October 31, 2023 • 13 mins
Have you ever wondered about the magic behind creating digital maps? Cue the nostalgia as we take you back to our beginnings as a mapping publisher and the birth of our first map set, EOTopo 2013. We reveal the intricacies of our journey, from developing our digital mapping technology that allowed users to download and use our maps on various devices, to incorporating data from our research and user contributions.
In the second half of the episode, we delve into the fascinating transition from raster to vector mapping, explaining the differences and what it means for the user. Highlighting the technical challenges faced, we shed light on the incredible detail that goes into building our maps, with over 260 different data elements, each backed by its own database! You'll hear the backstory of how we have been able to produce a national product, integrating data sources to compile an outback topographic map that suits our users' needs. Listen in as we unfold the excitement and complexities of our mapmaking journey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi again everyone.
This episode we're going tostart talking a little bit about
how we came to be a mappingpublisher and our first mapset,
eotoppo 2013.
So obviously that relates tothe year 2013 and so each
edition of the map that weproduce is a full rewrite and it
(00:21):
gets given the year in its nameso that you know what edition
you're buying and the accuracyand the currency of that app
data.
So we first produced our ownmap product, eotoppo 2013, in
the year 2013, and that wasthree years before we even
launched the Explorer OsTraveler app, which didn't come
(00:44):
out until 2016.
And so what was going on in ourbusiness in those days was
really just working on thattechnology of digital mapping
and really trying to bed down,getting a product that was easy
for users to download, topurchase and use on a range of
different devices.
That they already had, and sothe key for us is that I know
(01:07):
there is other companies outthere selling products like HN7
at the time and things like thisthat were standalone hand-held
navigation devices.
But what we really wanted totap into was providing a digital
map in a software system thatwould work on the existing
device you had, because a lot ofthe feedback we were getting
(01:28):
from customers was that theydidn't want to spend $600, $700,
$800, $1,000 on a piece ofhardware that couldn't do
anything like read their mail ormake a phone call.
Yet here we already hadtechnology advanced.
We had phones and iPads andthings that we could carry our
email and all the other everydaystuff on it.
So by being able to refine ourdigital mapping to be in a
(01:56):
format that those devices couldutilise was where we decided to
focus our energies, rather thandeveloping a whole new bit of
hardware, which is what some ofthe I suppose you call our
competitors were doing at thetime.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yes, so early on the roster products that Michelle
was talking about from the 2013release, effectively, we took
the Geoscience data that we hadlicensed to use and, by taking
that particular data and thencoupling it with our own
research data, we were able to.
You know, with our own researchdata and our own styling and
(02:31):
the way that we wanted to seethe maps basically on the screen
, we were able to produce thoseearly maps.
Now, those early maps, you know, in 2013 it was really a first
cut version.
There probably wasn't a greatdeal of extra content that was
put in there other than what wasprovided from the last few
releases of the Geoscience dataset, and I don't make any
(02:51):
excuses for that we didn't have.
We were basically trying to getourselves a process or a flow
to be able to produce these maps, you know, to deliver to all of
these devices.
Obviously, over the years, youknow we've had tracking systems,
so we'd already beenintegrating with spot satellite
messenger services and someother bits and pieces where
people were using our servicesto track travels and journeys
(03:15):
that they were doing, you know.
So we were actually capturingtheir live tracking or people
were able to upload their GPXfiles at the time they used to
be called plot files from AussieExplorer.
It was a PLT and a WPT file.
Now they've obviously all justcome down to this GPX or KML,
kmz or whatever other extensionsthey are.
But we've basically beenaccepting that level of import
(03:37):
into the Explorer system for agreat number of years because
that's basically how we'republishing our track notes and
bits and pieces.
So, whilst we're receiving alot of user-generated content,
user-generated plot files andtrack logs and tracking that was
all being conducted through thesystems we were able to compile
(03:57):
road updates and road networkupdates by knowing where people
were travelling and how you know, and what the data that we were
seeing coming in.
Obviously, we were also able tosupplement it with other data
that we could get from you know,census and the government and
the native title, and we couldgo out and seek and source all
of these additional data setsthat we deemed necessary to
(04:20):
produce, you know, a qualityoutback topographic map.
We had plenty of complainersover the time about what is and
isn't topographic.
We had lots of twos and froesabout what should or shouldn't
be on the map.
We've held fairly true to ourunderstanding and, realistically
, what we put on the map is whatwe think people want to see and
what we know when we'retravelling.
(04:42):
We want to see.
And so for years, for the firstfew years of our map releases,
it was basically refining ourdevelopmental flows, but also
then how we can accept the usergenerator content, the user, its
contributed plot files, thetracking and also other
supplementary data that we'reable to download off the, you
know, from service providers tocompile the map products.
(05:06):
And so over the years, you knowwe developed that we're still
living in the raster phase.
Right up until when do wechange from raster to vector?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
2021 2021.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
So it's a long journey on the on the raster
project and we we had a.
We developed that product andkept accepting user generator
content, user feedback andexpanding our data sources.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
We need to step back a little bit here and also
explain that while all this wasgoing on.
No, we can actually cut whatI'm saying right now.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I know what you're about to say and I don't think
we want to go there, but youknow we were obviously.
We were obviously digital.
We're obviously in the digitalspace.
We were we're a.
We're a data business.
We're a data publishingbusiness.
We understand data, weunderstand databases,
electronics and digital media.
So one of the things that'seasier for us would be called
(06:06):
easier.
One of the things that wasn'tas complicated for us is
managing databases and disparatedata data sources, and mapping
is all about a plethora of dataand compiling it all together
and formulating it into a singleoutput entity, and that's
something that, as IT people,we're good at.
(06:29):
This is what we do.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
We do that with data all the time I can illustrate
that for people some more,because I know when I talk to
people on the phone, when theyactually tell them that the way
that the map is built and you'vetold me this is that there are
260 different data elements andeach one of those on the current
map and each one of thosebehind that sits its own
(06:53):
database, and so one of theother things that's different
with our mapping we alwaysproduce a whole of Australia map
set.
We don't divvy it up into a WAVictoria or even by region.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
We did earlier on, and that was to be able to
deliver it to the devices sothat people could just get a
subset.
Sure, but our data sets.
We produce a national product.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, it's a national product.
So when we talk about EO, toppo, it is a whole of Australia.
Eo, by the way, stands forExplore Oils and Toppo stands
for Topographic.
So EO, toppo, not Toppo,because Toppo is Topographic.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Not Oils Explorer, no oh yeah, ok, we digress.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
But, that's actually quite funny.
The number of mispronunciationsis really cool, so anyway, eo.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Toppo At this point you know we've gone through the
production of how we you knowbasically the flows of how we
got to producing our map.
We've obviously gone throughthe raster production years.
We then supplemented that andwe wanted to move into
vector-based mapping.
Vector-based mapping seemed tobe the product and the way that
(08:02):
everything was moving forwardyour Google Maps, you know, your
Apple Maps and all of thosemapping products that were
commonplace on your desktop, onyour phone.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
But people don't really know the difference
between raster and vector.
So, you've indicated before.
The raster is like a photo.
If you try to enlarge thatphoto it gets pixelated and
blurry.
So that was happening with mapsin that format.
But that was the technology ofthe time.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Because at every zoom level we created a picture.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Right, and so you didn't have any in between zooms
.
And when you ran out of zoomlevels because the files are
going to get too big, which wasaround about level 13 in the old
days, zoom level 13, youcouldn't go beyond that because
it became like a four gig filefor the, for the next ones and
the next ones, yeah, yeah sothat's why we couldn't why we
couldn't deliver a map that wentto zoom level 18 in raster on
(08:50):
years ago is because as soon asyou hear about zoom level 13,
we're already talking somewherein the vicinity of 16 million
tiles to produce that level, itdoubles the file size
Speaker 1 (09:01):
for every one whole number that you increase four
times.
Okay, so to go from level 13 tolevel 14, it's four times the
size.
So folks listening, some of youthat have spoken to us on the
phone over the years and goingwhy can't I get more detail?
It was because of that.
We knew that you won your.
You didn't have in begin at thetime and you just couldn't
(09:23):
download that amount of data fora whole of Australia map file,
and so until we had thetechnical capability of being
able to deliver that more highresolution detail, we couldn't
do it.
And so that's what thetransition from raster that word
raster is the image getspixelated when you zoom it to
vector.
Vector is fantastic.
Vector is a format that ourmodern devices use all the time
(09:47):
you're used to using.
You just don't know the term,but everything is 100% clear,
high resolution and high zoom.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I'll try and simplify what vector is.
Vector is basically so if youtook a drawing frame and you
drew a circle and a square and aline and a dot, those
particular elements are vectors.
So when the map is, when wedeliver vector data, basically
we're delivering the coordinatesof a square or the coordinates
of a dot, or the position onthis image that we're going to
(10:16):
place each of these elements.
So they're actually the data isactually compiled on the device
.
It's built at the time.
So all we do is we say put asquare there.
It doesn't matter how big thesquare is and which part of the
square is.
It's going to produce a square.
So the square will just getbigger at different zoom levels
and smaller at other zoom levels, based on the size of the
(10:37):
actual square.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
So now you see the difference between the two of us
.
He's the technical one and Iwill just dump it down for you,
because I don't understandeverything he's saying anyway,
basically with vector.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
We can.
We can produce data to acertain zoom level and that data
will carry through on furtherzoom levels because it is being
drawn at each of those levels.
It's not a picture, it's not astatic image at zoom level 13.
So we can go up to zoom level18.
In fact, we could actually goto 21, but we've limited at 18.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
You know, people like to know.
What does this zoom levelnumber mean?
What does it equate to it's?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
historical and it goes back to Google zoom levels.
Google started the zoom level.
The Google started with thezoom levels way back early on in
the days when they createdtheir maps, and there is a whole
technical documentation aboutwhat the zoom levels.
It is a.
It is a geo.
It is a geo mathematical reason.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
But the max scale right, yeah, but it's to do with
the whole surface of the earthon zoom level zero.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And then each of the.
The numbers are subjective.
The numbers are one, towhatever exact scale, it's not
an exact scale.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
We do show a little scale bar in the bottom right
hand side and, like I know, atmax zoom, which is level 18,
that number says 20 meters.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
And that's a pretty detailed, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (12:02):
So there's a bit of history on the EO Topo product
and you know, make sure yousubscribe and catch up with us
on the next blog in the series.
Speak to you later.
Bye.
Hi again everyone.
This episode we're going tostart talking a little bit about
how we came to be a mappingpublisher and our first mapset,
eotoppo 2013.
So obviously that relates tothe year 2013 and so each
edition of the map that weproduce is a full rewrite and it
(00:21):
gets given the year in its nameso that you know what edition
you're buying and the accuracyand the currency of that app
data.
So we first produced our ownmap product, eotoppo 2013, in
the year 2013, and that wasthree years before we even
launched the Explorer OsTraveler app, which didn't come
(00:44):
out until 2016.
And so what was going on in ourbusiness in those days was
really just working on thattechnology of digital mapping
and really trying to bed down,getting a product that was easy
for users to download, topurchase and use on a range of
different devices.
That they already had, and sothe key for us is that I know
(01:07):
there is other companies outthere selling products like HN7
at the time and things like thisthat were standalone hand-held
navigation devices.
But what we really wanted totap into was providing a digital
map in a software system thatwould work on the existing
device you had, because a lot ofthe feedback we were getting
(01:28):
from customers was that theydidn't want to spend $600, $700,
$800, $1,000 on a piece ofhardware that couldn't do
anything like read their mail ormake a phone call.
Yet here we already hadtechnology advanced.
We had phones and iPads andthings that we could carry our
email and all the other everydaystuff on it.
So by being able to refine ourdigital mapping to be in a
(01:56):
format that those devices couldutilise was where we decided to
focus our energies, rather thandeveloping a whole new bit of
hardware, which is what some ofthe I suppose you call our
competitors were doing at thetime.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yes, so early on the roster products that Michelle
was talking about from the 2013release, effectively, we took
the Geoscience data that we hadlicensed to use and, by taking
that particular data and thencoupling it with our own
research data, we were able to.
You know, with our own researchdata and our own styling and
(02:31):
the way that we wanted to seethe maps basically on the screen
, we were able to produce thoseearly maps.
Now, those early maps, you know, in 2013 it was really a first
cut version.
There probably wasn't a greatdeal of extra content that was
put in there other than what wasprovided from the last few
releases of the Geoscience dataset, and I don't make any
(02:51):
excuses for that we didn't have.
We were basically trying to getourselves a process or a flow
to be able to produce these maps, you know, to deliver to all of
these devices.
Obviously, over the years, youknow we've had tracking systems,
so we'd already beenintegrating with spot satellite
messenger services and someother bits and pieces where
people were using our servicesto track travels and journeys
(03:15):
that they were doing, you know.
So we were actually capturingtheir live tracking or people
were able to upload their GPXfiles at the time they used to
be called plot files from AussieExplorer.
It was a PLT and a WPT file.
Now they've obviously all justcome down to this GPX or KML,
kmz or whatever other extensionsthey are.
But we've basically beenaccepting that level of import
(03:37):
into the Explorer system for agreat number of years because
that's basically how we'republishing our track notes and
bits and pieces.
So, whilst we're receiving alot of user-generated content,
user-generated plot files andtrack logs and tracking that was
all being conducted through thesystems we were able to compile
(03:57):
road updates and road networkupdates by knowing where people
were travelling and how you know, and what the data that we were
seeing coming in.
Obviously, we were also able tosupplement it with other data
that we could get from you know,census and the government and
the native title, and we couldgo out and seek and source all
of these additional data setsthat we deemed necessary to
(04:20):
produce, you know, a qualityoutback topographic map.
We had plenty of complainersover the time about what is and
isn't topographic.
We had lots of twos and froesabout what should or shouldn't
be on the map.
We've held fairly true to ourunderstanding and, realistically
, what we put on the map is whatwe think people want to see and
what we know when we'retravelling.
(04:42):
We want to see.
And so for years, for the firstfew years of our map releases,
it was basically refining ourdevelopmental flows, but also
then how we can accept the usergenerator content, the user, its
contributed plot files, thetracking and also other
supplementary data that we'reable to download off the, you
know, from service providers tocompile the map products.
(05:06):
And so over the years, you knowwe developed that we're still
living in the raster phase.
Right up until when do wechange from raster to vector?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
2021 2021.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
So it's a long journey on the on the raster
project and we we had a.
We developed that product andkept accepting user generator
content, user feedback andexpanding our data sources.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
We need to step back a little bit here and also
explain that while all this wasgoing on.
No, we can actually cut whatI'm saying right now.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I know what you're about to say and I don't think
we want to go there, but youknow we were obviously.
We were obviously digital.
We're obviously in the digitalspace.
We were we're a.
We're a data business.
We're a data publishingbusiness.
We understand data, weunderstand databases,
electronics and digital media.
So one of the things that'seasier for us would be called
(06:06):
easier.
One of the things that wasn'tas complicated for us is
managing databases and disparatedata data sources, and mapping
is all about a plethora of dataand compiling it all together
and formulating it into a singleoutput entity, and that's
something that, as IT people,we're good at.
(06:29):
This is what we do.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
We do that with data all the time I can illustrate
that for people some more,because I know when I talk to
people on the phone, when theyactually tell them that the way
that the map is built and you'vetold me this is that there are
260 different data elements andeach one of those on the current
map and each one of thosebehind that sits its own
(06:53):
database, and so one of theother things that's different
with our mapping we alwaysproduce a whole of Australia map
set.
We don't divvy it up into a WAVictoria or even by region.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
We did earlier on, and that was to be able to
deliver it to the devices sothat people could just get a
subset.
Sure, but our data sets.
We produce a national product.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, it's a national product.
So when we talk about EO, toppo, it is a whole of Australia.
Eo, by the way, stands forExplore Oils and Toppo stands
for Topographic.
So EO, toppo, not Toppo,because Toppo is Topographic.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Not Oils Explorer, no oh yeah, ok, we digress.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
But, that's actually quite funny.
The number of mispronunciationsis really cool, so anyway, eo.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Toppo At this point you know we've gone through the
production of how we you knowbasically the flows of how we
got to producing our map.
We've obviously gone throughthe raster production years.
We then supplemented that andwe wanted to move into
vector-based mapping.
Vector-based mapping seemed tobe the product and the way that
(08:02):
everything was moving forwardyour Google Maps, you know, your
Apple Maps and all of thosemapping products that were
commonplace on your desktop, onyour phone.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
But people don't really know the difference
between raster and vector.
So, you've indicated before.
The raster is like a photo.
If you try to enlarge thatphoto it gets pixelated and
blurry.
So that was happening with mapsin that format.
But that was the technology ofthe time.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Because at every zoom level we created a picture.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Right, and so you didn't have any in between zooms
.
And when you ran out of zoomlevels because the files are
going to get too big, which wasaround about level 13 in the old
days, zoom level 13, youcouldn't go beyond that because
it became like a four gig filefor the, for the next ones and
the next ones, yeah, yeah sothat's why we couldn't why we
couldn't deliver a map that wentto zoom level 18 in raster on
(08:50):
years ago is because as soon asyou hear about zoom level 13,
we're already talking somewherein the vicinity of 16 million
tiles to produce that level, itdoubles the file size
Speaker 1 (09:01):
for every one whole number that you increase four
times.
Okay, so to go from level 13 tolevel 14, it's four times the
size.
So folks listening, some of youthat have spoken to us on the
phone over the years and goingwhy can't I get more detail?
It was because of that.
We knew that you won your.
You didn't have in begin at thetime and you just couldn't
(09:23):
download that amount of data fora whole of Australia map file,
and so until we had thetechnical capability of being
able to deliver that more highresolution detail, we couldn't
do it.
And so that's what thetransition from raster that word
raster is the image getspixelated when you zoom it to
vector.
Vector is fantastic.
Vector is a format that ourmodern devices use all the time
(09:47):
you're used to using.
You just don't know the term,but everything is 100% clear,
high resolution and high zoom.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I'll try and simplify what vector is.
Vector is basically so if youtook a drawing frame and you
drew a circle and a square and aline and a dot, those
particular elements are vectors.
So when the map is, when wedeliver vector data, basically
we're delivering the coordinatesof a square or the coordinates
of a dot, or the position onthis image that we're going to
(10:16):
place each of these elements.
So they're actually the data isactually compiled on the device
.
It's built at the time.
So all we do is we say put asquare there.
It doesn't matter how big thesquare is and which part of the
square is.
It's going to produce a square.
So the square will just getbigger at different zoom levels
and smaller at other zoom levels, based on the size of the
(10:37):
actual square.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
So now you see the difference between the two of us
.
He's the technical one and Iwill just dump it down for you,
because I don't understandeverything he's saying anyway,
basically with vector.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
We can.
We can produce data to acertain zoom level and that data
will carry through on furtherzoom levels because it is being
drawn at each of those levels.
It's not a picture, it's not astatic image at zoom level 13.
So we can go up to zoom level18.
In fact, we could actually goto 21, but we've limited at 18.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
You know, people like to know.
What does this zoom levelnumber mean?
What does it equate to it's?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
historical and it goes back to Google zoom levels.
Google started the zoom level.
The Google started with thezoom levels way back early on in
the days when they createdtheir maps, and there is a whole
technical documentation aboutwhat the zoom levels.
It is a.
It is a geo.
It is a geo mathematical reason.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
But the max scale right, yeah, but it's to do with
the whole surface of the earthon zoom level zero.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And then each of the.
The numbers are subjective.
The numbers are one, towhatever exact scale, it's not
an exact scale.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
We do show a little scale bar in the bottom right
hand side and, like I know, atmax zoom, which is level 18,
that number says 20 meters.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
And that's a pretty detailed, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (12:02):
So there's a bit of history on the EO Topo product
and you know, make sure yousubscribe and catch up with us
on the next blog in the series.
Speak to you later.
Bye.
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