization locations to it.
Google added Georgia to its open mapping programme early this year. Many internet users from Georgia have participated in this process, but the company said it still lacks data.
The Ministry of Economy together with the National Agency of Public Registry (NAPR) and other organizations like OMC are collaboratively working on the maps to be submitted to Google by the end of this year, as Irakli Kashibadze, head of the department of communications and IT at the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development told us.
NAPR has worked out cadastral maps of all the cities and districts of Georgia on their website. From now on any person will be able to review any piece of land which is of interest to him/her. With the help of the NAPR maps it’s possible to make space analysis and measuring distance amid different objects.
Putting a cadastral map on the internet will be interesting for investors as well. As any investor can review and search for relevant land as well as the owner of it.
For the creation of the cadastral map GIS group within NAPR has been working intensely for over a year. With the help of GeoGraphic they’ve done Aero-Photo works together with encrypting different objects. NAPR has been doing this since 1996-98.
As Jeff Haack from OMC told us, 500 volunteers have been working on the project of mapping Georgia including the regions.
“Our project is almost finished – the work out in the regions is complete, though we are continuing to make improvements to our maps before we release them more widely. And maps are constantly changing, so on a smaller scale we expect our data to continually improve in the future. We’ve established a beta website for accessing our maps at MapSpot.ge, which allows for basic searching and for businesses and organizations to add their own information to the map. Version 2 will be rolling out in several months. Key features will include a simplified user interface, better information on locations and events, and more powerful search capabilities, including the ability to search for local addresses,” said Haack to The FINANCIAL.
“Our Mestia team added a little extra flavour to the mapping last summer, when they spent a couple of days flying helium balloons over Mestia, and taking extremely high-resolution photographs. This is useful for extracting even more detailed map data and is also quite fun” Haack told us.
“We’re planning to send our maps to Google very soon. They will import them into Google’s MapMaker platform, and then gradually they should be pushed into Google Maps. We’ll also be importing our data into the OpenStreetMap project by the end of the year. There are numerous applications for accessing OpenStreetMap on mobile devices, most easily on the iPhone or Android devices, and this will most definitely help visitors to Georgia find their way around,” noted Haack.
“Google has said for years that there was simply not good enough quality data in Georgia but they seem close to putting maps up soon.
Maps with street view are a long way off when talking about Georgia as it requires Google to come with their high tech surveillance vans.
Typically Google’s strategy in developing countries is to encourage the use of mapmaker and then over time they will import the data into maps when it is good enough,” said Haack.
“When talking about directions there is a difference between having maps and having them routable, which means being able to get from a point to where you want to go.”
“As for giving maps to Google we’ll be providing them for free. The maps on Google with edited info/data will be available at the earliest by the end of the year, but most probably in the first quarter of 2011,” Haack told us.
“There are two things happening – National Public Registry is talking to some people in Google, and we’re talking to different people; so we’re planning to collaborate with NAPR and get the data to both; then Google will decide if the data should first go into mapmaker and then Google maps, or directly into Google maps.
NAPR has very good data, and they’ve been putting it together for a while; we’ve got more updated data and probably more detailed when it comes to regional street networks; but they haven’t sent any data to Google yet nor have we; we all want to prepare the best data before submitting it to Google. So we’ll be sending data together with NAPR,” said Haack.
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