[Map Module] Enhancements for Photographic Maps/Routes (SUMMARY)

Posted as feature request in the Sourceforge's Project Page

Cross-posted with 3RD-Party module forum to gather responses and opinions.

From what I've seen of other messages and my own experience I think I can summarize what people are trying to say (myself included) when a "photo map" is referred.

We start with this:
-A group of photos along coordinate and datestamp data for them.

And we may also have this (ideally but not necessarily):
-A GPX file of a route taken from a GPS

The end result we want is:
A map of the route taken and the photos (or actually, markers to them) placed in their coordinates.

What we may all not be completely in agreement is how this should be presented. There have been several options mentioned of what people would like so let me try to pitch an option here that might work for everyone.

I see it a map with photos having three separate steps (which could be optional or automatic, as we can see later) that can be done sequentially or simultaneously (moving from one mode to another depending on context)

1.-Laying down the route (could be done automatically using a GPX file or manually). Optional.

2.-Placing down the photos. Manual or automatic (by comparing the datestamp on the photos if there is a GPX logfile to cross-reference or automatically if the photos have geo-location data)

3.-Presentation. Not mentioned directly in other feature requests but more important than what's being acknowledged. Not only if the maps should have pre-defined size and/or the kind of map it should use (satellite, map, hybrid) but also the kind of markers that should be used, how the photos should be displayed and how is the user expected to navigate them.

o. Step 1 - Define the map
I start from a route in a google map (similar to Gmap-Pedometer's[1], although functionality could be replicated) or taken from a GPX file (which Gmap-pedometer can export anyway). The end result would be like link #[2] and could be generated through a GPX file or directly by double-clicking on a Gmaps interface (currently gmap-pedometer works like this, after clicking on "Start Recording" every double-click on a map will result in a "leg" of the route being defined, the Map Above was generated this way)

o. Step 2 - Load the Photos
If photos are geocoded this is the easiest thing to do, but this is not the norm yet (and may not be for a while). If a Time-Coded GPX file is present the geocoding can be done automatically using the timestamp of the photo along the timeline of the GPX file and getting the closest approximation.

If no geocoding exists in the photos and the GPX file is not timestamped then manual placement is the only way to go.

Continuing with the example above the map that already shows the route (or not) can be put in another "mode". We already had "Recording mode" so now there could be the "Picture mode" where a click assigns a photo or "photo group" (more on this later, it addressed the "I take a bunch of pictures from the same place" concern) marker. One click places a placeholder and pops-up the ajax picture browser (pulling pictures from the album itself, with an interface similar to the WPG2 Image Browser[3], which can be cancelled for later edit. The final map just with placeholder could look something like a pedometer map with markers set[4] (markers in Gmap-Pedometer are mile markers but for demonstration purposes they work).

A placeholder or icon could be edited and changed at any moment if in "Edit" mode. Editing would bring a screen or popup where the placeholder can be set to:

a.-Marker: Just some text and or link attached to a point in the map.
b.-Picture: Single picture.
c.-Picture Group: Hovering shows a mini-slideshow or a scrolling ticker of thumbnails.

When selecting (a) the user would get a choice of icon to put and text, HTML may be allowed, at least <a> and style tags.

When selecting (b) the user would get an image chooser from the current album or, if programmatically possible, from any album (this would break the Gmap-as-theme idea, but would work for special Gmap-albums, not "real" G2 albums) and the caption and description fields optionally (can be included or not), along with edit fields for these. The icon for these could be pre-defined or selectable (I personally would put a camera icon, as well as 8-directional camera icons, as well as icon for "person", "group" and "point of interest").

When selecting (c) the user would get a "container" for pictures, each one selected in the same way as (b) above (but caption and description settings would apply for all pictures in the "container"). The marker would have a choice of icons contextual to a "group" as well.

(I wouldn't have the same icons available for each of the categories above, but that's me)

o.- Step 3 - Editing the "album" (quotes because it may not end up being a "true" album from G2).

The final step would be to set the general settings of the map itself. Apart from the obvious (satellite/map view, Metric/English, width/height, zoom controls, etc.) I think of the following:

- Playback controls: Jump to the next or previous picture in the series (or the next marker). Play/Stop to see as a slideshow.
- Picture ticker, with all pics in a long banner above or below. Click a picture and the map goes to that marker.
- Zoom level and starting marker (if zoomed-in in very long routes it may be logical to put the first marker zoomed-in and have the map scroll to the next).
- Description shown in a pane below or in a popup, when a marker is clicked/hovered.
- Should there be export options? (GPX, mainly)

Epilogue:

I know this is a LOT and I know it will sound like I'm a capricious brat demanding things for a module I can't even use at the moment (long story) but I truly think the layout above could cover almost every conceivable use of the Gmap-Module in Gallery or even in a standalone application. I offer myself to help in any way I can (including but not limited to translation (into mexican and Spanish Spanish) and testing(when 2.1's APIs are supported))

I also understand that this would make this one of the possibly most complicated and complete Google-Map tools out there.

This post was spawned by Termitenshort in the G2 Forums and a single quoted line from him:

Termitenshort: "Man we'll never be done."

I tried to think up a way to gather everything that's been requested from this tool in a single place, along with how I think it could be made to work together and include functionality that would probably be requested afterwards. As far as I see I didn't include anything that could clash G2 or need anything else from G2 not being done right now so hopefully no G2 incompatibilities would be introduced.

It's possible that the Maps-Module ends up being a separate application that works embedded to G2, considering how complicated it could become.

Regards and congratulations on the fabulous job you guys've done.w
--- Links ---

[1] Gmap-Pedometer:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

[2] Sample Gmap-Pedometer Route (no markers):
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3203

[3] WPG2 Image Chooser: http://g2image.steffensenfamily.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

[4] Sample Gmap-Pedometer Route with markers:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2689
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2688

NOTE: You can see I've mentioned the Pedometer a lot. This is because I use it a lot. I like it but I'd really prefer to have the routes in my own gallery and linked to my own photos, which I can't do right now (I have done image maps from screenshots of the pedometer, but that's cumbersome)

NOTE2: I haven't included screenshots from all I mentioned because I've written this in the office (you can tell it's a slow day) and I don't have the tools here. I plan on doing some mock-ups if the dev team for the Gmap-module is interested. I did try to be clear and structure the ideas the best I could, though.

Gallery version = 2.1.0- core 1.0.20
PHP version = 4.3.11 apache
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