Development of Clientside Map Mashups Experiences and Road

Development of Client-side Map Mashups: Experiences and Road ahead 08 th February 2012 India Geo-spatial Forum 14 th International Conference N. Rama Kumar Acharyulu Scientist, Advanced Data Processing Research Institute (ADRIN), Dept. of Space, Govt. of India, Secunderabad.

Research agenda • To identify possibilities of extracting and using information available from vast GIS and associated data and services (APIs) available over the Internet using mashup technologies and bring out the intricacies in development of a client-side mashup with map based and temporal visualization preferably from a nonprogrammer perspective. • Leveraging paradigm changes in Internet technologies such as web 2. 0, cloud enabled platforms, Geo-enabled RSS feeds of data, online-mapping, wikis, data streaming etc. India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

A brief Introduction to mashups Definition a mashup is a web application that combines data from one or more sources into a single integrated tool On the Web it means taking information published from multiple sources and integrating it into a new information stream India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Is Mashup a programming technique? • It is a concept, rather than a newly evolved programming paradigm • The popularity of mashups today is to be attributed to the wide availability of data and services / APIs coupled with ubiquitous availability

http: //www. programmableweb. com/

Classification of mashups Depending on the assets being combined – presentation mashup (widgets based) data mashup (feeds, web services & HTML) functionality mashup ( API based) Ex: - Mapping mashups (combination of information into maps (Google maps, Yahoo maps etc. ) Foto/video mashups (eg. from flickr, you-tube etc. ) Shopping mashups (for product pricing) Business mashups (salesforce. com for real-estate) News mashups ( integration of news into personal pages) India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Classification of mashups contd… Depending on location of implementation – - Server side implementations on a server for hosting to a group of intended users rather than personal - Client-side mashups Most popular and enables integration of resources on the client, often a browser India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Classification of mashups contd… Depending on intended usage – - Consumer mashup intended for public use and combines resources from different public or private sources in the browser - Enterprise mashups (intranet applications) merges multiple resources (e. g. , data and application functionality) of systems in an enterprise environment. considers security, governance or enterprise policies India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

A brief Introduction to Web 2. 0 The term ‘Web 2. 0’ (2004–present) is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples: web-based communities, hosted services, RSS /JSON based feeds, web applications, socialnetworking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups, and folksonomies India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Background for experimentation • Quickly build an online mapping application with user provided data • Extract content from the current static websites that do not offer data as standard feeds • Aggregate and filter out contents from multiple feed data • Extract geo-location information from content that explicitly does not provide coordinate information India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Background for experimentation • Visualize data temporally • Identify client-side development environments that exist specifically in the form of visual programming environments that help non-programmers • Host new services generated out of mashing up • Push the output results using e-mail services or instant messaging services as alerts India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Experimentation work Task – 1: Composing a web map with client side data added as layers Input data: Publicly available shapefiles of India states and waterline layers Tools used: public cloud based Arc. GIS. com Explanation: This task uses a base map from a different source and client side data is added in the form of layers that can toggled for visualization, queryable and even editable. This task uses public GIS cloud platform for composition of a web map. India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Results of task 1 A GIS map prepared on public cloud India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Experimentation work contd… Task – 2: Creating live RSS feeds from static websites Technique used: Web scraping Input data source: JNTUH website (www. jntu. ac. in) Tools used: Yahoo pipes and Google Feed burner Explanation: The JNTUH posts notifications and announcements through web notice board and the students are expected to often visit the site for an update. In this task only the latest updates are picked up as and when they are posted and created as a RSS feed that can give an alert to students E-mail or Mobile phone. Output : http: //feeds. feedburner. com/Rss. Feed. Of. Jntuh. Web. Site India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Results of task 2 JNTUH web site Home page and R&D downloads page contents India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Results of task 2 contd… Web scraping attempted in Yahoo pipes Result As RSS feed India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Experimentation work contd… Task – 3: Feed aggregation and filtering based on a user entered keyword Input data source: Tools used: Rss news feeds from NDTV, The Hindu, Rediff, Frontline Yahoo pipes Explanation: In this task the above four news feeds were aggregated and later passed through a filter that searches for a user entered keyword and generates a single feed content that has the keyword present in it. Such kind of mashups are useful to generate an alert to the user with content matching his or her interest. India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Results of task 3 Feed aggregation and filtering attempted in Yahoo pipes News alert based on a user entered keyword India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Experimentation work contd… Task – 4: Geo-tagging The Hindu news feed and overlay on a map and extracting timestamps to display it in a temporal fashion. Technique used: a map mashup using geonames API Input data source: The Hindu news feed URL (http: //www. thehindu. com/news/? services=rss) Tools used: Yahoo pipes Explanation: The Hindu news RSS feed is not location tagged. It is more convenient to read news over a map for which the news must be geo-tagged. This task geo-tags the news using the place names mentioned in the feed with geo-names database. Also, the news is displayed over a timeline that user can drag. India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Results of task 4 The Hindu news geo-tagged and displayed over a map as clickable icons India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Results of task 4 contd… The Hindu news displayed in a temporal fashion India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Experimentation work contd… Task – 5: Overlaying latest Earthquake info. on Bhuvan 3 D Technique used: a map mashup of earthquake info Input data source: The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) website Tools used: Bhuvan 3 D API Explanation: This task was implemented as a simple map mashup to overlay geo-tagged Earthquake information on a map India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Results of task 5 contd… India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Results of task 5 contd… The IMD earthquake info overlaid on Bhuvan 3 D India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Observations Building an interesting and useful mashup application requires – Identifying publicly available GIS data sources – The associated information in the form of multi-media content, data feeds etc. – Identifying data that is required to be extracted or processed in turn to generate new kind of information – The required APIs to perform the task – Selecting the appropriate tool to implement the task – Good widgets based presentation components India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Observations contd… • Interesting mashup applications can be built using piping or wiring models to intermix or transform the input data • In regard to GIS mashups, map data providers like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo etc. suffice a general user. • Public cloud based GIS providers offer capabilities to add local data, change symbology and build a query and analysis system • Visual programming based wiring or piping techniques help building a client-side mashup quickly India Geo-spatial Forum 07 - 09 February 2012, 14 th International Conference, Gurgoan

Issues to be addressed • Performance • Restrictions with cross-domain access and caching • Security mechanisms within the web browser • Intellectual property and copyright mechanisms

Thank you