In this task we will develop a reusable components for visualizing and exploring spatial content. The component will consist of a library of different spatial-semantic visualization and exploration components: A slippy map, which allows users to zoom-to and select a certain geographical area. The slippy map will be based on existing Web map implementations, such as for example OpenLayers1 from Open Source Geospatial Foundation. The implementation will be extended to allow an overlaying of the displayed raster maps with additional information represented in vector formats, such as various types of markers, polygons and curves. A facet filtering component, which displays (a hierarchy of) semantic facets detected in conjunction with the selected map area. Only facets, which have respective adhering objects in the selected area as well as the overall number of objects adhering to each facet in the selected area will be displayed. Depending on the facet type, different selection widgets will allow to specify eligible facet-constraints, e.g date and number ranges and enumeration of facet values. A result view, which lists in addition to markers and regions on the map the retrieved objects adhering to the selected facets. For each individual object in the result set, its properties can be displayed in a configurable way. It will be possible to define templates for the visual presentation of certain spatial objects, e.g. train stations, cities, parks etc. Based on existing vocabularies such templates will display semantic information in a customizable and domain specific way. The components’ usability will be evaluated in the context of their integration into the portals of the project partners, as described in WP5 and WP6. For this reason, we do not plan to evaluate the usability of the widgets “on their own”, as this will be covered by the respective reports. The evaluation findings will be considered for further developments and improvements of the components.

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