Designing Composite Applications

Creating a Silverlight Application

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:19:18 GMT

IDV Solutions is in the middle of building a multi-phased Silverlight demo application, mostly go get to know Silverlight for ourselves. We also wanted to make something we could release publicly at incremental stages of completion. Here is a short comment on my experience so far and some unfounded prognostication...

Baseless Unsubstantiated Forecast
It's been an interesting learning process and I see a lot of potential (and I suppose inevitability) in Silverlight. Microsoft will undoubtedly grab market share currently held by Flash/Flex and those lingering Java Applets. Why? Developers will migrate in droves. Silverlight is a developer's product with the addition of design. Flash is a designer's product that had programmability added to it. There will be piles of developers who feel right at home in Visual Studio who will be more than happy to trade in their ActionScript files. The hurdle will be pulling designers in.

Silverlight and Flash
The comparisons are inevitable. Flash was animation software for vector animation and banner ads that has incrementally been extended with frame based commands and then much more. What is possible now in flash is fantastic and it has been an interesting evolution, but the animation legacy is clear (it's a serious gear shift for developers to work within enveloped sets of timelines and action paths). And it's interesting to see the foundation that Microsoft is building without having to support a legacy of passive animation.
Silverlight is much less timeline/frame based. Instead, it recognizes that animations are, in interactive applications, segregated short visual transitions, or motions activated by direct active user control. It was very hard for me to get out of the nested movie-clip mindset (where it is warm and cozy) but I see the merit.

A XAML file in Blend

Performance
There are several blogs out there that can provide more test-driven discussions of the performance merits of the Silverlight plug in, but in my anecdotal experience it is just as responsive as our Flash client. We loaded our map viewer with points lines and polygons and zoomed and rotated and inflicted general abuse that would have brought an AJAX app to its knees, and it continued to be smooth and responsive.

The Silverlight Demo

Division of Labor
Much of the marketing around Blend/Silverlight seems to promote the notion of the separation of specialties. Designers can do what they do best and developers go ahead and do what they do best and the results merge seamlessly into a supersweet application. But I had to work much more closely with our lead developer, Justin Hoffman, on this Silverlight demo than I have with any Flash project. Probably because I am a relative stranger to the .NET development environment and any visual content I made came after rounds of tentative creation and second guessing. "How do I integrate this...how you say...markup?" About half of the man-hours spent were at the same workstation sketching, debating, and waving hands. Silverlight will be similar to Flash in that for a person or organization to really nail an application, they had better be good at design and development. Silverlight should please artistic developers, while Flash will be a favorite of relatively tech-savvy designers into the near future. In all, I am terribly happy with how it is going, and we have had some good feedback from the public.

The Talent Intersection (and where folks may find relative comfort)

Following the initial learning curve, creating Silverlight applications with Blend and Visual Studio will likely be a welcome transition for our developers. For me, it will be a tougher transition, as I suppose it will be of many other UX/interaction designers. But I am happy with the level of support the Blend editor provides for creating the Silverlight XAML (especially the June Preview with enhanced Control Template editing), especially considering that these products are still in beta -people are making some very cool things. More to come. It is a fun time to be in the business.

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

IDV Silverlight Demo II...Draw Tools!

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:16:25 GMT

http://silverlight.idvsolutions.com/

It's out! Check out the new draw features in the IDV Solutions Silverlight Demo. We've been working on some fun new draw tools in an effort to learn about Silverlight. We are excited about the direction Silverlight is taking and the increased controls offered in Blend. This demo is using the latest build of Silverlight, Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2. Make sure you have the right player (you can install it here)

So we have the same fun navigation scheme as before, where you can zoom and spin and fling the earth the way you always wanted. But now you can draw and export your map drawings to other map applications. Anyways, here are some descriptions of the draw tools...

The Draw Panel along the right of the screen lets you turn the drawing feature on or off, select the type of feature to draw, and ultimately export the drawing as a KML file.Expanding the carrot next to each of the three geometry types expands a sidewalk that holds some visual variables, in this case color. But someday each square of the sidewalk will hold a category of visual variable, like color, size, transparency...and that square of the sidewalk can expand as well.
If you want to change the color of something after you have drawn it, then select it and open the color sidewalk and choose something else.

To delete any item that you've drawn, select it to show its data window and select "erase." When erased, points erupt into a cloud of destruction. Lines and polygons just disappear into the ether. Forever. If you want to delete individual tics along a line or area, select it then click the delete key. Above, I am obliterating a point feature that I had dropped in the Alleghenies.

Drop points all over the map. When you add a point, a window appears asking for some descriptive information. Fill it in -or don't. Clicking and holding an existing point picks it up for re-positioning. If the pushpin did not lift up when it was time to move, then large canyons would be gouged throughout the world. Above, I am moving a point symbol onto home plate at Comerica Park.

Here I am tracing the land area of Martha's Vineyard and delineating the DMZ between North and South Korea. I double-clicked to stop drawing a feature, then I filled in the info box associated with each feature.

When drawing lines and areas, click a path on the map to trace out your line in the map by clicking to drop a tic (or bend in the line). Double-click to stop drawing the line or area. Between each tic is a ghost tic option, if you want to add more detail to the line or area. By drawing from general to specific, you can rough in an area then zoom in and activate those ghost tics for loads of detail. Here, I roughed out South America, then positioned my ghost tics to add more and more details. Then I zoomed in and added even more detail. It is addictive.

At any point I can save my drawing as a KML file. Above, I have generated the shape of Michigan that I drew as a KML file and loaded it into Virtual Earth Live Maps.

So again, here is the URL to the demo: http://silverlight.idvsolutions.com/
and here is the URL to the latest Silverlight player: http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx?v=2.0

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

ITU Global View

Fri, 30 May 2008 18:18:07 GMT

IDV Solutions has recently worked with Microsoft, the International Telecommunication Union (an affiliate of the United Nations), and the World Summit on the Information Society to create an interactive map (Beta) of the current and planned global telecommunication infrastructure, with a focus on the Connect Africa initiative.

Users can browse stats, check current coverage, and drill down into more detailed statistical data. Additionally, external data such as GeoRSS feeds or KML files can be pulled in by the user in an ad-hoc manner to further contextualize the data. Anyways, check it out, have fun...

http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/connect/gblview/index.html

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

Composite Ap Q & A

Fri, 30 May 2008 13:47:30 GMT

Here are some of the more common composite application-related web searches that point folks to IDVUX...

Q: why is virtual earth so dark
http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBR_enCA247CA247&q=why+is+virtual+earth+so+dark

A: I have been asked this question often by clients. I assume the person wondering about this is referring to the Aerial style at global zoom levels; which is quite dark. I don't know why it is as dark as it is -maybe to visually promote the white text labeling?

The source is a composite of cloud-free sections of satellite imagery courtesy the NASA Earth Observatory. The Satellite platform used is NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). How did even NASA manage to snag a shot of Lansing, Michigan, not draped in clouds? I don't know.

I see this imagery used by just about all of the big map-service providers at the higher zoom levels, and the Virtual Earth implementation of this imagery is quite a bit darker than the rest, and it does appear as though the darkening is intentional. Below is a comparison of the Caribbean as seen in Virtual Earth (top image), and the same screenshot with the brightness and saturation bumped up (bottom image). It starts to look a lot like the other guys'. In the brighter version you can see that there is even a little coastal shelf bathymetric indication in the NASA imagery.

Q: silverlight virtual earth
http://www5.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLJ_enDK214DK214&q=silverlight+virtual+earth&ei=SS0zSNWPGovOiAGqodHHAQ&redir_esc=www5

A: IDV has recently released a simple public map viewer that has been built from the ground up in Microsoft Silverlight. This is the first release in a series of Silverlight demos that will have progressively more features and doodads. Up next? Draw Tools!

A snapshot of the geographic drawing tools in the next release of the IDV Silverlight Virtual Earth demo.

Q: 3d mapping projection
http://www5.google.com/search?hl=en&q=3d+mapping+projection&btnG=Google+Search&ei=nQojSLizKpOoiAHJqeT5Cw&redir_esc=www5

A: Google Earth requires their streaming overlay imagery to be in the Equirectangular projection (a.k.a. Plate Caree or any of the spelling variants and mis-identified as simply WGS1984, Lat Long, or unprojected) in order for it to drape correctly. Virtual Earth 3D uses their 2D quad key tiled image set and warps it (to equirectangular) non-linearly over their sphere. More info here: http://idvux.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2EB6AAF6C3AC1EBE!177.entry

Q: silverlight 3d earth globe
http://www5.google.com/search?q=silverlight+3d+earth+globe&rls=com.microsoft:en-nz&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&ei=wtE2SKrHJJGsiAG8-qHLCA&redir_esc=www5

A: Silverlight does not support 3D yet. But it would be awesome if it did someday.

Q: How does water comes into our flat
http://www.baidu.com/baidu?sr=6E26ABFFE2B0B01CE336805DFC9AD18F8FD9A249&tn=nanlingcb&word=%20How%20does%20water%20comes%20into%20our%20flat&bar=0

A: Somehow the Baidu search engine pointed this unfortunate person to IDVUX. Anyways...the water could be getting into the flat in any number of ways, including poorly sided exterior walls or a roofing material that has failed or enables water to pool. If you are the topmost floor of your building, then you might have a roof that is collecting or damming water to the point where it is able to flow over the sealed or staggered roofing material. More likely, though, a tenant above you has a malfunctioning plumbing system. You should call your super as soon as possible, as dampness or repeated inundations can cause the structural materials of your flat to weaken, or worse, it could facilitate a mold problem -which can have serious and acute health consequences.

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

IDV Silverlight Virtual Earth Map Viewer

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:56:56 GMT

http://silverlight.idvsolutions.com/

Alright! We have just posted a simple Silverlight 2.0 map viewer that pulls in Virtual Earth map imagery and lets you navigate their quad-key tileset. This navigator is step one in our set of Silverlight mapping applications demo; more to come! Be sure to get the latest Silverlight 2.0 plugin.

What is new?

Pseudo Physics
As map clients grow into more natural model of the world, the inclusion of simulated physics provides a more natural realm of interaction. We all have certain expectations for interacting with things in the real world, namely the conservation of momentum and friction. To not factor those into a user experience is to introduce the absolutely foreign (and creepy) concept of snapping in and out of existence. So our map viewer has a velocity vector (speed and direction) to replicate the feeling of momentum. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion.

But in addition to conserving momentum, friction is a critical element. When you throw our map, it glides then comes to a stop. Some interfaces continue momentum forever, like a frictionless ether. But here on earth, things eventually come to a rest. They ease out of their velocity vector.

This viewer is also different from some Silverlight image navigators in that it grips when the mouse is pressed so when you want to drag that map you drag the map, rather fanning it in the desired direction.

Navigation Paradigm
This navigation interface is a departure from our previous layouts, and incorporates some of the ideas discussed in IDVUX, the flyer vs. reeler discussion in particular. We have oriented the zoom-out input to the top, and the zoom-in input to the bottom, to reinforce the notion of flying down for a closer look. The zoom down nature is a more naturally mapped interface widget.

We retained the zoom slider, rather than two in/out throttle controls for two reasons:
1) It is the fastest, best way we have found to dive in and out quickly.
2) It is a great indication of status. You see how much zoom-room is available above you and below you. It is a worthwhile visual element even if you don't drag it. I am reminded of the great Mitch Hedberg...

"I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an 'escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.'"

Rotation
Why? Not because it is useful in 2D in any way, but it's just neat. And for research demos, neat counts! So there is a disk around the representational globe that connotes the cardinal directions, and the disk can be rotated, driving the rotation of the map view.

It is interesting how entrenched we are in our north-centric expectations. Try this -turn on aerial map style then align east towards the top of the screen (that's what someone in the middle ages would expect as the norm). Very obvious landmarks become hard to recognize!

Also, you can throw the disk, replicating the last thing a doomed parachutist sees.

The rotation feature is also a gateway feature for when a 3D client is released -where rotation becomes essential. And see that globe? One fine day it will be a navigation input in addition to a nebulous indication of down.

Anyways...
Have fun. Silverlight is a new beast and we are still learning the benefits of a vector engine driven by markup. It is a fun ride. Justin Hoffman, our senior developer, is digging in and architecting some fantastic things; more to come.

http://silverlight.idvsolutions.com/

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

Click-Through Q & A

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:25:35 GMT

Another quick Q and A based on some searches that tend to drive people to IDVUX.

Q: "Known Unknown Matrix"
A:

This query, or equivalents, drive a lot of traffic through to this site. A colleague of mine here at IDV, Christopher Abraham, wrote a targeted post on the benefits of an enterprise-class mashup, not just for gaining insights, but for identifying needs.

The matrix he describes is a derivative of the Johari Window, a cognitive tool used by psychologists to identify how self-aware (or not) one may be.

Here it is...
http://idvux.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2EB6AAF6C3AC1EBE!557.entry

Q: Datum vs Projection
A:

vs.

Two totally different things. One is the presumed general shape of the world, the other is the geometric method of peeling it off and flattening it onto paper, or your screen (yes, even 3D viewers use flattened maps!).

More info on Datums...
http://idvux.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2EB6AAF6C3AC1EBE!207.entry
Flattening ratio?
http://idvux.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2EB6AAF6C3AC1EBE!264.entry

Q: X_Ray Vision
A:

The IDV Solutions map interface combines the Overview Map tool with the Magnifier tool for a lot of reasons. One cool byproduct of the merger is that if you set the scale as equal to the main map, then you get a sweet sweet X-Ray Vision window.

So what is that good for? If you have a map that is loaded with data, then the X-Ray Vision lets you cut through that fog and poke a hole through to a single basemap.

A description of the IDV overview-underview map...
http://idvux.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2EB6AAF6C3AC1EBE!200.entry

Spreadsheets Fuel Powerful Location/Time Visualizations

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:10:28 GMT

The Right Tool for the Job

Here is a picture of my dog, Apple, at bathtime. Clearly this is not the kind of environment where she feels she belongs. She's soaking wet -but that's not the problem; water is not bad. Maybe she doesn't find the context to be one where she can most vibrantly express herself. In any case, she's not the picture of contentment.

I, from an Apple management perspective, think the context is great. She is manageable, not going anywhere, and on her way to cleanness

Here, all is well for Apple. She still finds herself immersed in water, but this time the context is much different than the bath tub. It's outside, there are other dogs, my son Bear is there to play with, and she has almost absolute control over the situation.

But if I wanted to give Apple a bath, a rocky lakeshore isn't my preference. If I want to get to know Apple a little better, really see what she is about, this is a much better environment than a bath tub.

Both the bath tub and the lakeshore are important environments for Data...I mean Apple, for different reasons.

Workflow
I hear a lot about the tyranny of the spreadsheet, and even use the phrase myself. But to qualify that, the spreadsheet is an outstanding tool for adding, sorting, formulating, storing data -and more. But this tabular view is certainly not the environment where grouping, trending, combining, tracking, or predictive attempts are most readily made.

Enterprise Mashups, Visual Composite Applications, Geo Portals, whatever you prefer to call them, are an ideal way to provide folks a means of spreadsheet management but then the content can then go on to fuel powerful visual applications where the data is presented right were we like it -in time and location. A successful geospatial content manager/visualization will enable both. If you have an Excel file or a SharePoint MOSS list or library, go ahead and throw it into Virtual Earth or Google Earth as a GeoRSS or KML. That's where it wants to be.

IDV's Visual Fusion software supports table-to-visualization workflows. See it in Excel, then see it in Virtual Earth...and back.

Models of the Universe
Every data management or visualization tool you use is really a model of the Universe. Some tools provide a lot of abstraction, and some are better off as more literal Mini-Me's of reality. Spreadsheets present the world as numeric representations arranged in rows and columns. This level of abstraction is absolutely necessary for many types of data management, but when it comes to turning that data loose, where insight and actionability are more likely, then the model of the universe used by your tool might more closely resemble, well...planet Earth.

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

Natural Mapping

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:43:52 GMT

This appliance gets the better of me about half the time. Instead of blaming my lame mental decoding, I choose to cite this as a usability issue: I just can't make quick sense of those burner dials.

Shameful evidence of my attempt to make these controls more obvious.

I rate my ability to turn on the correct burner of my stovetop at about 50%. That is pretty terrible, and while I make no claims of genius, I don't think that I am that dense. But maybe relatively slow minds like my own are good tests of usability...specifically, natural mapping.
Donald Norman, a leading usability consultant and author, discussed "natural mapping" in the first chapter of his excellent book, The Design of Everyday Things. Natural mapping provides users controls whose arrangement and movement correlate directly to the real world, the goal of which is to provide users immediate understanding of the control and require of them less intermediate mental decoding.
Don uses the example of an automobile seat-tilt control that is shaped like a seat. I used to drive a 1989 Lincoln Mark VII that had a seat tilt control that was shaped just like the seat itself. Don's right, it ruled -especially since this control is rather hidden near the floor and could only be found by groping around; pushing a little mini-seat around to control the real seat sure made things easier.
Every physical control ought to be a naturally mapped as possible. I am surprised, though, that many default map interfaces are relying more on flat hypertext-y buttons to drive some very cool, fluid, navigation dimensions. Text-only individual navigation buttons for each of the navigable dimensions requires additional mental decoding -wasted milliseconds.
What would a naturally mapped navigation toolset look like for a 3D Earth application? Toss someone a basketball and ask them to find the label...and watch what they do. That's natural mapping.

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

GITA

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:27:26 GMT

I've just returned from GITA's 2008 Geospatial Infrastructure Solutions conference in Seattle, WA. Thanks much to GITA and all who attended the presentation; I met a lot of interesting folks and was impressed with the speakers. My presentation, Beyond Mashups: The Enterprise Geo-Portal, went well, considering my mid-presentation dead laptop battery ("...anybody know any good jokes?"). In that harrowing few minutes of reboot, I polled the audience on their Flyer vs. Reeler persuasion -a fun diversion.
Here are the pamphlet details of the talk...

Beyond Mashups: The Enterprise Geo-portal
Track: Internet and Web Services
John Nelson, IDV Solutions

Learning Objectives:
-Enhance GIS presentation.
-Make GIS investments more actionable.
-Take advantage of Web services and rich Internet applications.

Abstract:

Organizations have made significant investments in geographic information systems. The presentation tier of this investment, however, has been typically limited, static, and labor intensive. Enterprise portals are increasingly popular for organizations that wish to visualize geographic data in a more current and collaborative sense. This presentation will identify options, barriers to entry, benefits, and technical challenges to the process of building and implementing a geographic enterprise portal. Specific examples will be cited.

Turnout
I was surprised and pleased with the excellent turnout (crowds in the back and the pulling in of additional chairs!); further indication of the substantial interest in Geospatial Portals within the enterprise and the public sector. There is clearly a surging interest in a useable online geospatial content management system to best take advantage of the considerable investment that organizations have made and are making in GIS and visualization, and how best to integrate the universe of cloud data that is begging to provide timely context to that investment.

The Gist
I focused on describing common issues confronting clients building geospatial portals and some best practices we have identified. All of this was, of course, shared with the overarching goal of promoting a geospatial portal who's User Experience is positive, truthful, and actionable.

The introductory slide in my deck: The World's First Mashup. It is John Snow's 1854 visualization of medical data mashed onto a map of London.

Materials
I was asked a lot of questions just after the session, but did not get the chance to address them individually or in as much detail as I would have liked. If you are interested in a copy of the presentation materials, you can download the paper here:
http://cid-2eb6aaf6c3ac1ebe.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Presentation%20Materials/BeyondMashups_GITA.doc
I tend to veer around topics as the result of a cursory audience poll, so these materials are not a transcription by any means. But I hope you find them helpful and relevant. Or if you have a question, please don't hesitate to contact me at john.nelson@idvsolutions.com.

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

Value in a World of Replication

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:30:22 GMT

I came across a very interesting blog entry from Kevin Kelly (the former Executive Editor of Wired magazine and current publisher/editor of Technium), entitled “Better than Free.”

His point is that as content/media becomes commoditized, the cost heads down to and approaches zero (“free”). So why is any data or information or output worth anything? As he puts it, “When copies are free, you need to sell things which cannot be copied.” Kelly names the properties of things that cannot be copied generatives.

Kelly's 8 Generatives

· Immediacy
· Personalization
· Interpretation
· Authenticity
· Accessibility
· Embodiment
· Patronage
· Findability

These ideas are extremely applicable to the Composite Application realm, in that mashups and composite apps generally benefit from the commoditized content that is available now or emerging from the Internet, and particularly Web 2.0.

By allowing disparate data sets to be accessed and displayed in a contextual user interface like a map or a timeline, Interpretation of that data can lead to insight and knowledge. By quickly making it possible for individuals or groups to incorporate data feeds (either in an ad hoc fashion or easy administrative access/control), the composite application brings Immediacy and Personalization to the user experience.

Composite Applications, being kind of like the grown-up big brother of mashups, benefit additionally from being able to incorporate data feeds or sources that come from contractually “leased,” trusted content providers that guarantee Authenticity and in many cases provide Accessibility that many free content sources lack (the kind of sources that tend to be leveraged by mashups).

Perhaps the most valuable of the “generatives” that Kelly details is the last one on his list: Findability. IDV has been excited to see Search for the Enterprise advancing to include the time and geospatial elements of content, allowing for our products and solutions to provide a contextual view of that data in a new and useful way (see previous blog entry on Enterprise Search).

Kelly sums up the impact of this “commoditized” information world by stating,

“These eight qualities require a new skill set. Success in the free-copy world is not derived from the skills of distribution since the Great Copy Machine in the Sky takes care of that. Nor are legal skills surrounding Intellectual Property and Copyright very useful anymore. Nor are the skills of hoarding and scarcity. Rather, these new eight generatives demand an understanding of how abundance breeds a sharing mindset, how generosity is a business model, how vital it has become to cultivate and nurture qualities that can't be replicated with a click of the mouse.”

In many ways, if Kevin Kelly’s “generatives” nomenclature catches on, then composite application products like IDV’s Visual Fusion are the “generative toolkits” that will allow people to learn and use their new skill sets.

Christopher Abraham / IDV Solutions

Click-Through Q and A

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:15:41 GMT

Every now and then I'll check my blog stats to see the kinds of web searches that led folks to this blog. Some of the searches are pretty pointed and I wish that I could just email specific answers to the searcher (and I also evaluate the UDVUX blog post they found to see if it answered their questions). Anyways, here are some of the more common web searches I get...

Q: "timeline atlas"
A: The Interactive Timeline Atlas of the United States' history. It' a free download. Take it, distribute it, use it, show your kids, have fun. More info here: http://idvux.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2EB6AAF6C3AC1EBE!368.entry

Q: "vector to raster maps which is faster"
A: Raster is faster but vector is bector. It depends, but if you have some point/line/polygon data and you want to interact with it in any cool way, the answer is vector. More info here: http://idvux.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2EB6AAF6C3AC1EBE!359.entry

Q: "mercator tiles 3d"
A: I get a lot of traffic from people looking for info on geographic projection in 3D. More info on 3D here: http://idvux.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2EB6AAF6C3AC1EBE!177.entry More info on Mercator: http://idvux.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2EB6AAF6C3AC1EBE!259.entry

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

There Are Two Kinds of People in This World

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:58:57 GMT

A common visual metaphor for zoom-level navigation in most online map applications is the trusty old zoom slider tool. It's that railroad track thing with the handle that lets the user drag up or down to control the scale of the map (in effect, zooming in and out). The problem is, while the tool is wildly common, there are two ways of interpreting it and they are the exact opposite of each other.
The question a user must ask themselves in the milliseconds before they interact with the tool is...

Which way zooms me in?

There are only two options; two kinds of people in this world. You either drag that handle up or you drag it down. Aside from the visual cues of a "+" and "-" at either end of the track (those require mental decoding and use up precious milliseconds), there is a preference deep down in all of us as to which way we want to drag that handle to zoom in. And depending on which way your primal urges want you to drag that handle, you are either a Flyer or a Reeler.

Flyers
Flyers perceive themselves as the slider handle. They are hovering over the earth and can dive down closer to it, or fly up away from it. The earth is stationary; the scale of the map is a factor of how closely they position themselves to it. To zoom in, flyers want to drag the handle down.

Reelers
Reelers perceive the earth as the slider handle. They, themselves, are the stationary entity and they pull or push the earth nearer to their position or farther from their position. To zoom in, Reelers want to drag the handle up.

I Think I Know What You're Thinking
1) If the metaphor used by the most common zoom tool out there is misinterpreted half the time, then isn't there a better way?
Yes.
2) Some interfaces have abandoned the track and just have the zoom in/out buttons that you click and hold.
Even if the zoom tool does not have that linear zoom track, the Flyer/Reeler bias will still be evident depending on which button is on top.
3) What about a horizontal orientation for the zoom widget?
A fine idea; it's actually what we do. Our argument has been that many folks follow a left-to-right workflow, which lines up with the broad-scale then fine-scale principle of map zooming. But it does have a Western bias.

The Future
The zoom slider is handy, especially since the interactions allowed by a common mouse are rather limiting. My sense is that the Reeler method's days are numbered and the Flyer method, which is a better fit for immersive 3D interfaces, will survive longer.

So...
What are the corollary psychological implications of your preference? Flyers and Reelers. What kind of a person are you? Psych 101 at Central Michigan University does not qualify me to comment on those kinds of things; you'll have to take a good long look at yourself and be willing to answer some tough tough questions about what you see.

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

Precisely!

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:11:05 GMT

In Superman Returns, Lois Lane hurriedly scribbles the geographic coordinates of the yacht she is held captive aboard and faxes it to the Daily Planet. "40N 73W Help us!!" Richard White flies to the rescue in his pontoon plane, and quickly. But Richard got really lucky, because coordinates with this level of precision would cover over three and a half thousand square miles of choppy North Atlantic -an area twice the size of Rhode Island.

Lets Talk Specifics
If you're talking decimal degrees (rather than degrees minutes seconds), every decimal place worth of precision zooms in ten-fold. Those decimal places get pretty specific pretty quickly.
It can be tempting to work with latitude longitude numbers that have ten decimal places of precision. But just elongating the decimal tail does not a precise geographic application make.
Most of the big public map providers display their coordinates to five decimal places. That's a precision of about 3.5 feet. Nice.

How Precise Can I Get?
From the perspective of online Composite Applications, it is possible to continue to zoom-in indefinitely. That means I could start with a world map, zoom in on a troubled factory, identify the offending piece of installed hardware, and focus in on the malfunctioning part schematic (then conceivably launch a maintenance history, manufacturer contact, and warrantee information). Precision like that would require some pretty detailed map tiles (check out the cool example from the Virtual Earth MapCruncher team) or vectors with lots of decimal places.

Fun With Decimal Degrees
At the equator, one degree of latitude (the horizontal lines that tell you how far north or south you are) is about 68.708 miles. With every additional decimal place in the coordinate, that refines the precision x 10. Here is a breakdown for your reference...

1 degree = 68.7 miles
0.1 degree = 6.87 miles
0.01 degree = 0.687 miles
0.001 degree = 359 feet
0.0001 degree = 35.9 feet
0.00001 degree = 3.6 feet
0.000001 degree = 4 inches
0.0000001 degree = 0.4 inches
0.00000001 degree = 1 millimeter
0.000000001 degree = 0.1 millimeter
0.0000000001 degree = 0.01 millimeter

Precision vs. Accuracy

Just because something is precise, does not make it accurate. And visa versa. Accuracy is the degree to which something matches an actual, true, value. Precision is the degree to which something can be repeated or reproduced. In the world of geographic coordinates, great care should be taken to not interpret precision as accuracy, but strive for a level of precision that is commensurate with a coordinate's known accuracy. For more reading on this, check out Wikipedia's great entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy.

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

Some Visual and Interaction Options for Clustering

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:33:15 GMT

When it comes to clustering point layers on a map, there are two main aesthetic questions to consider (questions we are used to asking of just about anything):

How does it look?
How does it act?

HOW DOES IT LOOK?

The Generic Cluster

The Generic Cluster method should be used when different point layers are clustering together, as some kind of melting pot cluster. Think, Everybody Get Together, by the Dave Clark Five. The Generic Cluster icon should be a relatively basic graphic that does not correlate too closely to the icon of any specific data layer being clustered, but is rather a visual indication that says, "more data here" with some graphical invitation to zoom in or get more.

The Scaled Original Cluster

The Scaled Original cluster method should be used when the application is set to cluster only within like-layers. It is a larger version of the icon that is used for that individual layer. For example, vessels represented by blue dots would have a cluster icon that looked like a bigger blue dot. If multiple map layers have clustering turned on individually, then each layer's cluster icon is simply a scaled-up version. In the image above, the two layers have clustering turned on; I can see where clusters for individual vessel types because I see blue clusters and red clusters.

These scaled icons could be simply larger (yes, this is a cluster) or the largeness could correspond to the quantity of children it represents. The latter would be more technically involved.

Don't use the Scaled Original method if icons are already being thematically scaled to represent a data value. It is important to isolate the visual variable of icons, and if size already means something then don't hijack that visual variable for clustering as well.

The Quantity Label

The Quantity Label method places a number over each of the cluster icons. This method can be used in tandem with the generic dedicated cluster icon or the Layer-Specific method, but care must be used when implementing an automated number label, as the level of complexity of the icon can be obscured by the label -leading to unreadable results.

HOW DOES IT ACT?

So I have a visual indication on the map of a cluster. What about when I hover over it or click it? Here are some options...

On Rollover
- A radial tethered blowout of component child icons
- A hyperlink list of composite children
- A tooltip message denoting the number of children
On Click
- Alternatively, any of the above
- Zoom in one increment, centered on clicked cluster
- Zoom to extents of clustered children
- Zoom in on the location of the clicked hyperlink or tethered icon

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

Action!

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:34:14 GMT

Whenever I talk with my Gradma Lillian or any of my Aunts about what I do, this question is invariably asked...

"So if I go outside and stand in my yard, can you see me??"

Well...no, wait, what are you so worried about Grandma? I used to explain that the satellite imagery I work with is a snapshot taken some time in the recent past and is just a picture. Lately, I just answer, "Yes." This is because every movie or TV show I see that has any semblance of a map in it leads to audience to believe that anything is possible, most recently Die Hard 18. Why fight it?

So, good guy or bad guy, if you are starring in an action film and have some digital intelligence gathering to do, then this is what you are going to get...

An interface that is dark and semi-transparent

Only keyboards may be used (the faster the clacking, the more effective); one never sees a mouse

The protagonist (antagonist?) always delegates actions to a small team of techno drones, whom he/she stands behind ("Get me a schematic of that water tower! Zoom. Enhance.")

Any and all arbitrary ad-hoc data requests conveniently incorporate seamlessly into the map –invariably in 3D

Anything can be tracked via a blinking dot

Every window or data element comes and goes with scaled transitions

There always seems to be a streaming paragraph of impossibly small text -crucial intelligence

Every office of government, right down to the local level, has an array of massive flat-panel monitors with expensive, immersive proprietary map interfaces

The satellite imagery is always live

Even the lowest-resolution digital images can be zoomed and “enhanced” for perfect clarity, conceivably down to the atomic level

John McClane surveys the situation in a manner that is soooo analogue. Meanwhile, is counterpart is busy with fantastically interactive maps in his mobile command center.

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

Creating a Virtual Earth Low-Light Map Style

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:16:42 GMT

What if Night Rider Needed an On-Board Map?

Those in darker environments, like war rooms or vehicles, benefit greatly from a cartographic style with a diminished base-color intensity, and map features that have a greater contrast with the ambient fill. It's easy on the eyes.

In a stroke of great luck, I recently found that if you run an invert filter on the incoming Virtual Earth street map styled tiles, you get a pleasing darkened map with cartographic features denoted in a range of blues. This is a simple solution to map users who require a map interface for use in a darkened environment.

The solution is performed on the client side in the browser and does not require the creation or use of additional map tiles. Dark Room users of the world, Invert!

Where Have All the Map Styles Gone? Long Time Passing...

MapPoint "Road Map (Night)" style

Before tiled map services, which require the providers to create and store literally every map image before-hand, cartographic options abounded. The traditional-WMS method of generating a new map request with every navigation shift is sometimes wasteful and slower, but one gigantic benefit was that it was no big deal to offer tons of map styles -it's made from scratch anyway, so set some style rules; big deal. Remember the MapPoint map style library? That's "Road Map (Night)" there on the left. I miss all those styles, but I love tiled mapping; you take the sour with the sweet!

Why should map tile providers like the idea of color-inverting their street map style tiles? It's no cost to them. Tile providers don't have to create, store, update, support, or provide hooks to terabytes of map tiles. The tiles are already there; the inversion is rendered on the client end in the browser. This opens up the rich data of tiled street maps, like Virtual Earth, to clients whose users who need the 007 map style.

Users

Somewhere in NORAD

Anyone looking at the same application for much of the day (to reduce the staring into a light bulb all day effect)

Coordinators working in low-light environments, like military, police, or the cast of 24

Those who's eyes shift between a computer monitor and the real world -like those in mobile units or cruisers.

Users who's visual priority is fluctuating data draped over the map

Video Proof

Here is a video capture of the Virtual Earth Street map tiles color-inverted in our client. Don't see it? Here is a direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO9IZ5utZY0

Some Snapshots

Here are some screenshots of the Virtual Earth Street map style color-inverted in our viewer...

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

Neogeography: A Shakeup of Defensive Proportions

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:18:48 GMT

The field of geography (particularly cartography), is experiencing a punctuation in its equilibrium. The relatively recent prevalence of free map authoring tools has generated a boom in the raw geographic data and map presentations, notably on the web. In his interview with Rich Treves, Steve Chilton described the inevitability of cartographic reckless abandon by the "neogeographers." This has spawned a flurry of retorts. Then more retorts.

But really, it's not a big deal.

Here is why: Neogeographers are not typically building from-scratch maps, where a cartographic education would come into play, but rather putting things on maps that already exist using APIs. Cartographers ought not to feel threatened by the surging number of folks who are learning to share their passion -it's a good thing. A great thing.

It's like writers and publishers growing nervous over literacy.

The line between map maker and map user is rigid -it's just that the work of cartography has become a platform upon which everyone and their grandmother are adding things. Map users are content creators. Maps and the work of Cartographers are no longer static references, but a platform upon which cool things are coming together.

It's time to get concerned when nobody is interested in what you are doing.

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

Pantastic Portal: Inward and Outward-Facing Interactive Panoramas

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 20:08:17 GMT

Microsoft's SharePoint Portal (MOSS 2007) provides the ability to create custom List Web Parts with files, references, and attributes. A cool application of this SharePoint feature is to integrate a series of images, coordinate information, and general direction. Sending that data to an interactive map where those images are stitched and displayed in the context of location provides a smooth means of interaction and a better, timely, understanding of what's there. The benefit of the Portal is that it provides the aptly permissioned end-user the ability to compile sets of panoramic imagery and supporting information, themselves. Pushing the resuts into an immersive interface illustrates how frequently-updated imagery can aid in emergency response for organizations with sprawling assets -the source imagery could be as simple as snapshots taken by a person walking around a facility or even down a hall.

What about time?

Imagine the radial scroller was a timepiece and the images that were animated through were driven from a time-stamped List Web Part? There are a lot of options for this kind of portal-driven, user-contributed content. The times they are exciting.

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com

Some Favorites o' 2007

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:58:15 GMT

So it's almost the end of 2007. Summoning as much nostalgia as I can about blog posts, I have picked some of the Designing Composite Applications favorites from the past year...

GIS

	Mercator vs. well...not Mercator (Platte Carre) The nature of distortion, little blue circles, invisible poles, and squished jumbo jets. This is the wild world of projections.
	Platte Carre, Platte Carree, Plate Carrée, Equirectangular, Geographic, Cartesian, Equidistant Cylindrical, Carte Parallelogrammatique... Some background on the most common, most anonymous transformation out there. Your mashup overlays not lining up? This is why.
	Map Projection in the 3D Environment What does Microsoft do? What does Google do? What projection ought your maps be if you want to drape them over a 3D globe? The 3D environment does not mean maps can be projection agnostic -projection is more important than ever.
	Vector and Raster Raster is faster but vector is bector. Read all you want on the pros and cons of these estranged cousins. Can't we all just get along?

Design

	The Timeline Atlas of the United States It's a free download. Take it. Zip around through U.S. history and finally find out what the word "Michigan" really means. Spoiler alert: Nobody is sure where Oregon even got it's name!!
	Digging Data the IDV Way: A Balanced Information Architecture Drinking from the fire hose is scary. Not seeing what you need is lame. There has to be some method to display data at the macro level then draw them into the specifics. But how?!
	Labeling Hodgepodges in the Static and Interactive Environments Composite applications are by nature interactive (or at least begging to be). You have options-a-plenty, and this is your big chance to throw off some of the trappings of static labeling.
	Feature Creep: Tame that Beast Too much is too much! Well, sometimes your maps have to wear a lot of hats so the makeup rule does not always hold water. Methods, madness, the good, the bad, and especially...the ugly!

Philosophy

	The Road to Known Knowns Rumsfeld's famous little matrix and how your composite application can push folks into that desirable square. You can pretty much forget about the black hole of unknown unknowns.
	Understanding What's really going on here?

Fun

	Geo Jolie: The Jet Set get GeoTagged! Geography is so cool. I wish I thought of this first.
	Can I Click That or What?! The world is wrought with unusable things. Seldom, though, do you get such hilarious evidence of it.
	Composite Applications Take a Swim I bet that blipping triangle looked pretty cool in 1989, but I hope the interactive map systems on today's nuclear submarines look a lot different than they did in the Hunt for Red October. Ahh, the possibilities of an unlimited budget...

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com