iGeoPix
Interactive visual browser for geolocated photos (iPad/iPhone app)
Contact
Pietro Zanarini, valorisation@crs4.it
Challenge
Each site can be identified by latitude and longitude, but it can also be described by the stories, traditions and experiences that are rooted. The Greeks used the word topos to indicate the physical characteristics of a place, while the word choros was used to refer to a place through the associated human experiences and descriptions. Today, this can be declined into a new form: the geography of maps and locations can be acquired via systems such as GPS and the large amount of multimedia data exactly as the user generated pictures that are on the Internet. Make Geo-Browsing means having a tool that allows you to explore this large amount of geotagged images in the most exciting and simple way possible.
Overview
iGeoPix (availble as a free download from iTunes) is an iPhone/iPad interactive visual browser for geolocated and user generated photos, like those uploaded to Google/Panoramio. Imagine to browse a map with geolocated pictures superimposed, and to get the most relevant pictures with a magnifying glass through a tiled view composed of three concentric levels. The first level is filled with only one large tile containing an image considered the most representative around the map's center. The second level is composed by tiles laid around the first level like a crown, displaying the next 12 images relative to the map area around the first level. Consequently the third level, composed by 36 tiles positioned around the second level, corresponds to a more distant area from the center of the map. With iGeoPix you can:
- visually browse the world by pictures in four modes: Map, Map & Pix, Pix Only, Thumbnails;
- see the pictures in the classic thumbs mode, each positioned in its real geographical location;
- jump to your current location using internal GPS;
- tap a picture to see it in full screen mode;
- select a picture and go to the relative web page;
- search a location by name or address;
- send by email or share with Facebook and Twitter your personalized postcards (iGeoPix snapshot).
Innovative features
Unlike the current georeferenced pictures representations used by Panoramio, Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, etc., iGeoPix allows the user to see both near (center focus) and far (periferic context) photos, thanks to a non-linear zooming user interface, originally designed by CRS4 and developed for web browsers, called "fractal view". The variable tile size, bigger in the center and smaller near the borders, further contributes to give user the feeling of a more immersive visual browsing experience.
Potential users
iGeoPix is intended for all users.
Impact sectors
Tourism and local area development (expos and fairs) - Infotainment (reception areas) - Trade (interactive shops).
Other resources
- Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/iGeoPix
- Davide Carboni, Valentina Marotto, Francesco Massidda and Pietro Zanarini. Fractal Browsing of Large Geo-Referenced Picture Sets, Communications of SIWN, System and Information Sciences Notes, Vol 5, 2008.
- Video: