Google today launched Kartta Labs, an open source, scalable system on Google Cloud and Kubernetes that reconstructs what cities looked like in the past from historical maps and photos. Available as a suite of tools, Kartta creates a map with an explorable timeline, allowing users to populate dates with historically accurate information.
Source: Google
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Other efforts to collect historical maps in digital archives exist, but Kartta goes beyond simple data collection to register the maps in space and time. A temporal map server shows how maps change over time, while a crowdsourcing platform allows users to upload historical maps of cities and match them to real-world coordinates. Another platform runs on top of maps to create a 3D experience by leveraging AI to reconstruct buildings.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
