Under the auspices of the Mainz Science Alliance, the Mainz Science Market took place on Gutenbergplatz in mid-September.
Together with i3mainz, the Department of Geoinformatics and Surveying presented “StoneViewer.” Gregor Hubrich had developed the app with support from i3mainz as part of his bachelor’s thesis and expanded it for the Science Market. It is designed to display the Mainz Stolpersteine in a spatial context. Users can search for specific names and then see on a map where the Stolperstein for the person they’re looking for is located. The app can also be configured to send a push notification when a user passes within a predefined distance of a Stolperstein.
The application thus offers an innovative solution for visualizing location-based data based on PWA (Progressive Web App) technology using OpenData. The data used is sourced from OpenStreetMap (OSM) and Wikidata. The spatial representation of the Stolpersteine is provided by the Leaflet API and the OSM map implemented within it. The technology can be applied to all objects listed in Wikidata and OpenStreetMap.
Timo Homburg entering the Stolpersteine into OSM and Wikidata Photo: Svenja Schwerdtfeger, CC-BY-SA 3.0
However, since the app can only access data that has previously been entered into Wikidata and OSM, the research assistants and students also used their time at the market to enter all 228 Stolpersteine currently laid in Mainz into the system, so that they can now all be accessed via the app. The Science Market also provided the ideal setting to have a wide variety of visitors to the booth test the app and share their feedback. Thank you to everyone who supported us in this effort.
