The IMatch 2017 Map Panel - Now with area search!

[Mario]

H,

I've just added the last missing feature for the Map Panel: Area search.

You can now draw a circle, a rectangle or a polygon directly on the map and then let IMatch find all files in that area. Awesome 
There are two modes of operation:

1. You let IMatch search for all files in the selected area in the entire database. The result will be presented in a separate result window. All files will be selected and shown on the map.

User: "Show me all files in my database in this area"

2. You let IMatch search within the current file window. The search result will be applied to the file window by selecting all found files.

User: "Select all files in the active file window in this area".

This is how it looks in the Map Panel. I used a polygon to select an irregular area for this example. A great way to find all files in a city or a excavation site or similar.
Click to zoom:



I've implemented this in Google Maps first. Now I need to figure out how to do it with OpenLayers 

[Menace]

That's great. I love the next IMatch-Version already. 

[Lincoln]

That is really cool 

[DigPeter]

Cool to freezing 

[Frank]

When di we get it?
I know ...

Frank

[stevebiker]

Great feature! When will the new version come?

[Mario]

When di we get it?

Great feature! When will the new version come?

I never mention precise dates. As always: As soon as it is ready.

If you have followed my related postings, you know that I have lost at least two or three weeks because I had to abandon the built-in "WebViewer" in Windows because it's not longer up-to-date and does not support all modern web standards anymore. I had to switch to using the Chromium browser base (same as Google Chrome uses, and Node.js) and this meant a lot of learning, experiments, work and frustration. But now I have already implemented something that was planned for Autumn and IMatch has the fastest and most modern browser embedded. And the fastest JavaScript engine as well 

Since I wanted to switch to the latest OpenLayers framework to get support for all modern map providers, I not only had to implement a complete new Map Panel, but I had to implement it twice - because OpenLayers no longer supports Google Maps. Since many users prefer Google, I had to spend an extra week or more developing a separate path for Google Maps.

Implementing Chromium in a software is huge and usually a team effort. I did it alone.
Implementing an application based on OpenLayers and Google Maps is huge and usually a team effort. I did it alone.

But with software development you'll never know when you run into a mine field or get stuck for several days, trying to figure out how something works  - or why fails...
And immediately your schedule is out of the window.

Additionally, I always have to ensure that everything I build will work even for large databases.
What works in a mobile app with a few hundred data points will fail miserably in IMatch, when a user has 100,000 or even 300,000 files to process.

In short: It's not easy, but I'm working on it. And rest assured that I will make a lot of 'noise' when it is ready 

[Mario]

The All New Map Panel with 6500 files.

The new Map Panel takes less than 2 seconds (!) to load and cluster the files. This is great.

[sinus]

Cool.

Looks nice, would also look good, I think, if there thumbs there.

So finally, if I am not wrong, the map is almost finnished (as finnished in software can be finnished).

[Mario]

I doubt that trying to display 6000 thumbnails would be quite as fast.
Or useful in any way, because most thumbnails would be hidden in clusters or covered by other thumbs.

I leave this to the user. Even on my quite fast computer it takes several seconds to retrieve 6000 thumbnails from IMatch (which is awesome, btw.).

For my tests I use synthetic test images filled with random GPS data produced by the Lorem Ipsum IMatch app. I just don't have 30,000 files with GPS data lying around 
This is how it looks with 6000 files in the London area:



The embedded Chromium browser in IMatch handles it, but panning is a pain. Just makes no sense to show that many thumbnails., Except for stress testing.

And of course you always can click on a marker or cluster and open a popup with detailed information about the clicked file:

[sinus]

 

Thanks Mario, anyway, it worked! Funny.

Your second image from Berlin looks really very good, clean, nice.
Thanks.

[Mario]

Stock photo with too much vignetting 

[stevebiker]

I never mention precise dates. As always: As soon as it is ready.

Thanks for the detailed answer! Sounds rather difficult! All the more I am happy when it's ready!

[Mario]

I never mention precise dates. As always: As soon as it is ready.

Sounds rather difficult!

Indeed.