Markers4Map

This lesson is designed to introduce you to web-based map generation with annotated icons on the map. The annotation is visible by clicking on the icon and the annotation will appear as popup. The annotation is pure HTML so you can add links to other resources to the popup.

Learning Objective

At the end of the lesson, you should be able to create a web-based map with Markers4Map that encodes different location as icons with popups on a map. All data is encoded in a link/URL that can be used as link in Wikiversity or Wikipedia.

Example Map with Markers/Icons and assigned Popups

Learning Tasks

Combine spatial markers with Information Retrieval. Explain how information retrieval could populate spatial markers and analyze a search request for "Pizza" or "Museum" with spatial markers and a known geolocation on a smartphone.
Combine collaborative mapping with the population of a Web Index that is able to represent spatial information.
a marker represents e.g. point of interest a geolocation of a resource. How can you visualize an area of interest? What are the differences? What are appropriate data structures to represent areas?
Markers4Map^[1] creates a record that assigns existing digital content to a geolocation by placing a marker with a reference on the map. Explore also direct assignment of geolocation to digital content (see Brandenburg Gate in Berlin with a geolocation 52.5163N, 13.3777E and explain the application scenario of having a reference to a geolocation in a learning resource.
(Calculate Distance) Select two different location on the map and calculate the distance on the surface of the sphere. Assume that the earth is a sphere with a radius $r>0$ .

Creating a web based Map with Icons

The following steps describe the basic workflow of

(Download Demo JSON) First download the file landau_markers4map.json ^[1] from GitHub (use the browser with "Save As ...")
(Start Markers4Map) Start the OpenSource tool Markers4Map load the file landau_markers4map.json ^[2] with (Load) in the tool Markers4Map.
(Display Map with Icons/Popup) Display the loaded icons on the OpenStreetMap card (Display Map) represents.
(Change Marker Definition/Popup text) Experiment with Markers4Map and
- change the popup text behind the icons
- change the link for the icons
- create more icons on the map
- remove some icons on the map
(Save JSON) Save the JSON file to your local file system for further use or if you want to add more icons and popups later.
(Copy Map Link) Press button to display map and copy the link in the browser that encodes all the information for the markers and the popup text. You can copy and use the link in Wikiversity to display certain information and icons in OpenStreetMap.

Tools

Markers4Map - OpenSource GitHub Tool to create an URL that encodes the geolocation of markers with their pop-ups for OpenStreetMap in OpenLayers
OpenLayers Display Markers - OpenSource GitHub Tool takes a JSON file as input via URL to display geo-encoded markers with pop-ups for OpenStreetMap Maps in OpenLayers

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Bert Niehaus (2018) Markers4Map GitHub Repository - URL: https://github.com/niebert/Markers4Map
↑ Markers4Map Demo JSON (2018) GitHub: JSON created for Wikiversity Learning Resource - URL: https://github.com/niebert/Markers4Map/blob/master/docs/db/landau_markers4map.json