Planning for the upcoming Public Laboratory archive

This project is being led by Jeff Warren (website, design) and Stewart Long (data preparation)

The current status is: collating and converting map data and developing a front-page for context and introduction, and a search function

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Checklist

• media plan (outreach) (liz)
• suggested uses (shannon?)
• printed edition (see Posters project)
• Front page
  • http://publiclaboratory.org/archive
  • http://publiclaboratory.org/maps is just a listing page
  • Featured map
  • Multi-column layout, maybe removing “discussions” to make space
• “Request help mapping” box
• search function
• “embed”
• “How to use this data”
• Reach out to people involved in mapping, for "field notes" and those who may be able to use the data.

Lower priority:

• data compilation (an initial set) -- entering these into this page: http://publiclaboratory.org/maps

• no raw archive for:

  • http://archive.publiclaboratory.org/gulf-coast/2010-5-18-louisiana-chandeleur-psdswcu-east/, and siblings
  • http://archive.publiclaboratory.org/gulf-coast/2010-7-22-louisiana-wilkinsonbay-east/ and siblings
  • http://archive.publiclaboratory.org/gulf-coast/2010-6-18-mississippi-oceansprings/
  • http://archive.publiclaboratory.org/gulf-coast/2010-6-11-louisiana-lakeborgne/

Contact list

• Jon Fong jfong@indiana.edu, re: Grand Isle State Park
• Don and Justin Blancher, re: Perdido Point and others

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Older planning topics

Architecture

The 2 options are to have this be part of the Drupal site, which would be nice for code coherence, fewer platforms, and because the drupal site search would bring up datasets -- or as a Rails app, probably based on the MapMill.org site.

We may want an editorial barrier between MapMill and this site, and this site will expand to include data beyond balloon mapping missions. So I (Jeff) vote for Drupal. I think we may need a Drupal developer for this stuff, longer term, as I cannot keep up with Drupal maintenance and development.

OK, so we go with Drupal

Drupal data model

• use nodes as layers: http://drupal.org/node/886994

• Sites- one particular place mapping has been done

  • short description in text field, link to Place
  • contain missions (via tag)
  • each site should have a page at /data/region-name/site-name or /data/site-name
• Missions (would be Maps, but must scale to other types of data)
  • fields:
    • tms
    • kml
    • jpg
    • geotiff
    • mbtiles
    • google maps/openlayers viewer
    • polygon
    • capture date
    • comments
    • title
  • extra fields; maybe we dont need to be able to sort on this; could just be a text area for all of them? Just trying to avoid a huge infrastructure if possible.
    • link to ground photos (flickr, picasa)
    • resolution
    • mapmill link
    • kite vs. balloon vs. plane?
    • notes
    • authors
      • processors/stitchers/editors?
      • field mappers
  • each mission should have a page at /data/site-name/date
• Regions
  • short description in text field, link to Place
  • would say, based on Places, but gulf-coast? and other ones which don't have a persistent PLOTS presence, like wherecamp?
  • we could have a "misc" region. This all could be tag based
  • each region should have a page at /data/region-name

URL scheme and contents for subpages:

• /data/gulf-coast/ = region
  • listing of all sites from this region
• /data/region-name/site-name (from 2011-1-13-state-site-name format)
  • all missions/trips for this site, with /data/gulf-coast/date

Design

Front page:####

• a list and map of all data set sites
• listing sorted by recency, links to regions (gulf coast, gowanus)
• map with overlays of all data sets (or all checked data sets, or only for region pages)

Search

• by all available fields...

Misc

• MapBox for iPad, using gdal2mbtiles
• Android cached versions:
  • OSMDroid instructions for using MobileAtlasCreatorhttp://code.google.com/p/osmdroid/wiki/MobileAtlasCreator - for creating cached versions
  • MobileAtlasCreator: http://mobac.sourceforge.net/