Time Layered Cultural Map (TLCMap)
The Time-layered Cultural Map of Australia (TLCMap) is an online research platform funded by the Australian Research Council Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) grant scheme in 2019 and currently under development. When completed, it will deliver researcher-driven national-scale infrastructure for the humanities, focused on mapping, time series, and data integration, and will expand the use of Australian cultural and historical data for research through sharply defined and powerful discovery mechanisms.
The main function of TLCMap is to generate web-based digital time-maps from spatiotemporal data for humanities’ needs, including time, layering, data, text, media, and virtual reality applications. Linking geo-spatial maps of Australian cultural and historical information, adapted to time series, represents a significant contribution to humanities research in Australia. For researchers, including those without extensive technical backgrounds, it has the potential to transform access to data and to visualisation tools and open new perspectives on Australian culture and history. For the public, it will enable increased accessibility to historical and cultural data through visualisations created by researchers and made available online and in print. [1]
TLCMap uses RO-Crate for exporting geographical search results and map layers via the Gazeteer of Historical Australian Places (GHAP) service.
RO-Crate Export
Below is an example of a search for “Katoomba” (the name of a town in New South Wales), which returns a zip file containing csv, kml, and geojson files.
curl "https://ghap.tlcmap.org/places?containsname=katoomba&searchausgaz=on&searchncg=on&searchpublicdatasets=on&format=rocrate&download=on"
{
"@context": "https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.1/context",
"@graph": [
{
"@type": "CreativeWork",
"@id": "ro-crate-metadata.json",
"conformsTo": {
"@id": "https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.1"
},
"about": {
"@id": "./"
}
},
{
"@id": "./",
"@type": "Dataset",
"datePublished": "2024-07-04",
"name": "GHAP search results",
"description": "Export of search results data from GHAP",
"url": "https://ghap.tlcmap.org/search?containsname=katoomba&searchausgaz=on&searchncg=on&searchpublicdatasets=on",
"hasPart": [
{
"@id": "tlcmap_output.csv"
},
{
"@id": "tlcmap_output.kml"
},
{
"@id": "tlcmap_output.json"
}
]
},
{
"@id": "tlcmap_output.csv",
"@type": "File",
"name": "CSV export of search results",
"description": "CSV export of the search results",
"encodingFormat": "text/csv"
},
{
"@id": "tlcmap_output.kml",
"@type": "File",
"name": "KML export of search results",
"description": "KML export of the search results",
"encodingFormat": "application/vnd.google-earth.kml+xml"
},
{
"@id": "tlcmap_output.json",
"@type": "File",
"name": "GeoJSON export of search results",
"description": "GeoJSON export of the search results",
"encodingFormat": "application/geo+json"
},
{
"@id": "#b43872b9-b074-4fc6-b20d-2dd454700378",
"@type": "CreateAction",
"instrument": {
"@id": "https://ghap.tlcmap.org"
},
"result": [
{
"@id": "tlcmap_output.csv"
},
{
"@id": "tlcmap_output.kml"
},
{
"@id": "tlcmap_output.json"
}
]
},
{
"@id": "https://ghap.tlcmap.org",
"@type": "SoftwareApplication",
"url": "https://ghap.tlcmap.org",
"name": "TLCMap Gazetteer of Historical Australian Places",
"version": "7.0.0"
}
]
}
Resources
Publications
- Arthur P, Champion E, Craig H, Gu N, Harvey M, Haskins V, et al. Time-layered cultural map of Australia. In: Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries Conference [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2024 Jul 4]. Available from: https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/141441/2/Time%20Layered%20Cultural%20Map%20of%20Australia.pdf