Proposal:Markup for Maps

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Summary

Instead of a tedious creation of maps, star maps, geographical maps, other maps, create a markup system that generates maps as needed.

Proposal

The proposal regards constructing a markup language that generates maps instead of the editors providing images. This should be seen as a complement to providing images, not a sole restricted alternative.

In order to generate a map over Putnok, the editor could write:

<map>
  TYPE: Earth
  CAPTION: Position of Putnok, [[Hungary]]
  SIZE: 200x200(px)
  PROJECTION: Mercator
  CENTER: Hungary
  SPOT(reddot.jpg): 48°18'N, 20°26'E
  DETAIL LEVEL: 12 ; for roads and towns shown
  GEOGRAPHY LEVEL: 4 ; for rivers and topography shown
</map>

autogenerating a relevant map over that town. In order to generate a sky map highlighting Sirrah (a.k.a. Alpheratz, Alpha Andromedae):

<map> TYPE: Sky CAPTION: The star Alpha in constellation [[Andromeda]] SIZE: 300x224(px) PROJECTION: Lambert conformal conic projection CENTER: Andromeda SQUARE(border=2px,color=red,dimensions=2°x2°): RA00h08m23s, DE+29°05′26″ STAR LEVEL: 6.5 ; for stars NEBULAE LEVEL: 6.0 ; for nebulous objects, nebulae and stars </map>

Motivation

Easier map creation for the editor. Possibly also some storage benefits for the Wikipedia servers, while the cost might be some CPU time.

Key Questions

Is it needed? Or are there freely available software out there that can already do the same thing? For star maps PP3 have existed for a long time, with the troubles that an installation is so complex and has so many dependencies that it requires an advanced programmer and essentially a Linux-like environment. Making it a markup language would make it available to any editor (equality aspect). For geographical maps I don't know. One markup for many map types might be important for the common user.

• What benefits would this have over the standards based GML ?

Potential Costs

• Programming time,
• Server CPU.

References

Proposal notes:

• the proposal's techie notes, programming, math and similar,

Application areas:

• w:en:Template:Location map, w:en:Template:Climate chart, w:en:Template:Bar box)

Other projects:

• Proposal:Markup for charts and graphs, similar to, but doesn't regard centrally stored data such as map data,
• Proposal:Visualization methods, is vaguer and more extensive, but reasons in the same direction,
• Proposal:Infographics, that one too.

Community Discussion

Do you have a thought about this proposal? A suggestion? Discuss this proposal by going to Proposal talk:Markup for Maps.

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