Case Studies

The geospatial world lacks of design, usability and interaction. Most of the map projects out there lack one single important thing, a story. Additionally the FOSS4G community is normally more focus on functionality that in careful design and user experience. In this talk we will present through examples how to design and develop mapping projects that tell you stories, maps that engage the user and drives them to their own conclussions. We will take the opportunity to explain also a typical workflow between Designers, Frontend developers and backend developers, all working to create great mapping experiences.

This presentation will show how several Open Source components can be combined to build powerful Sensor Web clients. More specifically this talk will focus on clients for the OGC Sensor Observation Service, a standardised web service interface for accessing observations and measurements generated by sensors and sensor networks.

The functionality of the client that will be introduced is focused on the display of time series data. This comprises especially a diagram view which offers comfortable navigation mechanisms (e.g. an overview time series, panning, zooming, etc.). In addition a table view showing all measured values belonging to a user selected time period and a map overview for displaying the sensor locations are included in the client. This display functionality is complemented by further features like an export function (CSV, XLS and PDF export) and comfortable menus that help users to select the data they are interested in.

The development of the client is based on the Google Web Toolkit together with the SmartGWT framework. In order to achieve the broad range of functionality of the client, several Open Source components are used, including JFreeChart (for generating diagrams), Gimv (for diagram interaction and navigation), OpenLayers (for providing a map view of the sensor locations) and the 52°North OX-Framework (for encapsulating the interaction with Sensor Web services).

Finally, this presentation will show how this client, which is available as Open Source software via 52°North, can be used in practical applications like meteorology and hydrology.

Putting information on a map - whether that's seismic activity in Japan or election results in Afghanistan - immediately adds more context to your data. Maps quickly become move powerful with more data overlays, like the magnitude and timing of aftershocks or incidents of corruption and security threats. The story you can tell with your information changes with this additional data, but largely due to how you tell that story with your map with its design.

This session will introduce strategies to design beautiful, effective, and interactive maps with emerging open source mapping tools that are accessible for designers - and not just developers with a GIS background. Open source tools and free and open data now power some of the most stunning maps in the world, and consistent advances in these tools are decreasing the barrier to entry for designers with a web background who want to start designing maps. Participants will leave this session armed with strategies behind designing effective maps, and with a knowledge of the open source tools available to help them easily design them.

Taking a case-study approach, participants will see real-world examples of challenges encountered when designing maps for the web. Topics covered will include interactive design, techniques for tight integration of your maps with your web application, methods for increasing the signal-to-noise ratio in your designs, and map design best practices - plus some fun features like making 3D maps. Possible example maps will include:

• http://japanearthquakerecovery.com
• http://afghanistanelectiondata.org/election/2010
• http://pakistansurvey.org/

The tools and data discussion will center around the Mapnik renderer, the CSS-like Carto styling language, the open source map design studio TileMill, and the OpenStreetMap database.