[uf-discuss] Geo Elevation Data

[Jon Clausen]

 > What kind of use do you envisage web tools being able to use that line
> sequence information for?
>
> This may be a case where something greater than the Geo microformat (which
> is point specific) is required.

At the current time, that's difficult.   I'll try to give a couple of
examples, though.  The app I'm developing has the ability to upload
and import GPS data from 25 different formats common to the major GPS
manufacturers.  From there it allows you to organize, share, and
export that data (points and routes) as well as to export it out in
any of those formats.

The common data which is standard across most of the formats is Lat,
Lon, and Elevation.  Routes are stored as a collection of waypoints
and are marked up differently, but  are the same basic data - albeit
in sequence.

Along the way, I'm trying to plug-in the API to other tools which make
use of spatial data such as Flickr.   Routes are a natural progression
from points since they communicate time as well as space.  If the
ability were there for a user to geo-tag their photos, and map those
photos to routes or trails that they have taken, you might have the
ability to share a "virtual tour" of their trip in a mapped sequence
or exploration through current tools like Google Earth and progress in
sequence.

Another example might be a of a Flickr user who sees a series of
vacation photos organized into a route and wants to export that route
and locations to the Spotstor (my app) API for export into their GPS.
As noted before, Mountain climbing or hiking might be an example of
this.   Another example might be persons who might want to pass
directions to each other to meet up in a large corporate campus - i.e.
- "here's my cube from where you are".  The 3rd dimension would be
helpful there as well in multi-level buildings.

As I was in the "Spatial Reality" panel here at SXSW a couple of days
ago, it kind of hit me that with the work Google is doing around
mapping the 3rd dimension of cities and topography could pose display
problems for data that doesn't contain a z-index.

Without the 3rd dimension, mapping those points using Google earth or,
perhaps in the future, through Google maps, might cause the waypoint
to be displayed inside an object instead of at the correct elevation.

Hope that helps to clarify.   I can certainly submit a proposal for
the route format - which would probably be best served by an ordered
list containing separate geo elements:

<ol class="geo-route">
<li class="geo">
Latitude: <abbr class="latitude" title="-83.00000">-83.0000</abbr>
Longitude: <abbr class="longitude" title="43.00000">43.0000</abbr>
Elevation: <abbr class="elevation" title="2012.00000">2012.0000</abbr>
<li>
etc....
</ol>

-Jon