One of the many perks about working at Azavea is the opportunity to conduct an independent research project. Full time staff that have been with the company for at least 6 months are eligible to develop a research project plan, and pitch it to the powers that be. We have profiled several other research projects in previous newsletters, each solving a different problem. Sometimes staff choose to take on projects pro-bono, rebuild older Azavea applications, or learn more about a given technology.
Last year, I learned about the MIT Media Lab’s Tangible Media Group-produced ‘Sourcemap’ project. Sourcemap is a tool, “for producers, business owners and consumers to understand the impact of supply chains.” My personal interests initially attracted me to the project, and Azavea approached the Sourcemap project in November of 2008 to see if they could use any contributions of the mapping and/or web development kind. They were happy to have contributions, and I began working on the spatial database and mapping components of the project. They generously moved to an MIT Open Source License, partially in order to accept the mapping and web development contributions I would make.
Some of the components I have been working on have included:
- Migrating from a proprietary web mapping API to OpenLayers
- Implementing specialized “arcing” cartography between parts and objects
- Rendering material networks across the International Date Line
The migration to OpenLayers increased performance of object maps, and enabled the maps to display a much greater number of features. This introduced a second problem when there became too many features on the map to be able to distinguish them – if any two parts of an object and an object itself was collinear, it would be impossible to see their connection. By slightly arcing the network, it became possible to discriminate parts in complex objects. Lastly, mapping a network across the IDL introduces many fun problems – one of which is that mapping a part from Japan to an object in Alaska went the wrong way around the globe! The solution I came up with involved creating networks that repeat across the globe and represent the shortest distance between points.
The Sourcemap project generously moved to an MIT Open Source License, partially in order to accept my contributions. The challenges of working with the team at MIT from Azavea’s offices in Philadelphia introduced some growing pains to the project, but the project lead, Leo Bonanni, was committed to opening up the project to outside (of the Media Lab) contributors, and managing a distributed team.
Now, Sourcemap is getting ready to go live (http://www.sourcemap.org/), and they have some beautiful and informative maps. I am proud to be a part of the project, and Azavea is happy to see its staff working on such cool projects.
Click here for an interactive Sourcemap!
Interactive Sourcemap (Firefox only)!
