Initial Objective
Show tracked animal movements with an interface that enables user input on animal movement datasets, visualization options and GIS layers.
The prospective user for this web application was someone with no GIS experience, and no geospatial data experience. It was to present an interface that enables the layperson to set data filter and UI parameters in order to easily show in animation the movement of tracked animals like elk and antelope.
The project required careful design for a usable and intuitive interface – we did not want to require any documentation or instructions.
The project also required loading large amounts of geospatial data – sometimes large herds were shown within a large timeframe (e.g. one hundred animals over a nine-month period). We were able to load one million data points in about 1.5 seconds.
We also had to show data (animal movements) in various “modes.” For example, the user might want to see the entire range of movement over a time period, the actual positions of the animals at a point in time, or an animated movement of one or more animals over a time period. We enabled configurations for each and every one of these mode types.
