Crowdsourcing project
The Maps team is making 1,497 digitized map sheets from the ETH Library’s historical holdings accessible on the external pageGeoreferencer platform. With your help, we supplement the maps with spatial information in order to make them available for further academic use and integration into geoinformation systems (from Google Earth to professional visualisation and analysis software such as ArcGIS or QGIS).
After completion of the work, the georeferenced maps will also be available on the external pageOldMapsOnline.org portal and on the external pageOld Maps Online mobile app.
Would you like to take part in this project?
All you need is an account: either an existing Google, Facebook or Twitter account or a Georeferencer account.
Step by step
- Go to external pageGeoreferencer. A random map from the ETH Library’s holdings is opened in the Georeferencer and compared to a modern map (Google Maps, OpenStreetMap).
- Get an overview of the two maps by moving and zooming.
- To georeference the map, set at least three reference points that correspond spatially on both maps. The more points you set, the more accurately the map will be located.
- To complete the process, click “Save”. The georeferenced map is then laid over the modern map so that you can see whether the map has been correctly located.
For detailed instructions, please watch the following video.
external pageGeorefencer, by the British Library