Google Fusion Tables: Colonial and Federalist architecture

[Google Fusion tables were discontinued December 3, 2019]

Haven’t been updating this blog, but here are some of the New Media and Technology projects I’m experimenting with.  Probably I’ll reboot the entire blog at some point to reflect what I’m engaged with currently.

• I’ve been experimenting with Google Sheets and Fusion Tables as tools to organize and display “cultural object” images and metadata.
  • Here’s the fusion table I set up containing 364 examples of Colonial and Federalist architecture.   Only small images are accessible but it’s still pretty cool, especially the (semi)automatic Fusion Table map.
    Our collection  hosts 3,576 images of these 364 sites, for an average of 9.82 images per site.  Of course this Fusion table only includes one image asset per site at the moment.  Google automatically geocodes the site location based on a single asset’s metadata record (the geocoded pins are mostly accurate).   You could then 1) include all 9.82 assets for each particular sitepin in its pop-up window or more likely 2) stick with one image but include a hyperlink that opens all 9.82 images together as an ARTstor image group.   This fusion table is proof-of-concept –  I doubt I will develop it further, but it works.  If I was really going to optimize it, I would transfer it into a more robust, customizable platform such as the Google Earth API.
    
  • Here’s a link to my image labeling spreadsheet, intended to allow professors to create bare-bones metadata for their digital images, not as an end-product display platform.  This professor only gave me 36 images so far but said he likes it and would give me more.   I also did a similar Google sheets table containing all my personal images on my work computer (almost 2,600) which works the same way, though with so many personal images included I don’t want to post it until they are culled.
    I love that the images are easily accessible on the web, but with 2,600 images it’s too slow right now and I’m considering ways to make it faster.  I may split the table up into multiple tabs (or even separate files) but I don’t really want to.  I’ll add more details about this at some point.  I’ve pitched the spreadsheet to various Rice Professors as a tool with which to consolidate their digital assets.  I don’t think they really understand what’s valuable about it that other systems don’t provide, I’ll have to create a good demo sheet to show them.

• I’ve recently been assigned with maintaining the Department of Art History web pages, which is a nice change of pace and not too difficult.  Formerly the Department utilized the Ektron CMS for it’s website, but now has a customized Drupal page (12/01/15).

• Taking Coursera’s MOOC Maps and the Geospatial Revolution
  • While I enjoyed the Python MOOC, life conspired to distract me and I only got through the first 4 of 9 weeks.  This Geospatial Revolution MOOC seems to be less intensive than the Python one and because I have some GIS experience I’m hopeful I’ll be able to keep it up.
• Signed up for an Adobe “Train the Trainer” class which I was asked to join after purchasing their Creative Cloud software.  Have no idea how intensive that will be.

• I’ve created a preliminary Simile Timeline that works but isn’t very far along (Timeline example, not by me).

Hopefully I’ll get some time to work on these projects!

– Andrew Taylor

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