[ArcheOS] [open-archaeology] diGNU announce

[Francesco de Virgilio]

Hi all (sorry for crossposting in various ML),
I've lurked for a while on this mailing list since the past year,
reading discussions and topics to better understand the dynamics
behind the FLOSS in the archaeological field. Now it's time to leave
the dark side of the ML and present myself: I'm Francesco de Virgilio
(aka fradeve) and I'm the founder of an Italian startup which will
offer IT consulting for archaeologists.

This appears to be, more or less, a quick presentation of the startup
and of our main project, so if you know a better way to spend your
time today, simply ignore this.

## Who runs what?

OIA (Open Ideas for Archaeology) has been started in the past months
after a funding we received from the Apulia Region government
("Principi Attivi 2010"), focused on innovative ideas from new young
entrepreneurs. We are a team of 4 archaeologists with different
backgrounds (osteoarchaeology, ceramics, survey, etc) and a
conservation scientist (hey, that's me) interested in open source GIS,
FLOSS and GNU/Linux applied in the archaeological field.

## What's the mission?

Create and offer open source tools to archaeologists through the web,
to easily manage on-field and post-processing works and elaborations.

## Be more specific, please!

Our main project is called _diGNU_, GNU licensed, GeoDjango
spatially-enabled server-side archaeological management tool, to
easily access, organize, modify and communicate archaeological data
during and after the excavation. Follows a quick list of the main
features; diGNU will:
- organize and query all geographic and survey data using PostGIS
- offer a (hope for) rocking integration with an open source GIS
system GUI locally installed (QGIS?), accessible from remote server
- export all catalogue data using LaTeX, with specific templating
support and a near real-time map rendering integration for small areas
- support the archiving of single objects 3D meshes in the database,
and integrate them in the LaTeX generated printed version of catalogue
data
- integrate an easy install process using the Ubuntu/Debian package
system (apt, PPA)
- export cartographic data using Mapnik, in various formats (PDF, SVG,
JPG/PNG) and customization possibilities
- automate matrix creation using GraphViz

Other features we will likely introduce:
- full support for osteoarchaeology and paleopathology data,
comprehensive of detailed data sheets exportation, using LaTeX
- support real-time collaboration between field and office connecting
databases with mobile GIS (gvSIG mobile?)
- a full-featured quantitative archaeology analysis system, based on a
KISS web interface to R and using PostGIS data
- here we are: a plugin system to easily add features to the whole product

## Where we are now?

At the starting point. I'm writing the django basis on which diGNU
will run. Yeah, it sounds like a glue-project taking the best of open
source tools and offering them to archaeologists on a silver plate,
like the "Wordpress" for archaeologists.

## Do you have any deadline?

The main features must be completed and rocking in 16 months starting
from today.

## OK,show us the code...

We will bring out the first public release in December, hopefully.

## Why are you writing here?

Because diGNU is a gift to the entire FLOSS-powered archaeological
community, and we need your help to define some concepts, starting,
for example, from the database model. We need your experience, needs
and requests to create a product modelled on the user base, on the
concrete needs and on the dreams of every archeo-geek.

I've already read some discussions on the database model, starting
from iadb[1]. We need to know your approach, assuming that nearly we
don't have any standard, today.

## OK, give us contacts

At now, we don't have a website, will be up in some weeks, but we're
already working on django, database and PostGIS issues. If you're
interested in the project or have any suggestion, please append it to
the discussions that will take place in this ML, or simply mail me at
francesco.devirgilio@fradeve.org.

-- 
Francesco de Virgilio
*Ubuntu-it team member*
  mailto:fradeve@ubuntu-it.org
  http://wiki.ubuntu-it.org/FrancescoDeVirgilio
*Wikimedia projects contributor*
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fradeve11
*OpenStreetMap Mapper*
  http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Fradeve11
*Blog*
  http://www.fradeve.org
"Love - Peace - Freedom - Free Software"