Viget talk:Mapping system

Contents 1 Custom scripts 2 wow great 3 second option 4 Aggregated maps and semantic web

Custom scripts

I will probably have to write custom scripts to do all of the aggregation and other interesting things with the mapping data we're putting in. However, there are a few plugins out there that deal with existing GIS data, and I'm not sure how well they interact with the Google Maps plugin and/or how much code I could take from them if I have to go my own route. We should keep our eyes open for possible pre-existing solutions to this problem as we work on the rest of the site. Michael 21:53, 7 March 2007 (EST)

It's a hack, but I think I've thought of a way to get the correct mapping information and shove it over to the sidebar in our skin and any other skin that wants to implement our custom code. This would sit in the SkinTemplate.php file. Hopefully we can modify that without it freaking out again like it did yesterday (that may have been only a permissions issue). Michael 16:53, 8 March 2007 (EST)

We have a few options here to consider, using the system I'm working on:

• Remove any maps placed inline, put all the points and paths into the map in the sidebar.
• Keep all maps placed inline, put the points/paths from the first map in the article into the map in the sidebar.
• Keep all maps placed inline, put all points/paths from all maps in the article into the map in the sidebar.

Another option is to have the map data that will load in the sidebar separately defined, although this would probably hamper the interface. Thoughts on any of these options? Michael 23:33, 8 March 2007 (EST)

wow great

This would be great. I'm able to give the edits a try anytime. I'll make the changes to access on the server tomorrow. Slider 22:12, 8 March 2007 (EST)

second option

seems best to me. because if there is more than one map option it would be nice to have the additional inline and 500px across.

it would also be nice to indicate somehow that you would only want the map inline, but that might be asking too much. for example on michael's about page. he would only want those two inline and not one inline and one on the sidebar - so if he could indicate no sidebar in the wikimarkup it would be kind of phenomenal.

i also think the master map, like when you click maps up in the menu, should be the full 780 across.

love, geo.

are you guys writing the timestamp in manually?

geo, I told you this. four tildes :). ~ ~ ~ ~ but no spaces. I don't know that the about example applies, but yes. I want the front page and all of the User pages to have different formatting applied, without the sidebar, though. It doesn't make sense to put it on them. I'll look into sidebar exclusion. Michael 11:20, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Aggregated maps and semantic web

In the future we hope to equip Viget with the ability to do automated aggregated maps; meaning that maps can show the results of an inline "ask" and show up-to-date results. The semantic web features that we enabled a few weeks ago make a step in that direction by establishing locational data field for each article; geographic coordinates. Using this data I made a map for the Heartside-Downtown neighborhood: Heartside-Downtown#Map. Here are the steps I used:

1. Entered the coordinates for many of the items listed as located in heartside-downtown using the numbers generated with Googlemaps.
2. I made a table of data that listed all of the items in Heartside with geo coordinates. See below.
3. Copied the text from the table to an editing program and reconfigured text to match the format for Googlemap points. (semantic geo coords use directionals and "°" degree symbols. Googlemaps requires simple numbers positive and negative - NS first, then EW.
4. One big problem was that the table showed the coordinate data in a different format that changed the numbers to ones' outside the range of the map. Not sure how to control this.

warning.png"*" is not a number. Paul 23:42, 16 July 2007 (EDT)

I'm interested in the mapping and would love to hear more about what you have planned. An "automated aggregated map" is exactly what I'd like to see for the Wild Foods map. I have skills to help in implementing this, whether it means modifying the Google Maps extension or the inline-ask of SMW or something else. Lemme know! - Trannie 12:49, 1 August 2007 (EDT)

I'm excited about your interest in mapping on viget. From the start on the project it has been an important possibility. I really want the mapping to not be about nailing down facts, but more about supporting associative and relational connections that capture and extend the dynamic of spatial experience. I see the mapping system as feeding this kind of research and engagement with our common space. For instance what unrelated bits of info share the same space. Once gps and mobile web browsing come together the intermingling of movement, experience and data browsing become more complex.

Our first approach was to do something with google mapping, but now it seems that the semantic ask functions are the shortest and maybe best route. We implemented semantic web for this purpose. Our current viget:timeline timeline function is a port of a project from the simile project at MIT. I've corresponded a bit with a project member and there is a possibility they might work on connecting 'exhibit' to semantic web. I'm not sure who did the work on timeline. I'm glad to connect you with the person I corresponded with. Paul 13:29, 1 August 2007 (EDT)

I think it still might make sense to use Google's mapping, but we want to be able to specify markers on the map dynamically. If we have to edit the <googlemap> tag everytime we want to add an item, it will get tedious. If we want to automatically include markers from multiple pages on a single map, then we will definately need to alter the way the Google map gets its information. Maybe we can modify the Googlemap extenion or maybe we will need to roll our own. The map-editor seems really cool, and that sort of point-n-click functionality is maybe desireable. But I'd also like to see some sort of look-up-a-geocode-by-address function for those cases when we know an address but don't want to track it down manually on the map to click on it and get the geocode.

I'm not very familiar with the SIMILE project and I looked a bit at the Exhibit portion tonight. It seems that they're still using Google for the mapping bit, but they're specifying their data in JSON. I'm not clear yet on how it could be adapted to SMW. I'm still getting my arms around how these attributes and relations work and how they can be used to filter and display data.

I think that after nailing down facts a bit, we will start to see how so-called unrelated information shares space. What will allow that is to be able to show different information all on the same map. Each layer will be able to be hidden or shown, and we will see the overlap and the separation. So, I guess as was said before: (automatically) Aggregated Maps are what's needed. -Trannie 01:20, 2 August 2007 (EDT)

wow, i think we all agree with you completely about absolutely needing automatically aggregating maps. But, i do believe the extension we are using has really light geocoding ability already, right? the search bar? George 09:58, 2 August 2007 (EDT)