Archive Planning

This is a revision from August 31, 2011 00:33. View all revisions

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: Up and running, comment system with geolocated comments is in the pipeline. Some zoom-level issues on OpenLayers maps.

media plan (outreach) (liz)
printed edition (see Posters project)
search function
“embed”
Reach out to people involved in mapping, for "field notes" and those who may be able to use the data.

Map Archive Outline and Backup Structure (Server and DVD)

formats
- http://publiclaboratory.org/wiki/map-formats
paths
- parent directory:
- http://archive.publiclaboratory.org/site-name/date-year-month-day-state(or region)-city(or sub-region)-exact place name (optional)
- example http://archive.publiclaboratory.org/cambridge/2011-6-22-massachusetts-cambridge-mit-knightcivicmediaconference/
site root directory organization:
- README.txt - explanatory text file
- site-name.tif - Spherical mercator un-georeferenced Tiff image
- site-name-geotiff.tif - GeoTIFF is a public domain metadata standard which allows georeferencing information to be embedded within a TIFF file.
- site-name-geotiff.zip - DVDs will offer .zip compressed GeoTiffs to save disk space.
- site-name.jpg - full-resolution JPG based on the GeoTiff
- site-name-tms/ - a folder containing TMS folders and map tiles - TMS is a specification for storing and retrieving tiled mapping data. This will include an OpenLayers-based HTML viewer for reading/exploring it in a web browser.
- /raw - directory of original images
- site-name-raw.zip - archive of original images

Example root directory for DVD:

/2010-5-7-louisiana-portfourchon/2010-5-7-louisiana-portfourchon-raw.zip
/2010-5-7-louisiana-portfourchon/2010-5-7-louisiana-portfourchon.jpg
/2010-5-7-louisiana-portfourchon/2010-5-7-louisiana-portfourchon-geotiff.zip
/2010-5-7-louisiana-portfourchon/2010-5-7-louisiana-portfourchon-tif.zip
/2010-5-7-louisiana-portfourchon/2010-5-7-louisiana-portfourchon-tms/

To do

Raw data missing for:
Many/most map archive entries list a PREVIEW quality jpg in their JPG field; they ought to list a full-res JPG as generated by: http://publiclaboratory.org/wiki/gdal-commands
Geotiff missing for point aux chenes map
need new name for 2010-12-4-missisippi dataset which is more descriptive
http://archive.publiclaboratory.org/gulf-coast/2010-10-22-louisiana-pointeauxchenes-deeplake/tms/openlayers.html doesn't load

Contact list

Jon Fong jfong@indiana.edu, re: Grand Isle State Park
Don and Justin Blancher, re: Perdido Point and others
USGS contact (via Brenda something) -- asked for formats, now we have 'em!

Completed tasks

* data compilation (an initial set) -- entering these into this page: http://publiclaboratory.org/maps * breadcrumbs back to main archive page * suggested uses (shannon?) * 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 * “How to use this data”

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/

Public Lab Wiki documentation