Category: Coding

Software code that I have written, or tips for doing computery type stuff.

The Continuing Saga of Map Making

So, I’ve decided to use the yahoo/flash option because it looks better, and it’s a bit easier to implement. The biggest impediment is not having geocodes for each item in the database. Here are some steps that must be taken before the map can work.

  1. The database needs to add a longitude and latitude field for items.
  2. Each item then needs their long/lat entered in.
  3. After that happens use the commented code below in the xml.php file:
  1. //$sql = “SELECT item_title, item_description, item_longlat FROM items ORDER BY item_date”;

There’s a couple of options for the field names and what they contain. This is, of course, all to be determined by the Omeka makers, and not me, but here’s my take on it anyway.

  1. item_longlat = would hold the longitude and latitude in format lon,lat
  2. item_long & item_lat = hold the long and lat separately, that might be cool for searching on items that are on the same long or lat.
  3. item_geocode = same as item_longlat, but a different name.

As for the Flash introduction, I still need to get the list of events that should be displayed. I also played with creating a new flash intro based on the new yahoo map of Europe, and the style of the markers. I’ll also need to think of a way to deal with markers whose information would tend to go off screen. I’ll have to make them ‘stage’ aware, or place them individually.

The last item is creating a map, that, when a country is clicked on, will return all of the items from that country. A couple of options on that are to have it return a yahoo map with markers showing items from that country, or to just return a normal list.

I think I’ll Yahoo!

I did some more researching and playing around with the Yahoo and Flash options and I think this will be the better way.  As an example of why, look at Justin Everett-Church’s work creating custom ‘themes’ for the maps.

Also in my search I came across some neato projects Trippermap plots your flickr photos on a map that you can host or plug into your own web page.

Plazes.com if for those of you who like to let everyone know where you are at any moment of the day. A bit too much of an information overload for me, but there’s 6 billion people in this world, so there’s bound to be a few thousand that get hooked by this idea.

Of course Flickr’s own map deal would be the ideal set up for this project. I’ll get some of the functionality, but it would be awesome to get something like this going.

I’ll be back with more results…

To Google, or not to Google. That is the question.

So, I am now in the stage where I decide how to plot the objects from the database onto a map. The question becomes, which map technology do I use. There are several options.

  1. Google Map, using the Google Map API.
  2. Yahoo! Maps, using the Yahoo! Maps API
  3. Build the map in Flash.
  4. Some form of GIS map.

The first two are relatively easy to accomplish. I just need to pull the info from the database (the longitude and latitude if available, or at least the city and country), make an xml file from that. Have the map page read that xml file for plotting and displaying. The issues with these two methods are getting them to properly display in all browsers, and figuring out how to work the API’s to get the map to look like I want it to.

The third option (Flash) will be much more difficult. It would be really easy to make the map look like I want, but I’m not sure how the plotting of the points would work. I would think each object would have to be identified with a certain point on the Flash movie stage. I don’t know how to be able to use the longitude and latitude to place the objects in the right place on the map. I actually just did a quick search and found this article which might swing the tide to a ‘mashup’ of both 2 and 3, Yahoo! and Flash.

The last option is to use a form of GIS map. While these can generate some pretty cool looking maps, it is mostly due to geographical data compiled by others (elevation, population density, political boundaries, etc). It would require learning a whole new set of tools, programs and technology.

I’m going to try the Yahoo! and Flash setup and see if that will do what I need it to.

Phase 2 – plot the objects on a map

I started thinking and researching for phase 2 of the internship tonight. Plotting all of the objects that a student selects as their “My Favorites” on a map. There seems to be a number of options available, and the most usable seems to be a combination of yahoo maps and flash.

A quick search of the Internets pulled up this page from one of the makers of PHP. Rasmus’ Toys Page has a great writeup on how to mash yahoo maps, flash and GeoCodes into a neato map. What I like best about this (besides the flashy eye-candy – pun intended) is the ability this set up has to automatically grab the longitude and latitude from as little as the city and state. I’m not sure how well it will work for places outside of the US, but theoretically all of the objects in the database will have their GeoCodes as part of their metadata.

Oh, and since I haven’t done a snapshot of the progress on the Flash movie, here’s the latest. Each of the targets are clickable, so you can have a better chance to see the text in the bubble.  I should have put a version from between this and the one before… but I was working feverishly to make it look good. I’ve spent way too much time trying to make it look good. I desperately need some design skills.

I know the country outlines by heart

I now know the country outlines in Eastern Europe by heart. I could probably draw them in the dark. Contrary to the previous posts claim, I didn’t figure out the trick. It’s not actually the brush tool, but it is the pen tool I need to use. And most importantly WITH THE OBJECT SELECTION OFF!!! I’ve spent many, many hours redrawing, coloring, and making the map look good. Jessica (my wonderful and more artistically talented wife) gave me some great pointers on the color scheme I should be using. The better red is a result of her better judgment.

Aaaargh…. maps.

Well, all of my time tonight was spent on drawing and re-drawing most of the country outlines in order to get the effects that I want. I didn’t get much done on progression of the movie/intro, but I figured a few things out… Like draw with the paint brush instead of the pencil.

I went to a meeting with Mills and others about the ‘tools’ for the 1989 project. The part that applied to me, is a better and distinct idea of what my project will do. It is three parts:

  1. Create a flash movie (the very thing I’m working on), that depicts certain key events that led to the fall of communism. This will have the main purposes of presenting the events on a map and time line so that students can get better place the events in time and place. The movie will also show how the movement to end communism started in the north and moved south. This movie will just be an intro, available as a resource.
  2. The second part of the project (the internship) is to create a way to display the objects that a student has selected as their ‘My Favorites’ on a map and/or time line.  There are some key technical issues that must be addressed before this can really happen. Firstly, none of the objects in the database have geo-codes associated with them.  Secondly, the code/program that is going to be used is not finished yet, and won’t be until the summer. So that means this part of the project will be a simple page that pulls data from the database and plots it on a map. More a proof of concept, than a working prototype.
  3. The last part is to create a map (either an image map, a flash map, or something like that) for navigation and searching the database. When a country is clicked on, all objects in the database associated with that country are returned. Using Flash would enable the user to zoom in on a country and select a city or something.

Anyhow, here’s the newest version of the 1989 intro movie.

A better looking map

Wow. That took a long time! I spent the whole evening working on making a better looking map. I almost had a bit of a scare as well, that all the work I put into tracing the outline of the land masses and the country lines would not turn out. My Flash skills are quite rusty. But thanks to a few tutorials from WebWasp, I figured out the need to draw in ‘Merge Drawing’ mode rather than ‘Object Drawing’ mode. I had drawn all of the lines with the paint brush using ‘Object Drawing’ mode. This made it impossible to use the paint bucket tool to fill in with color. Fortunately, WebWasp came to the rescue with a tip on how to overcome that problem. I simply selected all of the paint brush lines which were objects. Then in Modify->Combine Objects, select ‘Union’. This makes all of the objects into one object. Then in Modify menu again, select ‘Break Apart.’ This makes all of the lines behave, and I could use the paint bucket to fill the land masses with grey and the water with blue. It look pretty snazzy now.

What did I learn of historical importance today… Well, it struck me how arbitrary the dividers and barriers are that humans place on each other. There are divisions such as speech, but really, why did the border between Norway and Sweden end up where it did and not elsewhere? Only because that’s where humans decided it should go. The only real border is between water and land. I thought back on a geography class I had as an undergraduate. That was a really cool class. I love maps. I’ll look at them for hours if I could. That class would totally have convinced me to switch majors to geography, if it wasn’t the very last class I had to take to graduate with my BA in History AND BA in German. It was the only class I had that semester, too. Despite the great temptation to goof off and just get a passing grade, I worked hard and pulled my overall GPA up by enough points to graduate Magna Cum Laude. Well, I digress…

Next step… Probably put some real data into the map. Have the flash points line up with real events. Then add a bubble of text to explain which event the flash point refers to. I’ll change the flash point too. Perhaps I’ll use the hamsickle (the hammer and sickle).

Ah, yes. Almost forgot. Here’s the next version of the 1989 map.

Making a map, part 2

So, I spent another 4 hours working on the Flash map. Mills showed me some really great Flash maps for inspiration. They live at MapsOfWar.com. I like the History of Religion map and the Imperial History map for their use of the timeline and map to convey the information. I want the 1989 map to be similar. The MapsOfWar maps are great reference points, and good examples from which to glean style ideas.

I must say the hardest part of this project so far is the design. I’m no graphic artist, for sure. My attempts at creating something that looks cool are quite pitiful. I can copy and mimic other people’s works, but trying to put my ideas into something concrete is difficult. I should take some art classes.

Anyhow. I worked on Scene 2 of the Flash intro. Getting a decent looking timeline took little effort. Creating the hammer and sickle (the hamsickle) that moves along the timeline was a bit time consuming. At first I used an image from Wikipedia (it was free). But scaling that in the timeline made it distorted and choppy. So I redrew the whole thing in Flash so that it is made from vectors, and scales nicely.

Then I decided that using a single color map with the outline of the countries would work better than using the map I borrowed from the CIA (found it at the Library of Congress’ online map collection). So I started tracing the country outlines. Soon I’ll have a decent looking map of East Europe that I can copy and manipulate in different ways.

I also added some flash points to the timeline. They’re nothing fancy, and don’t correspond to any real data. I’ll get that stuff later.

View the progress so far.

Map research

GIS and Google:

GIS would be a bit complex for this project. It is mainly used for displaying geographic data (ie. population density, economic diversity, elevation changes, etc), rather than pinpointing an items’ location.  While GIS does make some really cool maps, it is beyond the scope and needs of this internship.

Google maps, on the other hand, are more in line with things we would like to do. There are already many similar applications found throughout the web. Some examples are “home grown” at CHNM, like the Hurricane Archive, and 911 archive.

The deciding factors will be the options that work best for our needs (which are outlined in a previous post).