In our quest to improve and increase the value of spatial data stored within the Ushahidi platform, we’re pleased to introduce map geometry. Until now, the platform has allowed you to define a single report with a single point. Map geometries allow you to define a report not just with a single point, but now with shapes and lines that you can draw.

(Example 1 | Example 2)

This has obvious benefits:

• You can define an area
• You can define roads or other features not available on the base map
• You can define one report with multiple points and/or multiple geometries

This feature also allows you to do cool things like write plugins that import GPS data. One is already available – GPXer (apps.ushahidi.com)

To illustrate, I’ve imported a recent bike ride into using this plugin which calculates distances, start-times and end-times for you.

A few things to note:

• The report will also be saved with a single point location. The singular point is derived from the centroid of the multiple geometries. This is just to make it easy to cluster, map and find multiple reports. Also this helps with pulling reports via the API into mobile devices.
• This feature is only currently available in the Admin interface.
• The geometry feature is still work in progress. Your feedback will help us make it more robust.

You can download a build with this feature at: https://github.com/ushahidi/Ushahidi_Web