Demographic Drapes
- Created by
- Brad Spencer
- data.australia.gov.au datasets used
- Other datasets used
ABS Census 2006 Basic Community Profile Data Pack
ABS Census 2006 Indigenous Profile Data Pack
ABS SEIFA Data set
ABS Meshblocks Data set
This mashup accesses ABS 2006 Census data that has been extracted from the ABS Data Packs at CD level (approx 200 households) for the entire country and published as an OGC resource on the Internet. It also allows the user to upload their own geocoded excel data to plot on top of these Thematic Map overlays on top of a GoogleMaps basemap. The user can then undertake their own limited geo-demographic analysis. Please read ‘About This Mashup’.
Just trying this out now using the Census data under the “DemographicDrape Panel”. Some really interesting stuff you can check out with this – good stuff!
Actually just looking at the ABS site (http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/productsbytitle/FCD5FA45D02E88ACCA25734100166C0B?OpenDocument), did you have to pay money to get the census data packs? Is there any rules that prevent paid-for data being used? Would be a shame if the census data part of the mashup had to be disregarded based on this.
Bryce, you can download the same data free of charge from the ABS web site. The Data Packs just make it a lot more convenient and the charge is really for the cost of preparing the CD’s etc. Also, I downloaded the SEIFA & Meshblock data sets from their site free of charge and loaded them as DDrapes which are also listed in the data sets. I would think that if ABS data sets are included in the list and they are supporters of this competition we should be able to use any form of delivery media they make available whether it costs or not. Anyway, we shall see I guess!
Excellent work!
Everyone should be aware that this type of Mashup is possible over the Web without using GIS technology.
How do I use this software?
It seems like its a commercial product?
Does this breach these rules?
John, This is not a commercial product at this point it time. This is a complex mashup and does require a little bit of click exploring by the user. I have added some instructions in the ‘About this Mashup’ Panel. I suggest you read that if its not clear how to operate. Good luck.
Brad,
Thanks for your reply.
I should of made my comment a bit more meaningful, sorry. I was asking how would I replicate what you have done? It looks very interesting and the data seems to be very well formatted – especially from the ABS!
I see it as still breaching the rules by “promotion of any product”, NUMAPS.
Is NUMAPS available free to the public?
Kind Regards
Jon
Jon, There are several things freely available to the public from our website and the demographicsDrapes mashup is published via the mashupAustralia project i.e. we have not yet put it up as a visible link on our website yet – is that a requirement? So if the application is freely available I would have thought its compliant with the rules. I stand to be corrected of course.
Cheers, Brad…
Wow that’s a really cool, useful, functional site. I found it easy to use and it provided some new and interesting info about the area where I live – for example, the streets which border my suburb and the median income.
I just wish the demographic data were more current – 2006 is so three years ago…
Thanks for the feedback. Have you tried overlaying some of the other MashupAustralia data sets via the upload user data feature? This is all explained in the ‘About this Mashup’ panel.
Cheers, Brad…
Hi Brad,
I was trialling out your mashup last week and it was working great. I’m giving it another go now though and whenever I try and add one of the demographic drapes over the map I’m getting NuMaps Error:Security Invalid request or access denied (User Level) NuMaps
Bryce,
This could be because you have left the web session idle for over 20 minutes. If you just refresh your page it should be away again. This is still work in progress.
Cheers, Brad…
This is a very useful site and easy to navigate you way around.
I can see a number of applications for my business in particular utilising income and age demographics.
Hi Brad,
This is brilliant. Do government departments and councils know about this? Strategic planners simply cannot get this info overlayed the way you have done this, and I bet most commonwealth and state government bodies would find this amazing. What about real estate companies, and Bernard Salt who does those demographic analysis? What about the newspapers who are forever displaying overlayed maps? Simply fantastic.
I read above this is not supposed to be commercial. Whats the story here, surely with the opportunities this presents it must go commercial?
This is fantastic. There appear to be almost no limits to the applicability of this approach. This is yet another example of world-leading Australian intellectual property.
an excellent piece of work – comprehensive, and a great example of the mash-up as a powerful information display and access service
The Mortgage stress layer for my locality was quite an eye opener. The site would be really useful to new businesses researching where to locate. It could save a lot of businesses from making expensive mistakes.
Demographic drapes has hit the mark! Where has this been all my life ? How can business and government truly plan their strategy and operations without using excellent tools such as this. Looking forward to seeing more please. Congratulations Brad.
Brad,
I’ve had a few sessions playing with it now. I’m keen to see more … especially how easily it might be to include infrastructure assets from Smallworld.
I’ve found it intuitive to use … and I’n a non-techie!
Good work.
Best Wishes,
Chris
This is a great mashup!! Not only can I, not an owner of a GIS, view these extensive useful and otherwise inaccessible combinations of data but also I can add my own data. It took a couple of goes but now I have a list of addresses of locations and some attributes. It was a breeze to add them onto the map, Upload Map Points Panel, and then when I run the mouse over the symbols (graduated by a variable) the attributes are displayed … brilliant.
As others have commented this is a very useful mashup for a wide range of professions and for casual browsers of data about an area of interest. This would be excellent for schools as well because the students could make up and enter their own data and have it geocoded and presented.
Its also so easy just to take a screen dump and paste the map into a document or presentation … if all “home work” could be this easy!!
Rob, Thanks for that. You should also be aware that I have added a feature to overplot a predefined list of Govt geocoded data sets from server-hosted XML files rather than having to download the csv and then upload via this panel. I felt it might be easier for users to just select from a list. But I also feel that you still need to handle the user’s own data sets via the csv file upload feature.
Cheers, Brad…
Hmm … by this do you mean click on the “Upload User Points Panel”, click on XML and a drop down list of preloaded files is shown, then click on e.g. WA Economic Stimulus Projects, then click on one of the circles and get the details?
I did the same for NSW, zoomed into the Sydney Region, displayed the Population Density drape (Demographic Drape Panel>Age and Popn Distribution>Pop Density) and then for fun added Commonwealth Electoral boundaries 2009 (Layer Control Panel) …. still cannot quite get over the versatility of this mashup … amazing work …
Rob, sorry about that I should have been more instructive. But it looks like you found your way anyway. well done and have fun.
Cheers, Brad…
This is a good mashup! I found it a little complex to use at first but after awhile I got into the different drapes.
M
Great Product. Having worked for many years in the GIS industry I was surprised by the speed of the data display and analysis. I am seriously considering using it for some market analysis I am doing on Clean Technology and Water Management.
Great work! A dream for anyone doing analysis based on ABS data.
A brilliant bit of work – I wonder why this hasn’t been done before. Full marks.
This is an excellent example of a mashup with real potential to become a geospatial SAAS service.
It is complex enough to have a programming API built so other developers can contribute to a sucesssfull “geospatial service in the cloud”
This mashup demonstrates that GIS as a service is “game changing” and very viable
Good stuff! Reduces investment in developing or purchasing that ‘gis stuff*&*^#%’),which gives me more time for the data analysis side. Also…nice gui. Would also possibly be a good median for data acquisition??
Peter, Thanks for that. I am looking at a web 2.0 type of application that allows people to upload their own data fuse it with my data and publish it alongside existing DemographicDrapes. That at least is one form of data acquisition I guess.
Cheers, Brad…
Nice work. The potential for use in economic research is huge. Distributed economic analysis is very powerful but only in its infancy. I am looking forward to finding opportunities to use it for location related economic and policy analysis.
This is a great application. Staff at the Australian Koala Foundation regularly use the Koala Habitat Atlas (KHA) overlay with the cadastral information, either for internal use or to answer inquiries from the public. It is quick, intuitive to use and requires no training. Best of all we don’t have to pay for all those huge datasets that the KHA sits on. Keep up the good work Brad and good luck!
Dave Mitchell
Spatial Analyst
Australian Koala Foundation
This is a very nice way to visualise the Census Data and other datasets. The potential for hotspot analysis is very promising. A job well done!
had this been available in the 90’s when I was doing business demographics work it would have been easier to demistify the whole concept to my clients.
well done, simple to use with endless possibilities. I look forward to “playing more”
Great work Brad, this is what happens when we free up community creativity.
Brad,
An excellent piece of work which can be used intuitively. The potential for statistical analysis in a spatial manner using data from many sources is only limited by the imagination and data available.
More power to your arm.
What a fascinating exercise! Extraordinary how geography matters in terms of how people cluster, and extraordinary how the new mashup technology makes it possible to reveal the patterns in the data. All power to the OGC.
A marvelous piece of work. I can see many companies wanting this kind of tool when evaluating their Sales and Marketing strategy. Many times, whilst ‘playing’ with this tool I found myself thinking it would be useful if it had this feature, then with a little more investigation I found it was there!! It certainly turns the web into a powerful medium with tools like this.
Nice mash-up, and good use of the large quantity of ABS data available.
Numaps is an innovative suite of strategies which offers very efficient tools for planning and marketing. Clients understand the power of this and the considerable cost saving compared with doing it yourself.
Nice innovation.
Slick interface with easy access to data. I also really like the freehand polygon feature request tool. Great mashup!
This is the best spatial implementation of ABS data that I’ve seen … and after months of searching. We use Numaps WMS services in our own products and I can say that Brad and his team offer data in a wide range of interesting formats and are an absolute pleasure to deal with.
Please provide the code to numaps so us poor people can utilize your tool. Oh hang on doesn’t this breach the rules
Eddy,
As far as I understand it my mashup is the free service which you can use. This is not an open source competition. So I am not at all sure what you mean when you say this is against the rules? In the words of a not so great politician – “please explain?”
Cheers, Brad…
Whilst Brad should be congratulated for being the first to make access to free government data easy, standards-based and commercially viable for non-GIS, non-demographic experts for those who need a service for their business:
I’m not entirely comfortable with all the other mashups being compared to a largely pre-existing, commercial service.
I hope Brad derives good business for his efforts by highlighting NUMAPS expertise and services here, but I’m sure a few of us “hackers” would be miffed if some prizes came his way too.
Cheers,
Hugh
Hugh,
In actual fact this mashup is still evolving and it is not a commercial product in any way. The purpose of this mashup is to relay capabilities and possibilities with this technology.
I would have thought that its contribution was in line with the objectives of such a competition. Anyway, that is for the judges to decide not the contestants.
Cheers…
Nice job Brad, easy to use and very clean implementation. Good luck in the competition.
Dick
Brad
That is all fair and well however you aren’t really letting the general public utilise NuMaps for other datasets – so how can this be done? You are in sense advertising a product through this competition.
Thanks.
Fred, I’m sorry, I do not agree that my entry violates the rules:
“All mashup entries must also use at least one of the datasets provided for this contest, but you are free to mash them with other datasets as long as their licensing terms are consistent with the rules of MashupAustralia. You may also use any publicly accessible web services as long as it does not incur a financial cost to use (private and subscription APIs are prohibited).”
I have used several of the available data sets which can be over-plotted atop of my DemogtaphicDrapes which represents “other datasets”. I am making these additional DemographicDrapes freely available from within this mashup similar to most of the other entries. I am also using some external web services that are freely available to open web applications. And this mashup is freely available to everyone on the Internet.
As I understand it this is a mashup [read application] competition not a publishing of Government Data competition. Most of the Govt data sets used in this competition are accessible via the mashups only and are not necessarily published for others to build applications against. I would expect all entries to be judged on the purpose and functional quality of the application/mashup and not whether the data is published in such a way.
Finally, I have developed an application that I am proud of just as I am sure many others in this competition have. I entered this competition for my application to be judged nothing else.
Cheers, Brad…
The rules may be in breach but this is an awesome use of a mashup.
How do I get the ABS data in such a format?
maybe you would like to contact me at brad@numaps.com.au.
Cheers, Brad…