Designing the Maps in OptiMap Builder
The first step when using OptiMap to create an online mapping
application is cartography: designing the map. All of the
cartographic and Web is done in the OptiMap Builder. The OptiMap
builder is a visual tool similar to other GIS mapping tools. It
is fairly straightforward and if need be, the map design work
could be allocated to whomever is responsible for the map
information, such as the marketing department or an information
center. Figure 1 shows a screen shot of the OptiMap Builder 5.0.
To see Figure 1 click here!
In the Builder, users can create maps and link them to data.
Having a small amount of experience in GIS software, I found
this tool to be fairly simple in comparison. A map is composed
of numerous shapes, each representing a town, county, state or
other geographical region. These shapes can then be assigned
data values and colors depending on the value of the data (e.g.
5-10 is green, 11-20 is blue, etc.). A number of design
functions are included and maps can become quite detailed in a
relatively short amount of time. Creating new maps with
backgrounds, titles, legends and other features can all be done
easily with a click here and a drag there. Images can be
imported and used for design purposes, or as the basis for maps,
such as one might do with satellite imagery or a topographical
image.
In the Builder, users can toggle back and forth between the map
view and the XML source. This source view enables expert users
to edit the XML directly, or copy-paste from other templates.
Once the map design is completed, the Web developer will need to
embed it into the Web application.
Using OptiMap in Web Applications
The builder is more than just a map designing tool, it will
generate the code that will embed a map into a Web application.
It also allows for more dynamic mapping functionalities, such as
pop-ups to explain data within in a region, geographical drill-
down interfaces and more.
The tool used for embedding map applications into Web
applications is called the Corda Embedder. The Corda Embedder
is essentially a dynamic way to generate embed code based on the
type of file the server will generate for you. This includes
generating an <object>, <embed> or <img> tag
writing to the HTML page, as well as send ing commands and data
to the OptiMap Server. There are embedders available for Perl,
PHP, and Windows applications as a COM object, but in the Java
development environment you will use the
com.Corda.CordaEmbedder class. It can be called on
directly from a servlet or JSP page, or you can access it as a
JavaBeans component in JSP. Additionally, Corda offers a suite
of JSP custom tags. The syntax is pretty straightforward
whichever method you choose. Using set methods, the developer
passes the location of the OptiMap server, the location of the
appearance file, the size of the map to be served and other
similar information. The OptiMap Builder will auto generate code
for you to start with.
One of the options that is defined in the embedder is which
format to use. I definitely recommend using Flash or SVG (if
your users will have an SVG-compatible plug-in) as it will make
for much more dynamic map applications than the others.
Remembering that almost 98% of browsers today have Flash already
installed so cross-browser compatibility shouldn't be an issue
using this method, plus load times are minimal because both
technologies are vector-based meaning that the information
passed to the user is minimal, the plug-in does the graphic
rendering.
Simply embedding a single map with dynamic data into a page is
really only the tip of the proverbial iceberg with OptiMap.
OptiMap developers can create drill-down maps that can, for
example, allow users to click on a country to see a more
detailed map of that country, then view a state and so on. Using
PCXML (Presentation Control XML), the XML language of the
appearance files, and PCScript, OptiMap's proprietary scripting
language, a developer can even further customize output
information, allowing for dynamic images, text data, maps and
shapes to be created at run-time.
The data connection will also be configured in the OptiMap
Builder. OptiMap can retrieve data from files (including
delimited files and HTML tables) or databases (using JDBC and
SQL). The Builder will help output JDBC connection code and
execute the query. The map can then be populated with the
dynamic ResultSet data.
Additionally, OptiMap supports Section 508 compliance by
allowing for a "Descriptive Text" display of map information to
enable visually impaired individuals to be able to "see"
generated maps.
Once all of the work is done in the builder, the OptiMap Server
(in conjunction with your Web application server) do the work.
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