GIS Christmas day 17

Today I will write about a tool I have used to make the Schnappi tracker map (more info in this post). And that is the timemap javascript library. it is a library to make a map with a timeline. When the timeline is moved, the events on the timeline will be shown on the map. It can be used in many different ways, like showing where historical events happened to mapping your travels. The library site has several examples that you get and can work on when you download the timemap package. I chose to go with a kml file for the location and timeframe data, as that seemed the easiest to me, and I also chose to go with Openstreetmap as I like their maps and I didn’t need a API key to use it. The finished timemap can be run from your computer if you only need to see the result yourself, but if you want others to enjoy your work some hosting space will be needed. Maybe your university provides that for their students for free, if not it’s not that hard to get but it costs a little money.
It is also possible to make a map with a timeline through ArcGIS Online (requires a username and password). Here’s one example of that. ArcGIS online has good templates to make interactive web maps, and when you make the map public it can be stored on their servers as well.