@Khurram Farooq: WELL DONE!

My heart goes to your endeavour, may ALLAH bless you!

Me and Alias are discussing the same. I have promised to lend him my GPS unit so that he can do calibration to his heart’s content. I hope that will go far in making this vision a reality.

I pray that KarachiMap@gmail.com come up with good response for this project.

Adnan Siddiqui:
Thank you! My target is NOT just Google Earth. I only plan to use it for collecting info from anyone who shares it with me. My actual target mediums in order of priority are:

1. Searchable, routing, address-finding maps on a website.
2. Google Maps/Earth KML files for displaying info on Google Earth.
3. Paper maps. (I LOVE these!)
4. Smartphones (Palm, PocketPC, Symbian… in order of priority).
5. GPS devices (Garmin, Magellan, etc.)

The 1st task is the most demanding one. Once it’s done, others are simply a matter of converting to a different format.

3D models for Google Earth are out of the question. Thanks for the suggestion though! :)

There are a couple of things I need help on. First, I need GPS coordinates for a few random places in Karachi. Like I have said before, I need them to fix the map alignment, or else the location of any point or line is going to be incorrect. Total time needed is not even more than 5 minutes. Please email me at KarachiMap AT gmail.com if you can help.

I am also looking for real-estate maps. Contributions in the form of paper or scanned images (even in pieces) will tremendously help the task. The areas I have managed to scan copies of so far are: Korangi Industrial Zones 1 & 2, Gulzar-e-Hijri, Delhi Mercantile Society & Defence Phase 6, 8. Needless to say, I have already downloaded every map available for the city on the internet.

Ofcourse, everyone who contributes receives recognition, as well as other benefits (e.g. map of any area at the highest resolution). ;) 3 contributers so far: desimaniac (satellite images), Z (software) & A (initial gps data). Thanks, guys!

Thanks for the detailed response. Being a non-tech myself, I hope the techies understood your requirements more clearly.

And it is only fair for you to reject anyone who just piggy backs on your efforts. What you’re doing is extraordinary and, once again, I hope you succeed.

You will also need to give credit to any volunteers that come to you. Either like Adobe where they list their development team OR like movie credits where you acknowledge people for specific areas.

@EVERYONE ELSE

Anyone you know who can work with Alias ?

The person required will need to pre-specify the time he/she is willing to devote and stick to it.

Between did you try Google Sketchup?http://sketchup.google.come ?A 3rd modelling enigne for Google earth

Buddy you’re doing a great job. I can’t help you with the technical stuff as I totally sucks at it. But here are few links which might help you.

http://www.multimap.com/static/about8.htm

http://www.delorme.com/companyinfo/contact.htm

http://www.geocomm.com/

Above mentioned companies are always looking for mapping experts. I guess they might want to fund your project. There is no harm in inquiring. Don’t forget to attach your sample work with the email.

It’s always inspiring to see techy Karachiites. ;)

Btw you’re right your studies comes first before anything. I hope you do well in every aspect of your life.

GoodLuck!

@Khurram: I have sent you an email. Let me know what you think.

@RedSnapper: Woah! That’s gonna take quite some time replying to, but I shall be brief. The Karachi MetBlog and Kartograph Blog aren’t the only places of info on the map. Previously, the primary site I posted my progress to was pnec.blogspot.com, but it had to be closed down for some reason (though a Google cache copy exists). Those who would have visited the site to download the map would have known what I needed, and some really did go out of their way to help with satellite imagery, real-estate maps and geodata. I guess it was my mistake I didn’t reiterate my needs elsewhere after the site vanished.

Speaking of finances, yes, I did get some business propositions, but I wasn’t interested in any of those. On almost all circumstances, the other ‘party’ would have just piggy-back rided anyway. Ask Google? At US$391 per share, the giant’s got better things to do, especially since all it has done with GIS data has been to buy it and offer it for free. I did discuss the matter with some businessmen, but none of them found it appealing as it was not so commercially viable. Do keep in mind that the only agency that can supply maps is GSP, and they have a tough time differentiating between maps and mapping data.

Speaking on time, I spoke to a LOT of students from different universities on the project, but even those studying civil engineering didn’t know the basics. Those rare instances when people did understand, teaching them how how to use GIS software was a brick wall I wasn’t ready to bang my head with. In contrast, consider the fact that I am working on the Lahore digital map with a young doctor in Lahore, who’s been enthusiastic enough to teach himself how to work on maps and help me out in so many ways. Lahore has the problem of lack of high-res satellite imagery, hence the delay.

Referring to the KML, it was supposed to act as a source of info collected from the community. All that it contained had been gathered from the Google Earth BBS and compiled together in categories. I planned to add this data to the database to be available together on the webmaps.

Technically, if I were to resume working on the map in a while, and if Khurram is able to do what I asked of him, I would be left with the task of minor tweaking of the database for accuracy. Once this is done, I would take all those roads (12,702 in number, 5,006 kms in length) and create a road network model out of it. This should have been the first thing I did, but I just came to know about it after further reading. Last, only interfacing it with a webserver is left to be done. Oh, and yes, the above road count only makes up 50% of the total roads in Karachi, only 5% of which are labelled.

The above, I believe, I can handle on my own (after semester ends 6 weeks from now). Someone’s needed to handle the webmaps, and the easiest task in sight is by using a Google Maps mashup. This gives the added advantage of having 3 viewing modes (satellite, hybrid, map). Hardware can wait. If anyone’s up to it, let me know.

For the Karachi Map Master the support show is still going on or just I slipped into slippery water. Show not aimed at comedy at all, but for real hard work.

I can try to help you as much as I can. I think this map is something important that we all need, and I am amazed by the amount of effort you have put in.

If you are in need of a GPS unit, I can lend you mine.

For any other help, contact me on khurramDOTfarooqATgmailDOTcom