News craziness
3 days ago
I have mentioned that I am a professional student - but that particular occupation also entails me doing real work, though I have joked otherwise. I do most of my work in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which, for the non-Geographers out there (ha), is essentially computer assisted mapping with an associated database.
Anyway, I have an awesome list of all the personal projects I would love to do, and on that list is a an Azeroth GIS. Basically, it would be an interactive map of the World of Warcraft. My idea is that instead of looking up a zone on wowhead and finding a list there of all the available quests in the zone, you could use a map. Click on the zone in question, and search by level. There, on the map, you would see all the quests available for your level, and where exactly the questgiver is. Perhaps it could even show linkages of quest chains - where they would take you. Since a GIS incorporates a database, you could essentially provide all kinds of information and search functions - it need not be solely limited to quests.
I am still considering doing this project, because I love to share my Type A spreadsheetiness mentality with everyone, but it would be highly complicated by the software. Creating a GIS like this would mean either A) only people who have the 3,000 dollar software could use it, or B) I would have to spend a fortune to get the extension that would allow me to publish it so that people would need only download some free software to view it. It's a lot like Adobe Acrobat Reader - except that it's even more difficult (read: expensive) to actually create the "PDFs".
I love thinking up completely unnecessary and complicated tasks for myself that in all likelihood I will never get around to doing. I do wonder though, if I were to enlist the help of others, if it would be much easier. I could do the mapping fairly easily if someone else could help put together the database. Or perhaps I am just trying to justify spending a bunch of money I don't have for a software extension I don't need...
Anyway, I have an awesome list of all the personal projects I would love to do, and on that list is a an Azeroth GIS. Basically, it would be an interactive map of the World of Warcraft. My idea is that instead of looking up a zone on wowhead and finding a list there of all the available quests in the zone, you could use a map. Click on the zone in question, and search by level. There, on the map, you would see all the quests available for your level, and where exactly the questgiver is. Perhaps it could even show linkages of quest chains - where they would take you. Since a GIS incorporates a database, you could essentially provide all kinds of information and search functions - it need not be solely limited to quests.
I am still considering doing this project, because I love to share my Type A spreadsheetiness mentality with everyone, but it would be highly complicated by the software. Creating a GIS like this would mean either A) only people who have the 3,000 dollar software could use it, or B) I would have to spend a fortune to get the extension that would allow me to publish it so that people would need only download some free software to view it. It's a lot like Adobe Acrobat Reader - except that it's even more difficult (read: expensive) to actually create the "PDFs".
I love thinking up completely unnecessary and complicated tasks for myself that in all likelihood I will never get around to doing. I do wonder though, if I were to enlist the help of others, if it would be much easier. I could do the mapping fairly easily if someone else could help put together the database. Or perhaps I am just trying to justify spending a bunch of money I don't have for a software extension I don't need...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Ha. We do have a few SW engineers in the EGA... I'm more of a whip cracker myself... but I can write software.
You realize that this is possible right?
Depending on if you wanted it ingame or not, ingame would be next to impossible since you'd have to use a db connection.
Now, if you were to use already existing technology, you could use the google maps API and overlay a copy of azerothian map.
http://mapwow.com/northrend/ is an example of this.
Now, if you want.. there are free GIS apps :P
http://opensourcegis.org/ which is just a small list..
the implementation depends much on how you want it do be displayed. A website? Much like wowhead, thottbott or alakazam? Or more like the map previously mentioned? :P
so yeh :P
@ Fallback
Oh yes, I know it's possible! In my spare time at work I've been trying to set some of it up. OSGIS is okay, but I prefer the DB setup of arc, especially since I'm more accustomed to arc, and its tools - plus i would prefer the implementation to be a separate file that people could download, like a document - thus ArcReader.
Also, how awesome is it that I knew exactly who you were just from your comment? XD
omg! :o!
I've been found out.. *vanish*