Category Archives: mapping

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Deliberate and Develop

  October 16, 2014 , ,

This week at SIF has been a brainstorming week. Everyone in the team has been putting lots of thoughts into the development of the Deliberation Mapping tool.The major discussion has been about the functionality of the Deliberation tool. We are planning to develop the tool in such a way that it is scalable and expandable.The application has so far been developed using Javascript for the client side programming. We have also planned to develop it by using PHP and mysql in the back end. However, considering the complexity of the application, we are now considering to migrate the code to ASP.Net and MS SQL Server. We are now checking for the feasibility of the migration. ASP.NET is used to create web technologies and is an integral part of Microsoft’s .NET framework vision.It allows us to build compelling web applications by making use of Visual Studio. We have also been informed that the Deliberation mapping tool will be integrated into the Desire to Learn system of GSU. So, we need to make sure that there would be no problems during integration and possible upgradation. We are yet to get the information regarding the desire to learn back-end system. There are a couple of meetings scheduled in the next few weeks to discuss about the possible integration and also finalize the design functionality. So, probably by the end of this month we will be finalizing the design and start the development of the application. Siva Kondeti

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The Weeks Just Keep on Getting Busier!

  October 12, 2014 , , ,

Hey guys! This was another pretty productive week! Andrew and I ran two workshops in how to use Agisoft PhotoScan. The first workshop had no turnout unfortunately–but our second one this past Friday had a few very interested and excited people come along. I explained how the software worked and showed some examples of running through the workflow of building a 3D model based on a set of photographs. It’s a pretty awesome software package–but also needs some finesse i understanding the settings to get better results. These settings are key, because a single set of photographs has the potential to have great alignment–or not–all dependent on which settings one uses. I beseech someone to come out to the next set of workshops we hold this semester! We have the software installed on all out computers and that means we can start doing a lot of on-the-fly modeling in the workshops with various groups working at different workstations! Next week my goal is to finish figuring out how to create a 3 cube based on a list of points rather than just a 2D plane–I’ve tried and failed a few times already so I have to go back to reading up on the workflow surrounding the triangle stripping. I’ll be excited to share with you next week what I figure out! This will help get our buildings accurate in in the 3D reconstruction of Decatur St–because I can start inputting accurate measurements for buildings that don’t follow a strict right-angle … Continue reading

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Learning the basics of mapping and further updates

  October 12, 2014 , , ,

This week has been another one of those informational weeks. I was recently recruited to be a part of the Atlanta transit project. This project is geared towards focusing on Atlanta’s public transportation history, particularly MARTA’s planned transit lines as well as existing ones. With this being said our plans are to create one all inclusive map of how MARTA’s transit lines were originally planned to extend to and where they actually ended up being today. With Atlanta’s new street car being prepared for release in the next upcoming months, we can see how public transit has impacted life downtown and how public transportation remains as an important issue for large cities like Atlanta. When analyzing the “game plan” for the project I was taught how to search for archival maps of Atlanta’s MARTA plans through GSU’s libraries resources. With these maps we can therefore sift through all the maps and record all of our findings to avoid overlapping and duplicates.These maps are then used in a large and very resourceful software called Arcmaps where we can over lay these old transit plans over another realistic map that places it to be geographically accurate. All this information was very enlightening and interesting when learning how all the mapping processes work. This project is going to be an exciting and educational experience for myself who is a computer science major in order  to obtain some hands on experience with mapping. I am glad to be what you call a rookie introduced … Continue reading

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World of web programming 2

  October 5, 2014 ,

For the front end of Deliberation mapping tool, we had the choice of either using HTML5 or flash. HTML 5 is supposed to the future of web development and flash is getting less popular for websites. Hence, this lead to the design decision of using HTML 5 over flash.[1][2] In HTML 5, animations can be shown using canvas element. To ramp up my knowledge about HTML 5 canvas element, I started exploring the web for examples having clickable elements on canvas [3]. In the example, circular regions are created on canvas elements and the clicks are handled using jQuery and iterating over each circular region to find out whether the region corresponding to it has been clicked. This lead to me reading up about jQuery, which I shall describe in my next post. References http://myoocreate.com/why-adobe-flash-is-dying/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_HTML5_and_Flash http://pterkildsen.com/2013/06/28/create-a-html5-canvas-element-with-clickable-elements/ Ram Sundarkumar  

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The Transit City

  October 5, 2014 , ,

Known as the southern commercial railway hub and also for it’s urban sprawl, Atlanta is in constant movement within the city and throughout the metro area.  Originally not the capital of Georgia, Atlanta was the center for rail traffic for the entire southeast.  As industry grew within the city, other, more public transit, emerged and connected industry workers with the various industrial centers, students with large universities, and residents to use for personal transit. What resulted was a large and intricate trolley car line that connected the city, at one time having over 200 miles of  tract-  a system any metropolis would be proud of.  However, the early 1900’s introduced the age of the automobile and our emergence of the sprawling metropolis we see today. The trolley lines were dug up, or paved over, to create an autocentric city dependent on individual transit. The reason I bring up this part of Atlanta history, is that this week I was added to a workgroup that will focus on the progression, regression and reintroduction of public transit in Atlanta.  A small group of us SIF’s will be creating a storymap (curious?) to conceptualize the evolution of our transit system through a spatial and historic lens. With the shift to more sustainable systems, urban centers are creating more vibrant and efficient public transit systems, and Atlanta is no exception.  Between the beltline, the “new” streetcar development, and talks of expanding MARTA to other metro cities, Atlanta is attempting to establish a more connected … Continue reading