Hi Rob,

I've been working with Google maps for about 2 months now and have an workable demo going too. I'm currently talking with my project manager about changing the way the site works, but thought you might enjoy having a look at it. Some notable bits of functionality you may be interested in:

- Implemented my own "Tile Server" to show points on the map; this was to get around the issue of showing many points with Google's GMarker and the page pretty much stopping moving; I found result sets as low as a few hundred caused performance issues, but the Tile server keeps on working with millions of points - Implemented bounding box functionality for searches (still has some bugs though)

The URL is over here - but is currently in testing mode and is up and down like a yo-yo http://203.36.88.39:8080/AbifSpecimenSearch/gui/main.html

As mentioned, the interface should be having an overhaul over the next few weeks, but the essential mapping functionality will remain. Implementing my own tile server was really worthwhile and probably one of the only ways to show so many points on the map - the other realistic option is to hook into a WMS (which I still may do to get some extra features on the map).

Currently, the map displays all known specimens (400K) and then reduces this when a search filter is applied. Again, the usability of this is a bit backwards so will probably make it so the results aren't display until a search filter is created. I guess I was just happy to show my project manager that I could render all the points we had: )

I'll try find some time to write up a blog on the tile server functionality, there were three main areas which I had to get over to do it and are happy to pass on the knowledge:

1.) Creating a tile layer in Google Maps (pretty easy, but getting it to refresh when the data changes is suprisingly difficult) 2.) Using the mathematics of Mercator projection to adjust my points latitudes on to the grids - this was mainly backwards engineering Google's FromPixelToLatLng methods + also understanding the way points get put into tiles 3.) Finding a nice Java graphics library to do the rendering (ended up with the standard Java 2D API)

Each one of the steps above presented a little bit of a challenge, but was doable after some thought. If there is sufficient interest I'll write up those 3 challenges above in a blog format.

Cheers,

David Levy ABIF Portal Developer

-----Original Message----- From: Lawrence, Robyn Sent: Tuesday, 13 June 2006 8:38 AM To: Levy, David Subject: FW: [Tdwg-guid] Ant demo [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Hi David,

Here is a system that some-one has done on ants using Google Maps. I found matches on the following Genus.

Gnamptogenys

They do the sort of maps you do, I thought you might be interested. May be you could also discuss with him the API problem.

Robyn

-----Original Message----- From: tdwg-guid-bounces@mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:tdwg-guid-bounces@mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Roderic Page Sent: Friday, 9 June 2006 11:52 PM To: tdwg-guid@mailman.nhm.ku.edu Cc: Simon Rycroft; Vince Smith; Donat Agosti Subject: [Tdwg-guid] Ant demo

I've set up a half-functioning demo of the ant triple store here: http://linnaeus.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/ants/

It is not complete, and there's a problem with Google's Map API, but it's a start. I'll be demoing it at the workshop, but thought it would be useful to have a version other people could see. Hopefully after the demo it will make more sense...

To get started, the search box accepts text (such as the name of an ant), or a GUID. Try, for example,

Atta

Proceratium

Dracula

doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2004.06.017

urn:lsid:ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.lsid.zoology.gla.ac.uk:gi:34398464

I've updated the relevant page on the TDWG-GUID wiki (http://wiki.gbif.org/guidwiki/wikka.php? wakka=LSIDBasedIntegrationAntsDemo), but more useful background is on my blog: http://semant.blogspot.com/.

Regards

Rod

------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------- Professor Roderic D. M. Page Editor, Systematic Biology DEEB, IBLS Graham Kerr Building University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QP United Kingdom

Phone: +44 141 330 4778 Fax: +44 141 330 2792 email: web: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html reprints: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/pubs.html

Subscribe to Systematic Biology through the Society of Systematic Biologists Website: http://systematicbiology.org Search for taxon names: http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/ Find out what we know about a species: http://ispecies.org Rod's rants on phyloinformatics: http://iphylo.blogspot.com

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