Flutterby™! : Maps & images 2005-06-29 05:13:04.974639+00

Maps & images

2005-06-29 05:13:04.974639+00 by Dan Lyke 13 comments

Thanks to Dori's suggestion, I've got an alternate view of last weekend's excursion.

And JavaScript for the World Wide Web Visual Quickstart Guide (aka "the JavaScript book") rocks and you should go buy lots of copies from the links on one of their web sites, like Backup Brain.

The map of the ride with embedded images is super rough, just playing with proof of concept stuff.

#Comment Re: made: 2005-06-29 11:20:14.065746+00 by: jeff [edit history]

Well done, Dan. This is very similar to the functionality I'd like to build/use for my 12K mile "four-corner" motorcycle trip I'm planning next summer. What I had in mind were little tacks (representing waypoints), and I'd like a click of the mouse (or a mouse-over) to display metadata such as date, lat/lon, and a thumbnail (a wee bit smaller than the images you are displaying). I'd also like the capability to "drill-down" into the waypoint for additional information (i.e. text writeup, more imagery). Make sense?

As I wrote last night, the first implementation of Google Earth seems to be very well executed, and may offer all of that functionality (free) as it evolves during the next year. The paid versions of the product already seem to support most of what I want:

Do you know of any alternatives or competition in this market space? I really like what you have put together so far!

Dan, Slick. Worked on my RH9 Linux and Firefox 1.0. - Nice thing about Tom and Dori's book is there stuff is very cross platform/browser.

Google Earth is not a Linux program yet, but it's on my list to install on a Winders machine soon.

#Comment Re: made: 2005-06-29 12:22:08.811938+00 by: jeff [edit history]

I think you'll be extremely impressed with most of what the "free" version of Google Earth offers. I'm not easily moved, but I was impressed within 5 minutes of using the product late last night. It's not perfect (a little more speed and a little more resolution would be nice), but it's damn good for a first release.

I'd be most interested to learn of any competing products or additional ideas in this area.

Jeff, my Windows

machine has a fried CPU right now, but it sounds an awful lot like World Wind.

Dan--I'd need to take another look at World Wind, but I believe this has a much smaller footprint (< 10 mb vs. 200 mb download), yet subjectively seemed to offer similar (or better performance). The layering functionality and the GPS interface seem to be a step up from World Wind, but I really didn't do a full evaluation of either product (only an hour or two of use under my belt).

Downloads are now being denied temporarily. I got it this morning, though, and it is indeed tres cool.

The next step would be to turn this into a scrollable map, although I'll set up a machine specifically to run the first World Wind, Google Earth or Earth Browser type app that has a good framework for user defined data and can handle a reasonable density (say 10-20k/state) of such things.

Dan and Meuon, thanks for the compliments! Yes, scripting that works cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-version matters to us, as does degradability for browsers that don't support scripting and surfers with scripting turned off.

Your page inspired me to finish my Flickr-type Test via CSS and JavaScript, only it works with Mozilla/Firefox only (I spent way too much time trying to get this to work on IE but decided I have better things to do with my life than trying to wrangle with IE).

#Comment Re: made: 2005-07-01 13:33:08.208278+00 by: jeff [edit history]

Did anyone download Google Earth and keep the installation file? (If I recall, it's rather large, around 4mb). A co-worker would like to try to install the application, but Google has stopped downloads of it. It's an amazing application.

Jeff, I have it but it's over 10Mb and my mailers won't allow me to forward it. Any other ideas on how to get it to you?

Ah, I see your update now, never mind. (Spoken in my best Emily Litela voice.) :->

Just a note: I recently decided to play around with the .kmz files Google Earth saves to and imports from. The "z" ending to the extension was the clue; renaming a file to .zip and unzipping it produces an xml-formatted "doc.kml" file. Feel free to play.