[Map Module] Enhancements for Photographic Maps/Routes (SUMMARY)
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eduo
Joined: 2003-09-10
Posts: 107 |
Posted: Tue, 2006-01-31 11:13
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Posted as feature request in the Sourceforge's Project Page Cross-posted with Tech Zone's Module Development forum to gather responses and opinions. From what I've seen of other messages and my own experience I think I can summarize what people are trying to say (myself included) when a "photo map" is referred. We start with this: And we may also have this (ideally but not necessarily): The end result we want is: What we may all not be completely in agreement is how this should be presented. There have been several options mentioned of what people would like so let me try to pitch an option here that might work for everyone. I see it a map with photos having three separate steps (which could be optional or automatic, as we can see later) that can be done sequentially or simultaneously (moving from one mode to another depending on context) 1.-Laying down the route (could be done automatically using a GPX file or manually). Optional. 2.-Placing down the photos. Manual or automatic (by comparing the datestamp on the photos if there is a GPX logfile to cross-reference or automatically if the photos have geo-location data) 3.-Presentation. Not mentioned directly in other feature requests but more important than what's being acknowledged. Not only if the maps should have pre-defined size and/or the kind of map it should use (satellite, map, hybrid) but also the kind of markers that should be used, how the photos should be displayed and how is the user expected to navigate them. o. Step 1 - Define the map o. Step 2 - Load the Photos If no geocoding exists in the photos and the GPX file is not timestamped then manual placement is the only way to go. Continuing with the example above the map that already shows the route (or not) can be put in another "mode". We already had "Recording mode" so now there could be the "Picture mode" where a click assigns a photo or "photo group" (more on this later, it addressed the "I take a bunch of pictures from the same place" concern) marker. One click places a placeholder and pops-up the ajax picture browser (pulling pictures from the album itself, with an interface similar to the WPG2 Image Browser[3], which can be cancelled for later edit. The final map just with placeholder could look something like a pedometer map with markers set[4] (markers in Gmap-Pedometer are mile markers but for demonstration purposes they work). A placeholder or icon could be edited and changed at any moment if in "Edit" mode. Editing would bring a screen or popup where the placeholder can be set to: a.-Marker: Just some text and or link attached to a point in the map. When selecting (a) the user would get a choice of icon to put and text, HTML may be allowed, at least <a> and style tags. When selecting (b) the user would get an image chooser from the current album or, if programmatically possible, from any album (this would break the Gmap-as-theme idea, but would work for special Gmap-albums, not "real" G2 albums) and the caption and description fields optionally (can be included or not), along with edit fields for these. The icon for these could be pre-defined or selectable (I personally would put a camera icon, as well as 8-directional camera icons, as well as icon for "person", "group" and "point of interest"). When selecting (c) the user would get a "container" for pictures, each one selected in the same way as (b) above (but caption and description settings would apply for all pictures in the "container"). The marker would have a choice of icons contextual to a "group" as well. (I wouldn't have the same icons available for each of the categories above, but that's me) o.- Step 3 - Editing the "album" (quotes because it may not end up being a "true" album from G2). The final step would be to set the general settings of the map itself. Apart from the obvious (satellite/map view, Metric/English, width/height, zoom controls, etc.) I think of the following: - Playback controls: Jump to the next or previous picture in the series (or the next marker). Play/Stop to see as a slideshow. Epilogue: I know this is a LOT and I know it will sound like I'm a capricious brat demanding things for a module I can't even use at the moment (long story) but I truly think the layout above could cover almost every conceivable use of the Gmap-Module in Gallery or even in a standalone application. I offer myself to help in any way I can (including but not limited to translation (into mexican and Spanish Spanish) and testing(when 2.1's APIs are supported)) I also understand that this would make this one of the possibly most complicated and complete Google-Map tools out there. This post was spawned by Termitenshort in the G2 Forums and a single quoted line from him: Termitenshort: "Man we'll never be done." I tried to think up a way to gather everything that's been requested from this tool in a single place, along with how I think it could be made to work together and include functionality that would probably be requested afterwards. As far as I see I didn't include anything that could clash G2 or need anything else from G2 not being done right now so hopefully no G2 incompatibilities would be introduced. It's possible that the Maps-Module ends up being a separate application that works embedded to G2, considering how complicated it could become. Regards and congratulations on the fabulous job you guys've done.w [1] Gmap-Pedometer: [2] Sample Gmap-Pedometer Route (no markers): [3] WPG2 Image Chooser: http://g2image.steffensenfamily.com/index.php?title=Main_Page [4] Sample Gmap-Pedometer Route with markers: NOTE: You can see I've mentioned the Pedometer a lot. This is because I use it a lot. I like it but I'd really prefer to have the routes in my own gallery and linked to my own photos, which I can't do right now (I have done image maps from screenshots of the pedometer, but that's cumbersome) NOTE2: I haven't included screenshots from all I mentioned because I've written this in the office (you can tell it's a slow day) and I don't have the tools here. I plan on doing some mock-ups if the dev team for the Gmap-module is interested. I did try to be clear and structure the ideas the best I could, though. |
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Posts: 1894
I have closed the 4 bugs that you open with this feature request and move 1 of them to the fature request section of the project
HERE
Not all is lost !
I will take a closer look when time permit (probably tonight) and let you know what can/cannot/willnot be done
At a VERY high level it seems do-able and some things are already in place as you may be able to see when you can get your gallery in working order ;)
See you
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The Termite
Posts: 107
Really? I opened them as bugs? I don't understand. I didn't submit more than once and I was sure I was in the feature request section (I went there after your suggestion).
I've just seen the ones you closed. I'm really sorry. I had to restart the browser three times while doing this so that may have had something to do with it.
Weird.
Eduo
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www.eduo.info
www.eduo.info/gallery/
www.hamsterspit.com
Posts: 1894
That's no problem, I just like to tease people
Anyway I will study the request tonight, there is quite a bit of things I have to think about to give you as complete an answer as the request....
Thanks for the explaination.
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The Termite
Posts: 4
This is something I'm very much interested in! The last time I worked with Gallery 2 (Sept'05) I didn't notice that there was a map module available. I ended up doing my own work to extract Lat/Long geocoding from EXIF headers (the EXIF module didn't extract them at the time) and to display that information on in a G2 installation along with links to Google Maps.
One of my goals was to do "trip albums" -- where I would go on a road trip or vacation, taking photos along the way and geocoding them when I got back (dashboard mounted GPS providing GPX file.) I then wanted to plot them on a map just as Eduo describes (although I'm comfortable with doing all my geocoding outside of G2 using M$ Location Stamper.)
I hope to reinstall/update my copy of G2 and get your Map module installed this afternoon - from your change logs it looks like you've got photo plotting working based on EXIF headers already??
For Step 2 - B. Markers, couldn't a "Marker photo" be added to an album (or sub-album) by the map module? The Marker photo in the album could then include all the normal info that a regular photo would have, including text and html.
Hoping I can help in some small way,
Mike C.
Posts: 1894
Yeah, it's not "Automated" at this point but actually works where you "Edit" a photo and on the "Google Map" tab you can click a button to auto-populate the coordinates.
I'm not sure what you mean.
If you're asking if a picture could be added to an album with GPS coordinates and so shows up in the map -> yes
If you're asking something else then I'm an idiot and I need more infos.
I tend to not understand a thing these days
Posts: 1894
mcortez
Also, if you want more information about the module itself, you can check out the wiki. you will be able to see that there is already many,many, many hour of programming put into this module and it has quite a bit of a feature set.
We're not done developping (quite far actually) but there is already a bunch of things
The road ahead is pretty long and right this moment, the developpement is a bit stalled due to various changes in the google api at the same time there are changes in the gallery API (currently map module only works for Gallery 2.0.x, not the latest CVS version)
Plzz create a new thread if you find anything that ain't working right with the current version. You can also create bugs/feature requests in the sourceforge project page
See you
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The Termite
Posts: 107
Termiten:
I think mcortez is referring to a point I made about markers. Placeholders in the map that are not related to photos or photogroups. From what I understand he means that these could appear in albums just like a normal photo would. I had thought something similar to this but just because to me each marker would be editable, so it could change from being a text marker to a photo marker or a photogroup marker.
I'm not sure, though, so an example from Mike might help understanding it better.
If this is so the same problem with photogroups appears, and that is that only one of these three is an actual photo reference from an album.
Eduo
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www.eduo.info
www.eduo.info/gallery/
www.hamsterspit.com
Posts: 4
Eduo:
Your correct, in that I was referring to your idea of being able to add "markers" that weren't really photos. I was suggesting that when you add a "text marker" rather then trying to figure out some new way that the map module could handle it, just simply have the Map Module add a new "photo" (really just a place holder) in the Album that would have the text as one of it's attributes.
Posts: 4
Hrm, well that's one that I'm going to want to "hack/fix" right away for my own site. I'd rather have it automagically fill in the information the first time the photo is viewed. I'll be uploading batches of photos :: at least dozens, perhaps hundreds at a time and I wouldn't want to have to go click through each one.
Edit:: Nevermind, looking through the SF site I see your working on this already!
Posts: 1894
sure but hey, if you'd like to implement that I would gladly take your code and implement it to the rest of the module
The 1 thing I wanted to do thought was to extract the piece of code and make it a function so it could be used recursively in an easy manner.
Maybe I'll be looking at that tonight after I answer Eduo's post
Posts: 1894
Hello Eduo, this is my answer to your post. I hope I make sense:
First of all I see this all idea as multiple features to be implemented little by little (coz we don't have a lot of time - we have full time jobs too
)
OK
With the current module we have this definitively is possible but there is some manual steps
I see that
...
The only available option to date is to manually create a route that ONLY link existing markers (from photos or albums)
The GPX tracing thing is something I have had worked on quite a bit and I think I got it straighten out but not implemented in the module yet.
Manual tracing of a route is very easy to accomplish and will a feature that we will add at the same time the above is completed.
We currently have mostly manual positioning (or I should say per image positioning) using:
- EXIF data included in the pictures (if any)
- Clicking on the map where you want to see your pictures
- Entering an address (geocoding for the all world!!)
- Manually entering coordinates (I don't know of anyone memorizing GPS coordinates for their pictures :D
In the future I intend to implement an button that would automatically populate all picture that have GPS coordinates in their EXIF info into the right field (maybe tonight, who knows??)
At this point the map is "fully" configurable and markers can be selected for photos and albums (different ones that is). Soon groups will also have the possibility to have different markers as well.
For the navigation, we use 1 single thing at this point which are info windows, for 2 reasons:
- They are included in the Google API and easy to implement
- They can be highly customized to fit -any- needs (we're working on adding a cool template creation feature here)
The other "navigation" we have is the regrouping of markers, when you click a regrouped marker it will then zoom-in to show you which markers were "hidden" by the regroup.
All right, this is on the roadmap as a feature
True, but pictures can be geocoded after the fact from a PC, this is what I do for my testing.... I'm sure within 5-10 years we won't even think about it it will be a standard feature
Well If I had a track log device I would love to get that going, but it's also demanding in the user side. I'm not sure everyone will have one
This is naturely what we started with
At this point, the "EDIT" mode only appears in the admin interface (it might be wrong but this was built on an existing module and letting the user do this would mean a hell of lot of code changes ....
This is not available at this point but could be done fairly easily, create a "placeholder" type that could be showing up on the map at any position with limited fields.... sure can
Got that
Well this is there and not there. The "Group" feature currently enables you to create "Sub-Map" that would only show certain markers (related to pictures and albums with GPS coordinates) that you select.
This could be easily upgraded to enable the selection of ANY picture and instead of showing a map, would show the pictures in the "container" directly in the info window.
This is totally do-able but a bit tricky.
That's fine
Well, that's already available, a picture or an album that is marked with GPS coordinate will be shown on the map and the icon you choose is different for picture vs. albums and can be chosen in the admin page. You can also create new ones or upload your own "base", etc...
The only thing is that it's reverse, you click on a picture and then select the GPS coordinate you want the item to show at and it will appears on the map.
What you're asking (essentially doing the other way around) would also require quite an amount of changes.
Following up with my comment up above, this is feasible and would require some changes to the current "group" feature but would work pretty well (and should be an -easy- fix)
Definitively
I'm not sure what that would be like exactly. I would need more like a drawing to understand that I think
(Sorry for my poor comprehension skills here)
That's in the roadmap already (it used to be in the "map theme")
Huh? Do you mean that when the user hit zoom-in it will zoom-in on the first marker of a specific route and then pan back to the marker that was in the center?
That's a lot of coding there....
Sweet, we got that in!
I was thinking of that at some point because someone requested it but no-one ever explain what would be the exact requirements at the end of the day so sure but more detail plz
I can't agree more on that
(Sorry had to make a crappy one for those who had the patience to read all that)
Well that would be a YES for people that wish to use the map based on routes (which, I can tell you is a minority from the experience I have - little response to the cool ass route feature
)
Hmm. I don’t know about standalone but it sure is quite the project now :-D
Doesn't this sound appropriate?
You're welcome but we got to get back to work on this now
Now for the conclusion of all this:
- Tracing routes from GPX is on the list of feature requested already.
- I honestly don't even know how much they cost ...) - Priority 2 (5 when I get the device 
)
- Manual entry of routes (from album and pic) is already built-in
- Manual entry of a route (not necessarily using existing markers) by clicking on a map, need to be a feature request - Priority 5
- Automatically populate the GPS coordinate is only on the roadmap for EXIF data, Automatically putting GPS coordinates with date/time needs to be a feature request - Priority 3
- Groups need to have their own marker set (and that's on the roadmap)
- Tagging the pictures from a GPX file can be on as a feature request (but someone needs to buy me a track log device
- "Fake" map module-only item with GPS coordinate and a set of info need to be a feature request (that's actually easy) - Priority 5
- Modifying the Group feature to add the different "behavior" need to be a feature request - priority 4
- Export deal (need clarification) can be a feature request - priority 4
Idea "rejected" for now:
- Recoding the all thing to allow user to do some "EDITs" - seems to be a hard thing to do ... maybe we can work something out with the rights where they can access this part of the admin page (that's very do-able)
- The zoom-in + first marker thing (coz I don't understand)
I hope this answers most of it. I'm glad you bring more idea to the table.
As you might have seen we already have a load of stuff to work on but it's always good to improve
Posts: 107
Termite:
I can only saw "WOW". I can do the feature requests tomorrow separately if you want. I couldn't be happier
I expected a lot of what I thought of had already been laid out or planned. I'm sorry for that, I decided to put it anyway to be able to make a complete case not assuming anything.
Now, for what wasn't that clear:
- Panning to marker: I had thought of this in two ways:
-- In a route: Show whole route. Step once and map is panned to the first marker (zooming in if possibly, but not necessary). Step forward and you are moved to the next marker in the route.
-- In an un-routed group of photos in a map: Same as route, but going in the current order of the photos for the steps.
The idea for this is that for a larger map this could make it more dynamic to see exactly where a picture was taken (especially in areas where there is only satellite coverage and not map coverage).
Obviously this is eye-candy, but would make it easier on the user browsing maps with a bunch of markers.
On the GPX file: I currently make these convertin Garmin GPS track logs from an eTrex.
Thanks a lot for the lengthy response, that was very considerate on your part. I'll log the feature requests tomorrow as soon as I can.
Eduo
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www.eduo.info
www.eduo.info/gallery/
www.hamsterspit.com
Posts: 1894
Thanks for your support
For the moving along the pics deal I understand now, it would also need to be a different feature
Thanks for everything. I'll take a look at the GPS devices too, they seem to range from cheap to insane so we shall see :-D
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The Termite
Posts: 4
If your interested, it would be a simple matter for me to provide images and tracklogs for testing.
Posts: 1894
I am definitively interested. It's not a HUGE priority at this point but I would love to have a nice "regular" tracklog with the pictures associated and start to write this piece of the code "standalone".
Thanks !