Thursday, 23 October 2014

After Contact Work

After the contact today we agreed to all work on the application together, so off we went in search for a place to work. The chosen venue, room 122 in GPS, although already accompanying two classes, was our home for the next few hours.

This was when i started to make the polygon maps for the animals. I admit, it was a lot lot lot easier than working with circles. Circles required more information, such as the size (population) of the circle as well as its long&latitude. When i wanted to change one, it also took forever to see which set of coordinates it was because the list needed no order, so it was a procedure of tedious trial and error steps.

Basically, the coordinates for making the circled areas for the crocodile's location:

var citymap = {};
citymap['area1'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-19.5, 140.5),
  population: 4504856
};
citymap['area2'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-17, 130),
  population: 3000000
};
citymap['area3'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-17, 135),
  population: 4000000
};
citymap['area4'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-14, 133),
  population: 4400000
};
citymap['area5'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-14, 143),
  population: 2500000
};
citymap['area5'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-15, 143),
  population: 2200000
};
citymap['area6'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-17, 143),
  population: 2500000
};
citymap['area7'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-20, 144),
  population: 4000000
};
citymap['area8'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-20, 147),
  population: 1800000
};
citymap['area9'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-18, 137),
  population: 4500000
};
citymap['area10'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-16.5, 126.5),
  population: 4500000
};
citymap['area11'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-18.5, 123.5),
  population: 3000000
};
citymap['area12'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-17, 133),
  population: 2500000
};
citymap['area13'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-13, 142.5),
  population: 1000000
};
citymap['area14'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-18, 145),
  population: 1000000
};
citymap['area15'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-16, 145),
  population: 800000
};
citymap['area16'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-21.5, 148.5),
  population: 900000
};
citymap['area17'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-23, 149.5),
  population: 800000
};
citymap['area18'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-24, 150.5),
  population: 800000
};
citymap['area19'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-25, 151.7),
  population: 500000
};
citymap['area20'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-26, 152.5),
  population: 300000
};
citymap['area21'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-26.8, 152.6),
  population: 200000
};
citymap['area22'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-22, 146.5),
  population: 1500000
};
citymap['area23'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-15, 130.5),
  population: 700000
};
citymap['area24'] = {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(-13, 135.5),
  population: 700000
};

Looking at this, i will tell you that it is almost imposssibleee to locate which circle is which. Ive almost memorised what numbers the latitudes and longitudes are for each area on the map but this doesnt even help. This is the code for the polygons, also for crocodiles:

 var CrocCoords = [
  new google.maps.LatLng(-19, 122),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-17, 123),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-14, 126),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-14, 127),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-15, 129),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-13, 130),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-12, 133),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-12, 137),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-15, 135),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-18, 140),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-18, 141),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-14, 142),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-11, 142.5),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-15, 144),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-14.5, 144.7),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-15, 145.2),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-19, 146),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-21, 149),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-23, 150.6),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-26, 152.7),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-27, 152.8),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-24, 147),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-23, 142),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-19, 135),
    new google.maps.LatLng(-18, 130),
  ];

SO much shorter, neater and orderly structured! Here, everything is in order, because all the points need to connect, and its so much easier to change the placement of one or add another point into the polygon.

In the time of the group meetup, i had only managed to make three maps with polygons; the crocodiles, koalas and numbats. If youve read yesterday's post, the numbat's location is literally a circle on the bottom left of western australia, so really theres no point showing this achievement even though it took almost as much time to do as the rest.

Comparison of the circles & polygon for crocodiles location. Top right shows where they live from a normal map.

Comparison between circles & polygon use for koalas. 

You have to agree the polygons look a lot neater right? At 4pm, as China was about to leave, she suggested that i gave her some to do tonight as this would be a lot faster. I sent her the link to the website which i got the examples from, the file for the koala's polygon (to use as template to change) and a map of where kangaroos live to match off. Kind of confusing right, dont worry you dont need to do this.

Though polygons provide more benefits as oppose to circles, i realised some disadvantages from this technique. Polygons are basically just splotches of red that can be coded into different shapes to cover different areas on the map. Circles, though pretty much only being able to add circles, gives the option to add more than one area onto the map. So i can have ten circles in one area, and 1 circle on the other side of australia. I cant do this for polygons, because its only 1 shape. I have looked up adding more polygons to an image and am still looking to see whether it will work. If i cannot do it, i will consider using both circles and polygons.

Another problem that nether circles nor polygons can offer is having an area with nothing in it (woah so bad at explaining i wouldnt get this myself). So for example, if an animal lives on the outline of australia, the shape for this would be a hollow/empty australia. Polygons and circles cant achieve this shape.

This area in red shows where white bellied sea eagles are found in australia and sets a perfect example of what i mean. As far as my skills take me, polygons and circles cannot cover that red area.

If i cannot find another alternative for achieving this, we will have to replace animals such as the white bellied sea eagle to more simpler animals what live in one distinct location.

Continuing, during the time, Soobin had asked for some of the coordinates of the long & lats so that he could add them into the database. As i watched him add them into the database, i realised that his job was just as boring, tiring and tedious as mine as he needed to add each point into the database one by one. At least he didnt have to do 1951351 trial and error sequences to see where each point went.

In this time, I believe Bill was working on the ranking system. Occasionally, i would ask him what he did for the markers on the map and compared it to what i was doing (even though i did the markers too), in case i was doing anything wrong. At one point, i was hit with sudden realisation that i might have needed to incorporate google map's API keys etc into the maps aswell (because i realised there was a separate section in the website (google developers) for polygons, markers, circles etc with API keys. Also Soobin mentioned something about APIs before being interrupted by someone and never finished what he was going to say). This was cleared up when I asked Bill if he used it for his markers and again asking Soobin what he meant. What a relief it was.. duhh google maps isnt something from Trove..

At 5pm, we decided to head home. Soobin and Bill had also suggested that i give them the files for the maps so that they could try doing some for the animals since it was a long task. I agreed to teach them tonight or tomorrow. We briefly decided on meeting up tomorrow for the workshops and staying back at uni to complete as much as possible.

Things that still need to be done include the remainder of the application by monday (though i heard that we can still change some things about it after the upload to the zones), organising the tradeshow, the report and portfolio.

The tradeshow seems like a huge effort since visual aids are required, as well as simple pitches and preferred dress codes. And most importantly, a functional application!.!!. So much work to dooo..

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