MalaysiaGIS.com

Source: The Star

Users first obtain the URL of the venue on Map-Portal's vector map at www.map2u.net and include it in an e-mail, SMS, or instant message, and invite recipients to access the link through their web browser and call up the map indicating the location of the venue such as a restaurant, shopping centre, road, public park, etc.

"We're offering Map2U as a free service to the public and we'll maintain the currency of their links for two daya maximum," said Map-Portal chief technology officer, Leng Chee Kong who spoke to In.Tech in Map-Portal's offices in Puchong Jaya.

"To encourage the community to contribute back to Map2U, we'll extend this period, for instance to five days, for registered users who make constructive suggestions, inform us of spelling mistakes or outdated information in our maps," said Leng.

Registration is free but one does not have to register to access Map2U, unless they want to participate in the incentive schemes or contribute to the services through encouraging wider community usage and contribution," said Leng.

Map-Portal also plans to roll out a range of map-related Weblink services to paying business clients within the next month or so.

"These will include applications, for instance indicating the location of a bank's branches, restaurants, hotels, government agencies, shopping malls, etc. Since we support Web-to-map and map-to-Web linking, these customers can include a link on their website to the location of their premises on our map and we can include a link to their website on our map portal," said Leng.

"Online newspapers can also embed Web-to-map links which call up maps indicating locations of robberies, accidents, landslides and other incidents reported in their stories," he added.

Open standards based
Over the past six months, Map-Portal has been converting its hitherto proprietary vector mapping system to one based on the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C's) SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) open standards.

When In.Tech last reported on Map-Portal (Nov 27, 2001), users had to download and install its proprietary map viewer from the site and thereafter they had to use the viewer, instead of a regular Web browser to browse the vector maps.

"Now they only need to download Adobe SVG Viewer Version 3.0 as a plugin to their Web browser and use it normally after that and furthermore, since SVG is a standard, it can work from behind proxy servers and firewalls which sometimes blocked our proprietary map viewer," said Leng who's confident that future web browser versions will incorporate native SVG support and thus dispense with having to download plugins.

Map-Portal lets users search on all objects by name, by exact match on a name or by displaying all objects according to type - schools, hotels, embassies, restaurants, shopping centres, roads, rivers, lakes or fields.

Unlike raster graphics like JPEG, TIFF and Bitmap files which are based on pixels and are relatively large and take a long time to download especially over narrowband dialup connections, vector graphics comprise text information describing an image and mathematical formulas for manipulating them and they thus typically occupy tens, rather than hundreds or thousands of bytes and once downloaded, users can zoom in and out on features of that map section without any more data transfer until they need another map section.

Moreover, embedded mathematics enables vector graphics images to regenerate themselves as the user zooms in and thus maintains its continuous and smooth appearance, while raster images tend to pixelate (appear blocky) as the user zooms in. SVG images can be compressed to one-third their size without any loss in quality.

Leng demonstrated he could download vector map sections over a dialup link in under one minute even though, due to poor network conditions, the modem had connected at 28.8Kbps which was half its 56Kbps maximum speed.

"Prior to SVG, vector applications were dominated by proprietary technologies from Flash and Autodesk," said Leng.

Map-Portal's architecture comprises a repository containing the map data with a link layer above it providing simple link services like Web-to-map and map-to-Web connectivity.

Above it currently sits applications like Map2U and future possibilities could include a host of customer-specific applications - each applying links in different contexts - and Map-Portal will work with applications developers with domain knowledge in their specific industries or fields of expertise.

For more information, call Map-Portal at (03)-8076-3306 or check out Map-Portal's website at www.map-portal.net.