Natural Language Mapping

Parogra.ph is an interesting experiment in adding features to a map by using written commands. Type a location into Parogra.ph and a map marker will be added to the map. You can also add polylines to the map and change the map type (there is currently a choice of satellite, terrain or hand drawn).

Parogra.ph actually only recognizes a few written commands. You can add a marker to the map by simply typing in a location. You can add a polyline by typing 'a line from (location a) to (location b)'. You can change the map type by typing 'a terrain map', 'a satellite map' or 'a drawn map'.

As you add features to the map they also automatically added to a GeoJSON formatted text box. When you have finished adding data to the map you can then simply cut and paste the GeoJSON for the features that you have added.

With only a few commands available, as a map creation tool, Parogra.ph at the moment is rather limited. It would actually be quicker to allow users to add markers to the map by simply dropping a marker on the map or to add polylines by simply clicking on the map and dragging the line to the required destination.

However as an experimentally proof of concept I think this is really interesting. It would be great to see this developed so that more mapping options are available. It could be very useful to have a map creation tool that could automatically recognize and map locations & other map features from natural language.