(r12) DuckyInfoVisProject < Main

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---+ Ducky's Info Vis Project
[[http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~tmm/courses/cpsc533c-05-fall/projectdesc.html#proposals][Proposal specs]] -- my [[DuckyInfoVisProjectProposal][project proposal]]

---++ Current best idea: mashup Google Maps
   * darken all areas that are not within X meters of {grocery store, cafe, ATM, ...}
   * show different opacity/hue for different area levels
   * place little people (shape based on gender; color based on race) on a Gmap
   * have rollover that shows what districts a given point is in -- school district, US senate district, state rep district, city, water district, sanitation district, blah blah blah   (man, that would be useful!)
   * simply showing the tiger census tracts is hard!

---+++ Resources
   * [[http://www.boutell.com/gd/manual2.0.33.html][GD library]]
   * [[http://www.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/][GMaps API]]
   * [[http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-VML-19980513][VML]]  (not sure exactly what use this is for -- maybe undocumented?)
   * [[http://forge.gridforum.org/projects/dfdl-wg/][Data Format Description Language (DFDL)]]
   * [[http://gis.ednet.ns.ca/gis_uses_in_US.htm][various GIS data, including e.g. place names]]
   * [[http://www.andysocial.com/wiki/index.php/Imagery_Programs][microdem]]
   * [[http://brainoff.com/geocoder/gmaps.user.js][simple JS to load points from a remote file]]
   * [[http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000917034960/][annotated gmap howto]]
   * [[http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/gdas/gx_announce.Html][geodas sw from natl geophysical data center]]
   * [[http://gistoolkit.sourceforge.net/][gistoolkit]]
   * [[http://opensourcegis.org/][opensourcegis]]
   * [[http://mpa.itc.it/markus/grass60progman/main.html][GRASS GIS source]]
   * [[http://lists.maptools.org/pipermail/shapelib/2004-March/000052.html][pointer to code I might want...]]

---+++ Tasks 
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]] 

   * Find good shapefiles
      * [[http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/][TIGER database]]
      * [[http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tgrcd108/tgr108cd.html][more on TIGER]]
      * [[http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tgrcd108/tgr108cd.pdf][TIGER/Line format doc]]
      * [[http://www.flsenate.gov/senateredistricting/freds_data.cfm][Florida shapefiles]]
      * [[http://proximityone.com/tractscv.htm][Tutorial for Community Viewer]]
      * [[http://proximityone.com/tlfgeocoder.htm][Prox geocoder]]
      * [[http://www.esri.com/data/download/census2000_tigerline/description.html][ESRI Tiger shapefiles]]
         * [[http://shapelib.maptools.org/][Shapefile C library]]
         * [[http://shapelib.maptools.org/shp_api.html][.shp API]]
         * [[http://shapelib.maptools.org/shapelib-tools.html][shapelib utilities]]
         * [[http://www.esri.com/censuswatch/sf1_ref.html][easily available demographic data]]
   * Figure out algorithm for determining what tracts are visible on any given map
   * Figure out algorithm for drawing tracts on gmap
   * Figure out algorithm for how to resize overlays on zoom (need to remove and replace?)

   * Find candidates for area data 
      * http://graphics.stanford.edu/~klingner/online_databases.html
      * [[http://countingcalifornia.cdlib.org/][Counting California]]
      * census -- too much data?  
      * services: grocery, restaurants, bookstore, bank, bus stop, etc -- scrape Yahoo YP?
      * Calif STAR scores -- how get data on school district boundaries?
      * EPA data -- too much?
   * Select area data

   * Figure out how to create PNG 
      * Try out GD library (<nop>ImageMagick as backup)
   * <strike>Figure out how to overlay one png on static map</strike>
   * <strike>Figure out how to overlay another png when map is recentered</strike>
   * Decide how/figure out how to convert data into PNG

   * Code to convert data into PNG
   * Code to overlay images 
   * Code to pass scrolling information from overlay to map (so can "drag" map even with an overlay on top 

   * (aggressive) sliders to allow changing the parameters of the 
   * (aggressive) checkboxes to allow combining data sets
   * (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>

Possibly duplicate:
   * Explore different color bars in hope of finding something better
   * Find good shapefiles
   * Develop a simple test suite for PNG manipulation 
   * Write code to create PNG from one known polygon extracted from shapefile; overlay on Google Maps
   * Write code to create PNG from several known polygons extracted from shapefile; overlay on Google Maps
   * Write code to create PNG from several known polygons, shaded with data from dBASE file; overlay on Google Maps

   * Given zoom level and map lat/long boundaries, figure out how to tell which polygons are visible
   * Write code to retrieve a polygon based on lat/long.
   * Write code to create PNG from lat/long boundaries at default zoom level
   * Figure out how to aggregate data from multiple polygons 
   * Write code to aggregate data
   * Modify code to create PNG from lat/long/zoom data
   * Overlay images dynamically on Google Maps

   * (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
 

 

---++ Scratch
   * So far I know:
      * lines are easy
      * points are easy
      * icons are easy
      * shaded shapes: maybe with VML?  maybe with one honkin' big icon?
      * mucking with the image directly is hard (given constraints of licensing, speed)
      * geocoding is hard
      * getting local services info is hard?
   * Yahoo also has API
   * MS also has API -- less functional and less well-documented tha Google API

---+ Things to note in the report
   * What color scale?  Used [[http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/c/a/cab38/ColorBrewer/ColorBrewer_intro.html][Color Brewer]] as a starting point, but opacity meant that their colors weren't really right.  Bumped up the saturation considerably, colors still hard to distinguish.  Perhaps go for lots of indistinguishable steps?
   * What is the performance?  Will this scale?  How many resources would be needed to show the whole US, and at what cost?
   * Users get to keep context since map visible underneath.
Topic revision: r12 - 2005-11-14 - DuckySherwood
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