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Introduction

Since 2012, the Origins of Doha Project (University College London—Qatar) has investigated the foundations and historic growth of Doha, Qatar, its transformation to a modern city, and the lives and experiences of its people, through archaeology, history and oral testimony. As part of the digital public outreach for the project, Doha Online Historical Atlas (DOHA), a Historical Geographical Information Science web application has been developed to disseminate the live, multimedia results of Doha’s transformation from a pearling town into a modern city. The ultimate aim is to engage the public, specifically the inhabitants of Doha, with their urban heritage, in an accessible and visual manner, by instrumenting memories of place and transformation. In the local context, this engagement may also translate into opportunities for educators within a resource–poor learning environment.

The goal of the paper is to present the design, architecture and implementation of the application.

DOHA was built using Open Source Software and utilises cutting edge web and geospatial technologies. The design allows for the efficient, flexible representation of maps, aerial images, videos, historic records, building recording, and archaeological investigation. This information explored on the web, or on mobile devices that bring the history and archaeology of local places to the user’s location. DOHA also incorporates

crowd-sourced content both indirectly through geo-located Wikipedia articles and by allowing users to develop content with submissions of historic media and events. The popularity of the application will be evaluated using feedback provided through email, social media sharing buttons and analytic software for web maps that provide insights into user interactions with the map.

Visualization

The DOHA web application has been built with consideration of research in web cartography. Visualization has been described as a process of ‘translation of geospatial data into maps’ (Kraak, 2001, p. 9). Visualization can be applied to four different approaches, which vary depending upon the purpose of the final map (Kraak and Ormeling, 2003). The approaches are:

• to explore and play with unknown and raw data• to analyse known data by manipulation• to access the data behind the maps• to present the data by specially designed map

The variety of roles played by the maps has been classified in two main categories (DiBiase, 1990):

• ‘private visual thinking’—users perform the analysis of their own data

DOHA—Doha Online Historical Atlas

Michal MICHALSKI1, Robert CARTER2, Daniel EDDISFORD3, Richard FLETCHER2, and Colleen MORGAN4

1The Origins of Doha Project2University College London – Qatar

3Durham University4University of York

Corresponding author: michalski82@gmail.com

AbstractThe Origins of Doha is a research project that aims to explore the foundation and historic growth of Doha, Qatar through a combination of archaeological investigation, historical research and oral testimony. As part of the digital public outreach for the project, Doha Online Historical Atlas (DOHA) was created to disseminate dispersed cultural heritage data. DOHA was developed adhering to Open Standards and using Open Source Software. This paper outlines the application design, architecture and im-plementation, which has been unique in its nature and scope. Modern web technologies proved to be an excellent platform for heritage data visualization.

Keywords: historical GIS, web mapping, heritage, archaeology, Doha

Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in ArchaeologyCAA2016—Oceans of Data/ Mieko Matsumoto and Espen Uleberg (eds)

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• ‘public visual communication’—the map has a communication function.

MacEachren (1994) introduced the concept of measuring the purpose of the map by using the three-dimensional space of a cube. The purpose of the map changes along the diagonal axis of a cube from private use, which reveals unknown patterns in the data, to presenting

known data in the public domain. This approach was adapted also by Kraak and Ormeling (2003). The lower corner of the cube represents maps designed for the public based on known data sets. The opposite corner represents maps used in private to explore raw data (Figure 2).

DOHA was created with focus on broad audiences. The aim was to communicate and synthesize the data in a public domain by using a specially designed map. Thus,  the application could be placed  in the lower corner of the ‘map use cube’. Still, some interaction has been implemented to interrogate the data.

The overall approach in designing DOHA and data visualization was guided by one sentence:

‘How do I say what to whom, and is it effective?’ (Kraak, 2001, p. 9)

Technology and design

DOHA utilises concepts coined as Web 2.0 and Web Mapping 2.0. The first term refers to an idea of using web in a collaborative, interactive and user–centred way. At the heart of Web 2.0 are applications such as social–networking sites, blogs, wikis or cloud services. The second term is used to describe Web 2.0 applications

Figure 1. Doha, Qatar.

Figure 2. The map use cube proposed by Kraak (2003).

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that integrate location information such as GeoTagging, GeoBlogging and Web Mashups (Gartner, 2009).

DOHA is a mashup that aggregates services and data from complementary sources using application programming interface (API). Mashup combines different technologies and disperse data to produce a new enriched product (Min et al., 2008). DOHA was designed using open source software, allowing flexibility as well as independence from proprietary software (Morgan and Eve, 2012).

DOHA was implemented using HTML, CSS and Leaflet.js API, a JavaScript lightweight library for web mapping. Development of applications using modern web technologies offers great versatility such as responsive design. We are currently working on allowing DOHA to be viewed using many different devices: desktops, tablets and phones.

The selection of web mapping API was coupled with choice of platform and programming language. Other important factors considered were brevity and extensibility of mapping API as well as access to documentation and community support.

Leaflet is ‘designed with simplicity, performance and usability in mind’ and is being used by sites such as Flickr and Pinterest (Agafonkin, 2016). The use of Leaflet as the client side technology proved to have several advantages. Wide range of plugins developed

by third parties provides a quick and flexible way to implement required functionality. The server side of the application was built using server storage space where only static vector and raster files are stored (Figure 3). This implementation does not require additional GIS server software or server-side scripting languages to be installed. The data are handled by the mapping library and are loaded asynchronously to avoid reloading the page. DOHA employs Open Standard formats: Tile Map Service (TMS) and GeoJSON.

Tile Map Service (TMS) is a specification for raster tiled web maps. Web tiles are usually pre-rendered raster images. It is one of the fastest methods of publishing the maps on the Internet because only the tiles needed for current display area are transported through network. These tiles create a ‘zoom pyramid’ where the number of tiles changes according to the current zoom level. One raster tile usually has a resolution of 256 x 256 pixels and is available in PNG or JPEG formats. The tiles are published using server storage space without installing complex server software.

Web Maps representing Doha’s urban development were produced using map design software called TileMill. TileMill can render web tiles and apply visual effects by using CartoCSS stylesheet language. The design resembling vintage maps is inspired by work of Scottish map engravers, printers and publishers, John Bartholomew and Son Ltd (Figure 4).

Implementation

DOHA web application user interface design consists of the map view and a sidebar. The map view relates to the spatial context. The sidebar allows toggling the layers on and off. Users can interact with the features to access more information in a pop–up window.

DOHA currently contains geo-referenced aerial imagery from 1947, 1952 and 1959 and a reconstructed map depicting the city in 1956. Each of the aerial images represents a ‘snapshot’ of the town at a particular time. The map is the result of a painstaking digitisation process of original surveys conducted in the past. As the research progresses, more stages of city development will be presented in a similar manner.

The web application allows users to overlay historical images on modern maps, such that the historical image can be compared with the present day.

DOHA currently gives access to over 80 geo-tagged Historical Photos, Video Records and Aerial Oblique Imagery (Figure 5). Viewing historical imagery supports community outreach and future research. It also helps ‘to understand, connect to or imagine experiences that

Figure 3. Architecture of DOHA application.

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were otherwise remote, either spatially or temporally’ (Chew et al., 2010, p. 108).

The result of excavations and survey carried out by the project has been represented by Archaeological Sites and Historic Buildings Recording events. When the event is selected, the info- window appears with

additional information including a site report, site gallery (from Flickr feed) and site drawings (Figure 6).

DOHA employs Turf.js, a JavaScript library that brings spatial analysis to the browser (Herlocker, 2016). Turf.js allows the carrying out common GIS operations such as buffering, clipping or calculating distance.

Figure 4. Cartographic reconstruction of Doha in the 1950s(Polygon layer represent settlement growth linked to interactive graph showing population growth. Point layer represents

mosques—by dragging orange marker user can query distance to the nearest mosque).

Figure 5. Aerial Photo of Doha from 1952 with overlays showing old photography and Wikipedia entries.

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Currently the following spatial analyses were implemented:

• calculating the area of a polygon—visualization of districts and population growth

• nearest neighbour analysis—interactive finding nearest mosque

• points density analysis (hexbinning)—aggregation and visualization of wells around Doha

Turf.js paired with Leaflet.js enables development of powerful client–side interactivity usually reserved to server–side technologies.

Citizen science

DOHA plays an important role in Origins of Doha programme of public engagement. The project implemented a variety of strategies to interact with the public such as social media, blogging, school and local events, public conferences as well as reaching out to the press.

The public is encouraged to participate in the project through a variety of channels, and DOHA provides one of them. DOHA engages with the general public by integrating Wikipedia geo-referenced articles and Crowdmap. Wikipedia events are dynamically loaded from web service. Therefore, any changes made to the article are automatically reflected in the application. The aim is to encourage the general public to use Wikipedia as a one of the platforms to enhance DOHA.

Crowdmap is an open-source platform designed by the Ushahidi team. This is a robust platform originally designed to crowd source crisis information (Ushahidi, 2016). Users can share media and information on places and histories in Doha. Crowdmap provides tools and workflow to verify, approve and publish submitted reports. The reports, once approved by the project team, will be integrated with the main DOHA application.

Evaluation

Evaluating the user’s satisfaction can be classified as the most important measure of Information Systems success (Xiao and Dasgupta, 2002). End—user satisfaction has been defined as ‘the overall affective evaluation an end user has regarding his or her experience related with the information system’ (Chin and Lee, 2000, p. 554). The application has been evaluated by using reports on web traffic, performance and user interaction provided by Maptiks as well as user feedback provided via Internet.

Maptiks is novel software that provides insight into user preferences such as areas of map are most looked at, most zoomed or the most often used layers. It is also possible to track various statistics such as the number of map loads of average user activity time (spankgeo, 2016). This valuable information helps to understand how visitors interact with map and to respond by appropriate cartographic and User Interface design (see Figure 7).

Figure 6. Archaeological events represent result of excavations conducted by the project team(User can access field photography, drawings and reports).

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User feedback:

‘What a great little project, takes time to put this stuff together but then it’s really interesting for the rest of us.’—user comment under article featuring the application in Doha News (Doha News, 2016)

‘Nice history map charting the growth of Doha, the capital of the State of Qatar.’ - review by professional blog Maps Mania reporting on Map Mash—ups since 2005 (Google, 2016)

‘The thing that struck me most was the detailed and clear description of the technologies and methodologies used, with a clarity that I found exemplary.’—review from a peer archaeologist blog (Marras, 2016)

Conclusion and further work

GIS and Web technologies offer a wide range of possibilities to support the dissemination of heritage data. The use of Open Source Software and Open Standards allow for a flexible design and proved to be very efficient. There are further plans to implement a mobile version of DOHA that will act as augmented reality application with focus on historical photography and aerial imagery and to explore 3D web mapping technologies to visualise architectural research.

The positive feedback from various user groups shows that DOHA web application can be beneficial to the general public as an educative tool as well as to the

research community. The developed application provides a strong technical base upon which further spatio-temporal history of Doha can be published. The next stage is to further engage the public and educational professionals in casual browsing, discovery of knowledge and production of user-generated content, through launch activities and publicity work targeted at potential users.

DOHA is available at http://originsofdoha.org/doha/index.html.

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Figure 7. Graphical Interface of Maptiks showing visitors statistics and activity(Users are particularly interested in old centre of Doha).

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