Street Addresses / Local Map?
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Hi. I'm wondering if someone could point me in the right direction for trying to map street addresses on a local map, instead of zip codes on a national one.
how much time are you really hoping to devote to tihs? cuz it's ont going to be easy...
well, it wouldn't be so hard if you wanted to use a commercial mapping API (yahoo, google) to map people, but then you would lose the ForwardTrack animations and such.
thanks for the quick response! i'm willing to put in a good bit of time on this.
do you have good flash skills? basically, to do what you want would be a major contribution to the project, but it requires a fluency with a number of different things -- php, geocoding, mapping/projections, flash, etc.
No real skills in any of those, unfortunately, but am a quick learner. Would like to give it a stab. Won't bug you with how-tos, but could you suggest an initial list set of tasks, maybe highlighting the key parts of the program that would have to be altered, and where I could find the mapping data I need? The map and street addresses I'd want to use: a subsection (about one-quarter) of Washington, DC.
the problem with using FT for individual street addresses is that the all of the mapping mechanisms in FT rely on aggregating and placing people around a specific set of enumerated points.
to do individual address mapping, I would recommend using Google or Yahoo Maps to do an un-animated map. this wuold require, approximately, the following steps:
1) extend the CampaignApp class to do some geocoding of your registrants' address data as it comes in (see http://forwardtrack.eyebeamresearch.org/docs/extend.html and http://geocoder.us/ and http://developer.yahoo.com/maps/rest/V1/geocode.html\)
2) extend it to also support making some kind of asynchronous XML-type request for data that can be fed into Google/Yahoo maps
3) do the google/yahoo maps 'mashup' (http://www.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/ and http://developer.yahoo.com/maps/index.html )
i would LOVE to integrate this functionality back into the coedbase, possibly even help out a bit, so let me know if you make some headway.
thanks,
mike
I'm interested in making this happen, too. I'm using it in New York City and I'd actually rather just lookup the post office or put a dot over the general vicinity of your zipcode, than actually show your street address.
I have fairly solid PHP skills and a good grasp of geocoding and mapping, but less of a handle on flash.
ok, so if you just want to just have it work on local zip codes instead of national 3-digit zips that is A LOT simpler than doing geocoding for each user's house.
it's not a really well-docmented process, it requires, among other things I'm sure:
1) replacing the ft/maps/map-geometry.swf with a new flash file with a new base-map and new zip->x,y mappings
2) changing define('FT_MAP_DATA_ZIP_LEN', 3); to '5' in lib/FT/Core/MapData.class.php
but, if you are really in NYC, I would suggest just coming by Eyebeam for our office hours http://research.eyebeam.org/office-hours it's much easier to talk in person!
I'd stop in (I've made plans to before) but I work in DUMBO in the afternoons, which makes it hard to get to yer open hours.
well, exceptions can be made at other times, especially for people trying to do good things with our software...
Hmm. So it wouldn't be infeasible to, aggregate people around a set of points if those points are zip codes?
I just want an NYC map that shows neighborhoods, rather than a national map.
Okay, I swear I am not totally brain dead, but for some reason I always get lost in Source Forge forums. I see now that Mike responded directly to my question already.
zip codes, yes, you can aggregate around that.
but not street addresses.