[OGRUG] RStudio, CIty of Ottawa Trees Dataset & Ottawa Tree Canopy Project.

Wed May 21 02:55:48 CEST 2014

Thanks Tyler. Sounds like a great agenda item for the OGRUG meeting
that David Bissessar is talking about organizing.

Joseph Potvin

On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 8:03 PM, Tyler Smith <tyler at plantarum.ca> wrote:
> Hi Joseph,
>
> I am a botanist at Agriculture Canada, and also a reasonably experienced R
> user. I am very interested in this project, and would be happy to contribute
> a either a plant biologist, an R coder or both.
>
> At present I am in the field, and won't be back to Ottawa until the
> beginning of June.
>
> Best,
>
> Tyler
>
> On 17/05/14 06:39 PM, Joseph Potvin wrote:
>>
>> Anyone in the OGRUG community have a bit of time & expertise to share
>> towards advancing data-driven analysis of Ottawa's trees using R?
>> Some current discussion is forwarded below.
>>
>> Note to Daniel and Erwin: OGRUG is the Ottawa-Gatineau R Users Group.
>>
>> Joseph Potvin
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Daniel Buijs <dbuijs at gmail.com>
>> Date: Sat, May 17, 2014 at 5:48 PM
>> Subject: Re: CIty of Ottawa Trees dataset
>> To: Erwin Dreessen <erwin_dreessen at ncf.ca>
>> Cc: "J. P. Unger" <ungerjp at yahoo.com>, Amy Kempster
>> <Amykempster at bell.net>, "Nicole Desroches (home)"
>> <nicolepdesroches at gmail.com>, Sol Shuster <sshuster at magma.ca>,
>> elina.here at hotmail.com, Jason Kania <jason.kania at ymail.com>, Joseph
>> Potvin <jpotvin at opman.ca>
>>
>>
>> Hi Erwin,
>>
>> It would take a bit of work to turn this into an app, and I'm afraid
>> that's a skill set that I don't have at the moment ;) I would be very
>> happy to chat with someone technically inclined who would be
>> interested in turning it into an app, and I could perhaps suggest some
>> more or less straightforward ways to do that.
>>
>> The file that the city published is in a format that can be opened by
>> Google Earth, but it was just so massive that I stopped waiting for it
>> after an hour or so on my little laptop, so I figured out how to slice
>> it up into smaller pieces with the free software package RStudio
>> (www.rstudio.org). On the most basic level, I can take the 200 MB kml
>> file that's on the City's website and turn it into a simple
>> spreadsheet table that should be fairly straightforward to use in
>> things like Google Maps. The bells and whistles, in terms of
>> colour-coding by species, making the dot size represent tree diameter,
>> and overlaying Xs on the ones that are being treated for Emerald Ash
>> borer are things I figured out how to do in R for static PDF
>> documents. I'm sure you could do things like this in a web app, I just
>> don't know how.
>>
>> As far as the data itself, my understanding of what the City published
>> is that it's an extract of their internal database that the forestry
>> department uses anyway, so I don't think they have any dedicated
>> resources to publishing it or have committed to any particular update
>> frequency. The date on the dataset is April 2013. I would certainly
>> like to see them update it on some sort of predictable schedule, but
>> my experience with open data at the moment is that you take what you
>> can get and don't ask too many questions. :)
>>
>> The City indicates that the dataset includes only city-owned street
>> trees, so no private trees, and none of the city trees in parks or
>> other greenspace. The data they have included is the GPS co-ordinates
>> (which seem to line up with Google maps without any further
>> adjustment, at least in my neighbourhood), the species of tree,
>> diameter at breast height (no units given, but I'm guessing in cm),
>> Ward, Street Number and Name, location of the tree in relation to the
>> property, location of street trees that aren't associated with a civic
>> address (i.e. medians, etc.), whether the tree is being treated for
>> dutch elm disease or emerald ash borer, and the tree tag number for
>> trees that are being treated.
>>
>> No, I'm not working with Kevin. I've only just seen his website, with
>> your note below. I'm certainly happy to share what I've learned with
>> anyone who's interested. I'm afraid I have no particular intent or
>> agenda with this, I really just wanted to find out what kind of tree
>> was kitty-corner to my house and whether the City was going to treat
>> it for Emerald Ash Borer. In retrospect, there were perhaps less
>> onerous ways to do this ;).
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>
>> On 2014-05-17, at 3:15 PM, Erwin Dreessen wrote:
>>
>> Hello Daniel Buijs,
>>
>> Thanks for this.  I knew the City was brewing up various data about
>> the city-owned trees.  You're way ahead of me on the technology, but
>> the example you gave, adapting the City's raw data, looks terrific.
>> If this app could be made available via our web site, that would be
>> excellent.  Jason Kania is your contact if this requires anything
>> special.
>>
>> Do you believe the City is committed to keeping the data current?  Any
>> idea what percent of its resources is going to this?
>>
>> The Tree Canopy project, as I understand it, makes no distinction
>> between public and private trees, nor does it distinguish species.  It
>> is only concerned with tree canopy cover.
>>
>> Are you working with Kevin O'Donnell?  (http://ottwatch.ca/)  It would
>> be good to find your app there.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Erwin
>> cc: Board, Joseph
>>
>> From: J. P. Unger [mailto:ungerjp at yahoo.com]
>> Sent: Friday, May 16, 2014 10:59 PM
>> To: Erwin Dreessen; Amy Kempster; Nicole Desroches (home); Sol
>> Shuster; elina.here at hotmail.com; 'Jason Kania'
>> Subject: Fw: CIty of Ottawa Trees dataset
>>
>> Hi!
>> This came in...
>> I sent a quick reply with thanks, saying I'd forward it to the chair &
>> directors (cc'ing Joseph Potvin).
>> JP
>>
>> ----- Forwarded Message -----
>> From: Daniel Buijs <dbuijs at gmail.com>
>> To: contact at greenspace-alliance.ca
>> Cc: jpotvin at opman.ca
>> Sent: Friday, May 16, 2014 9:43:15 PM
>> Subject: CIty of Ottawa Trees dataset
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Joseph Potvin forwarded a note about your upcoming meeting where you
>> will discuss the Ottawa Tree Canopy project. I thought you might find
>> it helpful to know (if you didn't already) that the City of Ottawa has
>> published a dataset of City-Owned street trees, available here:
>>
>> data.ottawa.ca
>>
>> It's available as a kml file. I found the kml file a bit too unwieldy,
>> so I wrote an R script that can extract the data into a more useful
>> format and intelligible plot. The plot below shows the trees of the
>> Glebe, colour coded by species, with dot sizes representing diameter.
>> Trees marked with an X have been treated for Emerald Ash Borer.
>>
>> If this is useful and/or of interest to you or your group, I can share
>> the scripts I used to extract the data and to produce the plot below.
>>
>> Daniel Buijs
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Erwin Dreessen <erwin_dreessen at ncf.ca>
>> Date: Thu, May 15, 2014 at 5:50 PM
>> Subject: Greenspace Alliance AGM - Thursday, May 29, 7 p.m.
>> To: green-news at greenspace-alliance.ca,
>>
>>
>> Hello Members and Friends,
>>
>> You are heartily invited to the Greenspace Alliance's Annual General
>> Meeting on Thursday, May 29, 2014, starting at 7 p.m. at the
>> Hintonburg Community Centre, 1064 Wellington Street West (Laurel
>> Room).
>>
>> Our feature presentation will be on Phase 1 of the Ottawa Tree Canopy
>> project.  Unfortunately, Regie Alam had to cancel but the project's
>> co-leader, Eric Jones, will present in his stead, assisted by Iola
>> Price.  This is a citizen science project that is estimating the tree
>> canopy within the urban boundary on a ward basis, using open data and
>> open source tools.
>>
>> The agenda is below.  Come early (6:45 p.m.) to renew your membership or
>> apply!
>>
>> A brief General Meeting will follow the AGM.
>>
>> Hope to see many of you there.
>>
>> Erwin
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>

-- 
Joseph Potvin
Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
jpotvin at opman.ca
Mobile: 819-593-5983