Help Please! Interactive map

[Steboy01]

I have to create an interactive map, which shows the campus layout of a
university. I want the user to be able to rollover, or click on any building,
and a photograph with some info on the building appear somewhere on the page.
Preferably, i'd like to include zoom in/zoom out functions so the campus can be
seen in detail, but if this were the case id need to incorporate an area where
the info would be displayed, regradless of how zoomed in the actual map is

This is probably a really simple project to most of you but im a bit of a
beginner

The link below shows a route map on a virgin site which is very similar to
what id like to create. Are there any tutorials, or can anyone give me some
pointers on what to do

Any help is appreciated

[url]http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/img/j...ap_may_2003.sw[/url]

[_posted.by\(Vern\);]

Cross posting is frowned upon, and you link doesn't work.

[Steboy01]

Sorry for cross posting, i just didnt know which forum was more appropriate. The link does work, can you help at all? Ive looked through many tutorials but am struggling to get anywhere.

[_posted.by\(Vern\);]

In the other group, someone posted that he saw a tute on Flashkit.com when
he did a search for MAP. or MAPS. Check there.

I am using a newsreader, and the link doesn't work from here. Must be a MM
forum problem. I know they have been having probems and I have been seeing
all kinds of stange things regarding links. I did finally see the map by
going to the main page and looking throught the links. Very nice map.
Shouldn't be too hard to make a similar one.

Regards,
--Vern

[Karim N]

I've just completed a Flash app very similar to what you describe, so I'll give
you some pointers

First off, decide whether this map is to be data-driven or hard-coded.
Depending on how many hot-spots you will have (ie: clickable buildings) and how
frequently the hotspots & information will change, it may be better to go one
way or the other

Decide if you want the map to be navigable (move & zoom) or static. Basic
navigation is pretty easy to do, but again, this really depends on how
big/complex your map is

If you want the entire building footprint to be the hotspot for each building,
then you will end up manually drawing each building. The alternative would be
to use a generic "pip" or symbol for each building, perhaps imparting some
extra information by color-code or shape. This will not be as "pretty" perhaps,
but if you have 100's of buildings it will certainly be more cost-effective

Find out if you can get the basic street/building map from your GIS or
Facilities department in Vector format (DXF, for example). This will save you
LOTS of headaches

This is an example of the one I just finished:
[url]http://cs.wcpss.net/page.php?page=2.1wor[/url]
Because this is a temporary URL, actually clicking on the sites will not work,
but at it's final URL, clicking on a site will pull up related data on the web
page. An example of this would be:
[url]http://cs.wcpss.net/page.php?page=2.1work&x=-48&y=18&w=2829.4&h=2835.7&schid=61[/url]

I am the Webmaster for the above referenced site, so if you have further
questions, you can find the "contact" link and email me

[Steboy01]

Thanks, I'll try and find that tutorial Vern

Karim, your map is similar to what i want to make. I have the map constructed
in JPEG form, but this is all i have to work from. There are around 30
buildings (clickable areas) and i would like to have the zoom & pan functions
as the map zoomed in at high quality will not fit on a typical screen

[Karim N]

Ok... well, better to have the Map as vector art if you are going to zoom it in
and out, but if you can't, you can't

The trick in as far as moving/zooming is this

You put the map graphic, the hotspots, and anything else that will move around
with the map in a movie-clip, call this theMap

You then put The Map inside another movieclip, call this mapContainer

Now when you want to move around, you change the mapContainer.theMap._x &
mapContainer.theMap._y. In other words, you move theMap around inside
mapContainer

When you want to zoom in or out, you change mapContainer._xscale &
mapContainer._yscale. In other words, you scale the Container, not the map.
This ensures that the view always zooms in and out around the center of the
view, not hte center of the map

Now, with 30 buildings, and a raster (JPEG) map, It's 6:(12*.5) as to whether
to go static or dynamic on your hotspots, but on such a small map, and since
you said you are a beginner at Flash programming, I would probably hard-code
your hotspots (you can always come back and make them dynamic later if you need
to). If the "extra Information" for each building is more than one or two
items, then I would make that dynamic-- store the information in a database,
XML file, or even a text file and load it in at run-time

You pull it in, parse it into an array, where each building has an index that
corrolates to the array index where it's data is stored. Then you can have a
function spit out the right information when a hotspot is clicked

[may]

the links are not working..i just want to learn how to make an interactive map