Author Topic: Creating a Site Map of your allotments  (Read 3111 times)

andyswarbs

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Creating a Site Map of your allotments
« on: November 26, 2014, 16:51:24 »
Sorry if I am posting this in the wrong forum, but no forum seemed to fit exactly, anyway...

When I took over as chair of my allotments I found in the paperwork a site map showing the outline of plots.  This is sadly not much use these days due to changes in layout such as plots merging or splitting.  What I felt a real need for was a computer copy that I could update.  Well it has taken a long time in coming but now I have it.  (When I say long time I mean in terms of research to find the right techniques.)

What I have is an updatable schematic of all our plots.  Not only does it give me a clear oversight it also can be used to generate exact plot sizes in terms of square meters, poles or whatever.  One consequence is I am now instigating a plot rent review to make sure that plotholders are paying pro-rata the amount of land they use.

If anyone out there wants to do a similar project contact me.  I am starting to write out the process.  It is not an entirely tidy process as yet but it does work and it is free.

To show you what the result can look like attached is a latest jpg.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2014, 16:55:50 by andyswarbs »

Old Central

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Re: Creating a Site Map of your allotments
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2015, 18:07:38 »
An entirely appropriate part of the forum IMO. This looks interesting since I imagine that many allotment sites have very out of date site maps.

For our own site I purchased a copy of an air photo from http://www.bluesky-world.com/ (it cost about £30) and then traced in the plot boundaries in a CAD program. You can also download images from Google Earth but there are restrictions on what you can do with them because of copyright if you want to use them in the future.

I'm not sure it would be accurate enough for plot measurement purposes since the boundaries are so poorly defined and would need to be re-measured on the ground.

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artichoke

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Re: Creating a Site Map of your allotments
« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2015, 18:00:36 »
That looks amazing! I too tried to improve our council's map which consists of random blobs within a shape which is not the shape of the field, and omits many allotments dug out since..... Very very difficult, even staring intently at Google maps. I believe copyright only applies if you mean to make commercial use of the information (I am an illustrator, and very alert to copyright infringements).

andyswarbs

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Re: Creating a Site Map of your allotments
« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2015, 18:29:43 »
As regard permissions, I can see that google might grumble if you actually re-used the googlemaps themselves - and for commercial use.  So many websites republish googlemap information that I think they might struggle actually getting anywhere, but then their pockets are deep.  The Google terms and conditions of use http://www.google.co.uk/permissions/geoguidelines.html also talk about tracing.  But I think for our purposes it is not anything I am going to get concerned about, especially as Google Earth itself provides the tools to create these shapes!

 

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