We have now completed the generation of maps of the Palmerston North Gisborne Line mainline corridor. Compared with the progress reported yesterday in progress update 8, Day 5 progress is now a total distance from 228 to 390 km in 5.5 hours, which in comparison to Day 4 is a marathon rate of output.
However the maps are not yet ready to be released to Google Photos and the website yet. There are a few tasks to complete – we may yet update some of the earlier maps to the new styles (this most affects maps prior to 135 km, and those of Napier Station), and we have to add the mosaic tiles for Gisborne City to Qgis again, so that the aerial maps for this area can be generated in the multiple generations of historical imagery that we created previously – 1948, 1968, 1977 and 1986.
Because the work has gone so well, mosaic tiles are also going to be created for the Waipaoa River Bridge (B290) to show how much it has been changed in its lifetime. Since we have enough aerial photos for all the change period, including some showing the first lengthening work in progress in the mid 1950s, and one taken just after it was lengthened again in 1988, it will be an interesting illustration of the multiplication of this bridge over a 50 year period.
If there is a bit of time, historical imagery of Waipukurau, Woodville and Napier Port are possibilities but since these are not part of Basic level imagery and therefore not a priority, we will have to evaluate our targets to see if we are keeping onto a reasonable timeframe or risk falling too far behind. The Ngatapa Branch maps still have to be created as well, but this is such a short line that it will take no more than a day of work to complete.
The overall task of creating the Basic maps for Volume 5 started on 26 December and therefore it has occupied about two weeks to date. In theory there is a month allocated for each corridor, but some will take longer and others less. We therefore think allowing for one more week to complete this one is reasonable, and therefore that will guide whether we can complete any more historical mosaics given there are also other time demands to be fulfilled.