Map Information System and Interactive Campus Map

Shawn WhitesideSenior Web Services Programmer/Analyst

Rochester Institute of Technology

Patrick ReedWeb Programmer/Analyst

Rochester Institute of Technology

History

• Initially part of a project to rename buildings at RIT

• Evolved into an enterprise data management tool

• Our team consisted of one graphic designer and three developers

Requirements

• Needs to support various forms of data– Buildings, Locations in buildings, Paths

• Needs to work with different maps services– Google, Yahoo, Bing, OpenStreetMap, Static

• Content needs to be searchable• Content needs to be shareable

Web-based Clients

• Functionality – Sharing of map views with deep linking– Image overlay used to show up to date info– Embed map content on external web sites– Keyword search functionality– Auto suggest search results– Familiar interface

Full Screen Client

http://maps.rit.edu

Creating the Map Overlay

• Created the map image based on Google Map satellite view and campus CAD files

• The image overlay is made up of hundreds of 256 x 256 pixel images

• Tiled the images with MapTiler • Every zoom level has a different set of tiles

Mobile Client

• Alternate presentation of map• jQuery Mobile framework• PHP• Simplified view of data• Automatic redirection

Questions?

Extensible Data Model

• Needed a straight forward, relatively easy to understand data model.

• Needs to handle different use cases.• Map Data Object has three child components:– Map Object– Content Objects – Tags

Web Service Architecture

• Why did we go this route?– We wanted to do something a little bit different

than a standard map of buildings. – A building block for other clients– A data source for innovation– RIT needed a better way to find places on campus– Ultimate goal is to map every public place on

campus. (Vending machines, Artwork, etc)

Web Service Architecture

Searching

• Apache Solr – An open source search server• Fantastic performance• Faceted search capabilities• 75% of the Interactive Campus Map calls are

supported by this service.

Admin Interface

• Currently have an internal only client that is fairly basic.

• Plan to integrate with the new client• We plan to have the majority of our dynamic

data added programmatically. • Content updated manually where needed

Collecting Map Data

• Process• Challenges• Options– Mobile gps capture– Google Earth– Google Map

• Accuracy (or lack of)– Roads change width depending on zoom.etc.

Challenges

• Google Map Imagery is not correct• Managing our own map layer is challenging• Keeping data current and relevant• Limited resources

Marketing

• Word of mouth• Embedding the map into other web pages• Linking to it from the main RIT web page• Opening the API up to other developers

Future Ideas

• Integration with the campus events calendar• Real-time bus locations• Point to point directions• Integration with the course catalog• Public release of the API• Restricted views inside the buildings• Development of more map clients

Tools and Resources

• Google Maps JavaScript APIhttp://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/

• MapTilerhttp://www.maptiler.org/

• Apache Solrhttp://lucene.apache.org/solr/

• Google Earthhttp://www.google.com/earth/index.html

• RIT Interactive Campus Maphttp://maps.rit.edu

Questions?