Historic Site Navigator, G Latsch, 12/12/2011, UP794.

Historic Site Navigator, G Latsch, 12/12/2011, UP794

Historic Navigator

A Google Maps V3 Mashupfor the Curious

Greg LatschUP794

12/12/2011


Why did I chose this project?

• There’s much data about location but only some is spatially visualized.

• For this project using Historical Marker Database (HMDB.org), XML data about historical markers around the world.

• It’s georeferenced, linked, and available but has only limited mapping.


Why did I chose this project?

• A broader source is DBPedia.org. “A community effort to extract structured information from Wikipedia and to make this information available on the Web.”

• A multi-domain ontology based on the ideas of Tim Berners-Lee (who invented the web, really!). He said…

• “The Semantic Web…is about making links, so that a person or machine can explore the web of data.”

• Hope to include it in future versions.


What is its importance?

• Develop methods to liberate spatial insights are buried in data.– to encourage exploration– leading to insights and understanding.

• Using open-source software and data.

• That can be used without significant training.

• Google Fusion Tables start in this direction.


Who is the audience?

• There are several audiences…– the curious traveler: “What of historic

significance happened close to where I am?”– the student; “I’m writing a report about my

town. I wonder why the old mill is close to the railroad?”

– the researcher: “What impact did the fact that Aldo Leopold lived on the west side of Madison have on the evolution of the UW Arboretum (or vice versa)?”


The demo

• The Historic Site Navigator includes only markers found in…– Wisconsin– Michigan– Indiana– Illinois– Iowa– Minnesota.

• A subset of its world-wide collection.• It’s found at http://bit.ly/Historical_Navigator


How did I overcome problems?

– Problem: Some Google Map API V2 functions not yet implemented in V3 (e.g. Wikipedia overlay)

– Solution: Work within functions offered in V3



– Problem: DBPedia’s RDF SPARQL extract tool unfamiliar to me.

– Solution: Find another source (e.g. Historical Marker Database: HMDB.org).



– Problem: JavaScript intentionally blocks cross-domain data.

– Solution: Host data locally. However, this freezes the data until it’s refreshed.



– Problem: HMDB data stored as GPX, an XML variant designed to represent spatial data.

– Solution: Incorporated JQuery, a library of JavaScript code that includes functions to read XML.



– Problem: HMDB XML contained CDATA that JQuery won’t parse.

– Solution: Edited data to remove CDATA tags.


Anything not able to do?

• Fulfilled vision of project.

• Enhancements to explore including…– Add domains like weather, demographics, travel– filter by user’s interest– allow user to select points for subsequent action– export selected points to smart phone as itinerary

(“best” route is the Traveling Salesman problem) with turn-by-turn directions

– display only points in a buffer along a route

– Load only points in the viewport and a look-ahead margin to improve performance.


Suggestions and Questions?

• How could this be improved?

• On 11/21 you suggested restaurants, trails, shopping, galleries, landmarks, parks, and scenic overlooks.

• All are possible although some are already well served.

• Please visit the site…bitly.com/Historical_Navigator (careful, it’s a time waster)

• Give me your feedback…[email protected]


Thank You!


Historic Site Navigator, G Latsch, 12/12/2011, UP794.

Documents

v3 historic site navigator

xml data

historic significance

web of data

hmdb data

spatial data

edited data

host data