(r7) DuckyInfoVisMilestones < Main

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---++ Ducky's Info Vis Milestones

---+++ AIs
   * try caching with the [[http://mapki.com/index.php?title=Add_Your_Own_Custom_Map][mapki technique]]
      * got the maps mostly working
   * make overlay transparent with [[http://www.kokogiak.com/gmaps-transparencies.html][kodiak]] technique
   * look into changing the color table in PNG files with gd
      * http://www.boutell.com/gd/manual2.0.33.html#gd2format
   * make test4.html dynamicly generated -- use window.location.search to get the query string
      * see qstring.html for how to get qstring
   * use arg0 to determine where the min and max cutoffs are; link to all those
  
  

---+++ Current worries
   * speed, speed, speed
   * What are storage needs?
      * in Palo Alto, .005 degrees long for 500 pixels at max zoom in => 100,000 pixels / degree
      * in Palo Alto, .002 degrees lat for 300 pixels at max zoom in => 150,000 pixels / degree
      * US is about (-66 to -124) 58 degrees wide => 12,000 images wide (at 5K apiece)
      * US is about (32 to 48) 16 degrees tall => 8,000 images tall (at 5K apiece)
      * so at max zoom level, 96M images to cover the whole US * 5K => 480G
      * roughly powers of two as zoom out; 15 zoom levels before whole US fits (after that, it's just silly?)
      * so roughly 2*480G worth of space needed for whole US, or about 1000G
      * if it takes about 5 sec to render a little one =>
      
   * <strike>What are units of areas?</strike>
   * What if different browsers don't work? -- tant pis for now
   * caching
   * How do I deal with the huge dynamic range?
      * Offer several:
         * Which?
         * How does user switch between them?
   * Do I allow people to change range on the fly?
   * <strike>How do I capture clicks through the overlay (the [[http://www.kokogiak.com/gmaps-transparencies.html][map/satellite lens]] uh-oh does things differently).</strike>
   * Speed speed speed
   * <strike>LD_LIBRARY_PATH / static libraries nonsense</strike>

---+++ Ducky's Info Vis Tasks
   * Explore different color bars
   * <strike>Thoroughly understand and document how census bureau data fits together</strike>

   * Develop a simple test suite for PNG manipulation 
   * <strike>Write code to create PNG from one known polygon extracted from shapefile; overlay on Google Maps</strike>
   * <strike>Write code to create PNG from several known polygons extracted from shapefile; overlay on Google Maps</strike>
   * <strike>Write code to create PNG from several known polygons, shaded with data from population file; overlay on Google Maps</strike>

   * <strike>Given zoom level and map lat/long boundaries, figure out how to tell which polygons are visible</strike> 
      * test better
   * <strike>Write code to create PNG from lat/long boundaries at one zoom level</strike>
   * <strike>Write code to retrieve a polygon based on lat/long.</strike>
   * <strike>Port code to Dreamhost</strike>
   * <strike>Plug code into CGI</strike>
   * <strike>Figure out how to redraw with panning</strike>
   * <strike>Write code to deal with panning via controls</strike>
   * Figure out how to drag the overlay (ulp, what if not possible?)
   * Figure out how to aggregate data from multiple polygons -- maybe not needed?
   * Write code to aggregate data
   * <strike>Modify code to create PNG from lat/long/zoom data</strike>
   * <strike>Overlay images dynamically on Google Maps</strike>

   * (aggressive) Add sliders to allow changing the parameters of the image (e.g transparency, hue)
   * (aggressive) Add radio buttons to change data sets
   * (aggressive) Allow user to choose from several different years of data
   * (extremely aggressive) allow semi arbitrary data to be mapped 
      * design with XML format
      * design interactive 
      * <strike>find information about Mike Beckerle's data description language</strike>
 

---+++ Proofs of concept:
   * [[http://www.webfoot.com/gmaps/test.html][simple walking duck]]
   * [[http://www.webfoot.com/gmaps/test4.html][two overlays]]
   * [[http://www.kokogiak.com/gmaps-transparencies.html][overlay transparent Google Maps over Google satellite images]] 



---+++ Promised milestones

   * <strike>4 November: Proposal finished</strike> %Y%
   * <strike>13 November: One PNG file generated with one polygon extracted from dataset, requiring:</strike>
      * <strike>extracting polygons with the Shapefile C library</strike>
      * <strike>extracting the appropriate demographic data from the dataset with the Shapefile C library and the data files</strike>
      * <strike>associating polygon <->demographic data</strike>
      * <strike>understanding the gd library well enough to generate a PNG with a transparent polygon</strike>
   * 20 November: Functional panning, perhaps limited to one US state and perhaps slow, requiring:
      * <strike>determining which polygons will be visible given lat/long bounds</strike>
      * <strike>iterating through visible polygons, drawing each</strike>
      * plugging overlays into the Google Maps API
   * 4 December: Functional zooming
      * determining which polygons will be visible given lat/long bounds and zoom level
      * aggregating lower-level data (note that I do not think this is trivial)
      * killing small code gremlins
   * 11 December: Performance tuning and bug fixes done, probably requiring finishing:
      * pre-processing census bureau data into a form that is easier to extract quickly
      * prefetching of neighboring overlays
      * caching previously-used overlays
      * killing large code gremlins
   * 16 December: Status update due, requiring
      * bibliography done
      * writing done
   * 19 December: Final due date, requiring
      * learning <nop>LaTeX
      * coercing text into journal format
      * killing <nop>LaTeX gremlins


 
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Topic revision: r7 - 2005-12-12 - DuckySherwood
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