This post is a series on the development of a new web maps preview for the Greater Christchurch area. The creation of this preview is currently intended to be used to promote the utility of the maps for the Greater Christchurch area, to give access to historical and current day information about the Greater Christchurch, to promote rail development initiatives in Greater Christchurch, and to evaluate the suitability of the technical structure of this particular preview for deployment of the full web maps site.
This is a general progress report as to where things have got to since the last update. It was resolved to try and include as much coverage of Greater Christchurch as possible within this preview, since the delays in creating it had led to the suggestion that some of the region might be excluded in order to meet a deadline. However it is clearly understood that a deadline is necessary because other commitments exist in light of the whole project and the completion of this project is holding up other related work that is not directly part of this project but falls more within the objectives listed in the first paragraph of this post. Hence close attention is being given to a balance between a reasonable completion timeframe and making the preview incorporate as much of Greater Christchurch as possible.
After the second week of preview creation work, the focus has again been on creating the aerial photography necessary for the completion of the Greater Christchurch web maps preview. No maps have actually been drawn in the past week with all work being done on the aerial photos. Quite a lot of new aerial photography for the 1950s has recently been added to the Retrolens site which has impacted on parts of the Christchurch aerial mosaics that are being prepared in various areas. The mosaics for Middleton through to Islington have just been completed and the overlaps between different sections are currently being adjusted before they are imported into the GIS. Hornby to Lincoln is almost complete and work is about to commence on Islington to Burnham and Addington to Kainga.
The next progress update should take place a week from now and it is confidently expected to be able to report that all aerial mosaics have been completed and map drawing will be well underway. Accordingly, the new timeframe for completing the web maps preview has been extended to approximately the end of the third week of November.