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Show HN: Mapipedia

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Re: Show HN: Mapipedia

#11

Post by mapipedia »

aboutruby wrote: post #4

Stating the obvious but a redesign wouldn't hurt, also copy like "Make $$$ by Accepting Donations!" doesn't help. Otherwise the visualization itself is sound, having multiple views linked is neat. But I personally would rather use an open-source JS library and host it on my own websites.

Thanks for the feedback. You're right there are some good open source libraries out there. Part of the reason I created this site is so that someone with no programming experience can just paste excel data into the page to create animations (I've setup a YouTube channel with some tutorials on there). I think you make a good point about the $$$ comment. I'll have to see if I can come up with something better. Cheers

Re: Show HN: Mapipedia

#12

Post by mapipedia »

ajimix wrote: post #5

Hello David, Very interesting project. If you improve the design to something more modern it will attract many people. But still, I found it very interesting and learned some new things by checking the average life expectancy :)

Thanks. Yeah, I'm the first to admit I'm not a front end designer. I've started talking to someone about updating the design but nothing is locked in yet so if you can recommend anyone let me know! While we're on the topic, I could do with someone who's good at social media marketing. Cheers

Re: Show HN: Mapipedia

#15

Post by stared »

I like it a lot!

Though, I would like to share some feedback:

- Many visulization would benefit from adding an optional logarithmic scale. Or at least "per capita".

- While I love the interactivity, and other features (downloading CSV data, etc), I think the design (colors, edges, etc) would benefit from some polish.

Re: Show HN: Mapipedia

#16

Post by maze-le »

mapipedia wrote: post #9
maze-le wrote: post #7

Hi there, is it possible to have different shapes for different timesteps? The borders of the states of today were very different 120 years ago. Some were radically diffrent (Germany, Russia), some didn't even exist (Slovakia, Croatia, Sub Sahara-African Nations), some don't exist anymore today (Austro-Hungarian Empire).

Hi, thanks for your question. It kind of is. I would like to get to the point where I could change the maps over time to accurately represent things. However, there is some limited capacity to do it now through the use of region groups. So you can't change the regions themselves, but you can group them together. For example, you could model USSR as Russia and some of the Eastern European countries (I haven't created…

Thanks for the fast reply, the grouping option sounds like a good solution as a first step -- there might be instances where this is not applicable -- especially if you'r going further back in time [e.g. the principalities of the Holy Roman Empire were radically different to the german Bundesländer today].

Very cool project btw...

Re: Show HN: Mapipedia

#17

Post by mapipedia »

SomeoneOnTheNet wrote: post #14

Cool! Perhaps you could also support real-time sensor data? Services as Luftdaten.info would love to have these visualizations.

Yeah, one of my future plans is to setup an API so real-time data could be entered into the site. I also want to make changes so that point data can be added in (i.e. lat/lon) so that it's easy to do real time tracking of things - e.g. whales, birds, ships, ... etc. The lat/lon changes would also allow things like earthquakes, fires, floods, world's tallest buildings over time, 7 wonders of the world ... etc to also be mapped.

Re: Show HN: Mapipedia

#18

Post by mapipedia »

stared wrote: post #15

I like it a lot! Though, I would like to share some feedback: - Many visulization would benefit from adding an optional logarithmic scale. Or at least "per capita". - While I love the interactivity, and other features (downloading CSV data, etc), I think the design (colors, edges, etc) would benefit from some polish.

Yes, there is already a log scale in there but it's a bit hidden. You can click the 'Options' in the 'How' section and change the scale. I've also thought about a per capita option (which would be pretty straight forward for sets where I have the population) so that if say someone puts the total amount of carbon emission in there by country it would be an option to convert that per capita. If only I had more time in the day :)

Re: Show HN: Mapipedia

#19

Post by mapipedia »

mapipedia wrote: post #18
stared wrote: post #15

I like it a lot! Though, I would like to share some feedback: - Many visulization would benefit from adding an optional logarithmic scale. Or at least "per capita". - While I love the interactivity, and other features (downloading CSV data, etc), I think the design (colors, edges, etc) would benefit from some polish.

Yes, there is already a log scale in there but it's a bit hidden. You can click the 'Options' in the 'How' section and change the scale. I've also thought about a per capita option (which would be pretty straight forward for sets where I have the population) so that if say someone puts the total amount of carbon emission in there by country it would be an option to convert that per capita. If only I had more time in…

There seems to be a lot of feedback on updating the design. Perhaps I should move that up the priority list!
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