Improved Member Map

[tilt]

yeay... it got my position right... I DO live on a small dingy in the middle of the ocean between denmark and sweden - cool *lol* ... but love the zoom action, and adding member avatars would be COOL. Actually, it would be REALLY cool, if we could put a pin in a map when we register (and on our profile) to show where we live and those coordinates transfer to the official map

[Redrobes]

Its a lot zippier now. Maybe it was just overloaded. But that does bring up a good point. The existing maps are all Guild internal. Would we want to have 3rd party web site stuff on the members map.

Although I too am way off of the right location I assume that this is something that can be fixed if Hai was given the lat long coords instead of ripping the pixel positions off the old map.

With the few zoom levels on the old map I didn't think there was much call to have it any more accurate but if this is something that people want then this is a neat solution. Maybe we should leave this link around for a while then put up a voting thread for leave old or go with new.

I guess we should also know something else, we have a form based web page to ask the user for their ID and location coord and store that on the guild site. How would we enter new members coords into the new system. Do we format up a new text file when a new member adds and the new map page will look to that file and put all the pins in as required. Whats the process that the OpenLayers needs / Are you able to post a sample GeoJSON file with two peoples locations put in and I'll see if I can get the old script to make one of them up for you. Then we can have both types of members map at the same time.

[Hai-Etlik]

Its a lot zippier now. Maybe it was just overloaded. But that does bring up a good point. The existing maps are all Guild internal. Would we want to have 3rd party web site stuff on the members map.

Well, it's possible to run a map service that could be used in place of the OSM Mapnik layer using software like GeoServer or MapServer, and there are various alternatives like Tiles@home, Cloud Made, Bing, and Google. You can even have several and let the user pick. Cloud Made, Bing, and Google all require signing up for API keys, which is why I've stuck to the OSM Mapnik layer so far.

I guess we should also know something else, we have a form based web page to ask the user for their ID and location coord and store that on the guild site. How would we enter new members coords into the new system. Do we format up a new text file when a new member adds and the new map page will look to that file and put all the pins in as required. Whats the process that the OpenLayers needs / Are you able to post a sample GeoJSON file with two peoples locations put in and I'll see if I can get the old script to make one of them up for you. Then we can have both types of members map at the same time.

GeoJSON is pretty simple, this is what I used for the first example.

{ "type": "FeatureCollection", 
                    "features": [
                        {"type":"Feature", "geometry": {"type":"Point", "coordinates":[-79.1, 43.1]}, "properties":{"username":"RobA", "avatar":"http://www.cartographersguild.com/customavatars/avatar768_40.gif"}},    
                        {"type":"Feature", "geometry": {"type":"Point", "coordinates":[-123.66, 48.784]}, "properties":{"username":"Hai-Etlik", "avatar":"http://www.cartographersguild.com/customavatars/thumbs/avatar9958_2.gif"}},    
                        {"type":"Feature", "geometry": {"type":"Point", "coordinates":[0, 51.51]}, "properties":{"username":"ravells"}}
                    ]
                };

It's really just a nested set of javascript hash tables with a bunch of constraints on how they are arranged.

It can either be embedded directly in the page with the map (as I've done with my demos), or loaded via AJAX. The properties section is pretty much freeform tagged data. I've got "username" and "avatar" but it could be any data the generating script can provide. I've dropped the avatar property from ravells' entry to demonstrate.

[RobA]

Unfortunately that's Windows and MacOS only since it uses a plugin.

grumble grumble - api changes...
Updated it and it should not try and start google earth - no plugins required...
http://ffaat.pointclark.net/gmtest/cgmembers.php

-Rob A>

[Redrobes]

Our location data doesn't have the avatar in there directly so if we drop that then making that JSON file is a doddle. If you can load it from the guild via an http request then its not an issue.

So we could do that if people don't mind their location being given out more accurately than it has been done so before. I think we need to have a discussion about that aspect and whether its worth proceeding to this kind of map. My sig has the current one link in it so there are 3 links to 3 types of map in this thread. Lets have some opinions from people.

Rob, your map is pretty cool too. It seems as tho we have many more members since you must have generated that last location list tho.

[Hai-Etlik]

Our location data doesn't have the avatar in there directly so if we drop that then making that JSON file is a doddle. If you can load it from the guild via an http request then its not an issue.

Well, I was hoping the script running on the guild's host would have access to that, and maybe the URI for the user's profile page, but in its absence, just leave it out of the properties and the script degrades gracefully. Doing it from OpenLayers would seem to require using AJAX, traversing a redirect, and then screen scraping.

So we could do that if people don't mind their location being given out more accurately than it has been done so before. I think we need to have a discussion about that aspect and whether its worth proceeding to this kind of map. My sig has the current one link in it so there are 3 links to 3 types of map in this thread. Lets have some opinions from people.

Well, the script generating the GeoJSON could round to any desired precision, and/or add a random jitter. The zoom levels can also be constrained to avoid implying false precision if this were done.

[Hai-Etlik]

OK, here it is with the data in an external JSON file:

http://draconic.ca/foo5.html
http://draconic.ca/guildmembers.json

[RobA]

Well, I was hoping the script running on the guild's host would have access to that, and maybe the URI for the user's profile page, but in its absence, just leave it out of the properties and the script degrades gracefully. Doing it from OpenLayers would seem to require using AJAX, traversing a redirect, and then screen scraping.

Well, the script generating the GeoJSON could round to any desired precision, and/or add a random jitter. The zoom levels can also be constrained to avoid implying false precision if this were done.

We have collected the user data using a separate script that has it in csv format. That is the file I downloaded to my server and now have driving the googlemap api demo at http://ffaat.pointclark.net/gmtest/cgmembers.php

If I write a php module inside the vbulletin framework I can directly access the database and pull (for example) use avatars.

There is a location field in the user profiles. I could alternately try accessing/geolocating that. Does openstreetmaps have a geolocate API? I know googlemaps now does.

-Rob A>

[Hai-Etlik]

There is a location field in the user profiles. I could alternately try accessing/geolocating that. Does openstreetmaps have a geolocate API? I know googlemaps now does.

Yes, it's called Nominatim: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim

I'm not sure I'd trust a geocoder with a field that gets used in such freeform ways. There are a lot of entries that aren't conventional place names but might get 'recognized' in interesting ways. For instance, "Over There" produces a match in Nominatim for "Down Over There Avenue, Wickenburg, Arizona".

[Yandor]

OK, here it is with the data in an external JSON file:

http://ffaat.pointclark.net/gmtest/cgmembers.php

So I donno about you guys but this is freakishly close to where i live haha nice job, its interesting to see where this has been going!