Working with data and reports, in any form, is often challenged by a significant time investment into repetitive and error prone tasks. Force a human to do the exact same thing all day and mistakes are bound to happen. However, automating such tasks is often challenged by a “last mile problem”, each case is ever so slightly unique and automating it fully is just not feasible.
Making maps and working with geodata is no different and incredibly common in sectors such as infrastructure, river modelling and logistics. Each of these areas have their own little nuances working on the same core activities. The goal of this project was to build a tool to “semi-automate” this, allowing enough freedom to get those little idiosyncrasies while putting up enough guard rails to prevents mistakes.
As such, the first task in such a project is to talk with as many people as possible about what maps and data they need and use and what they should look like. This resulted in a whole set of user requirements which broadly boil down to:
- Any map has some basic requirements:
- North arrow
- Scale bar
- Legend
- Title
- Logo of whomever made the map (i.e. the company)
- Additionally, we also need the following:
- Background, e.g. some other map, a color, etc.
- On map annotations such as arrows, outlines of project areas, etc.
- Off map annotations such as information boxes
- The data should be gathered automatically and reliably, where available, from public sources.
From this, we can sketch the basic system that is required to fulfill these requirements.
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