So the focus right now on the Cromwell-Alexandra section is on three areas: the Cromwell Gorge aerial photography, Clyde yard (both sites) and Alexandra yard. These three aspects are being pushed along more or less simultaneously and as quickly as possible so that the maps can be complete.
In relation particularly to the yards, I have been doing a lot of work on data table structures for the map layers that can let me put a filter into a number of the data tables to show generations of map data. These generations of map data are generally timed around the available generations of aerial photography. For Clyde, we have the old yard aerials for 1962 and current, and the new yard aerials for 1962, 1977, 1981 and current. For Alexandra, the yard aerials are from 1958, 1965, 1983 and current. We only have one generation for Cromwell and the Gorge apart from current, which is 1962, so the map data won't be displayed in a generational way. As we know, maps are rendered in the aerial photo background using the various generations. We also render diagrams, which have terrain background instead of aerial photography. These will also be produced as multi generations for stations.
This will all be finished once the aerial coverage is fully complete, and that stage of completion has just been achieved, so from tomorrow the map work is proceeding with checking all of the map data. I actually still have a little bit of work on the Alexandra aerials as they may need some adjustment of the alignment of the historical photos which don't quite match up. But I think we can expect to see the maps for this section generated by the end of this week.
Looking back in some of the older posts it is hard to believe I have been working on the maps of the Otago Central Railway for three whole years since I discovered the Archives New Zealand contact prints collection and began getting scans off it, and later on, the Retrolens collection. So whilst I have mapped a lot of other areas as well in that time, I am surprised that it has taken this long to bring these maps together. A lot of work has however already been done on the other sections of the OCR apart from the Cromwell-Alexandra section I am currently focusing on but I have put a lot into finishing off over the past few months so that I can actually close the book on the Central line and move on to other areas.
Flickr has announced it is being bought by an outfit called SmugMug. I don't know whether this will change the way I use Flickr to store some project materials. We shall have to see what happens down the track.
