[Tdwg-guid] Ant demo [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Levy, David David.Levy at deh.gov.au
Tue Jun 13 03:06:47 CEST 2006


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 at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:tdwg-guid-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Roderic Page
Sent: Friday, 9 June 2006 11:52 PM
To: tdwg-guid at 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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