So if you're into things like Hare Scrambles then you'd probably find a system that lets you track things via GPS data pretty handy. If each participant had a little GPS device that records their location during the race then you could assemble all that data later (live would be ideal, but this is a good start) and create an interactive map of the data.
Now a Flash developer and a ColdFusion developer could probably pull that off and the result would be accessible to over 95% of the people using the web, right? It's been done several times before (I'm too lazy to look for the link to that subaru race site.. if you've got it or other examples comment please..) in Flash.
So when my bro sent a link to motionbased.com and said to check it out.. I assumed it'd be another Flash based "replay a bunch of GPS data over a map" thing.. with the cool twist that they allow you (anybody) to create one of these maps and add the GPS data. It also gives you data about speed, elevation, heart rate, etc.. Saweet. But here's the kicker that I found.. they used SVG. Say again? What? Why? What does it offer for this application that the Flash Player doesn't? They don't say.. they just ask people to install the Adobe SVG Player.
Motionbased.com using SVG viewer Saturday, February 18, 2006
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18 Feb 2006 at 05:46 pm | #
Adobe SVG Player - Adobe Flash Player
How long before there is just one player?
19 Feb 2006 at 05:36 pm | #
hehe I like the page where they say how great is SVG, compared to GIF & JPEG (no mention of Flash...).
Actually I played several monthes with SVG when it was "new" - and I was even able to create pretty cool components (like a TreeView). My conclusion was: let's just do static vector graphics with that.
19 Feb 2006 at 08:24 pm | #
Flash and SVG both have their uses.
Flash has a restrictive license.
Learn more about SVG at http://svg.startpagina.nl
19 Feb 2006 at 08:40 pm | #
Stelt... ... I looked on that page and didn't see anything about the Flash license being restrictive. I've been developing Flash apps for 7 years.. and have yet to have a licensing issue with the Flash Player... so please enlighten me. Please point me to a specific page rather than a "start" page.
If the Adobe SVG player has some great performance benefits, or can do some trick O/S calls, maybe has built in 3D support, or can properly handle display and input of Arabic text that the Flash Player doesn't have.. I'd love to hear about those.. options are always good. I've proposed using SVG on projects in the past few years, and would like to continue keeping my options open.
Yes, SVG has it's uses.. and it looks like others think that it has a use that I would have thought Flash was better suited for. So.. that's why I'm wondering what's up..
20 Feb 2006 at 05:56 pm | #
We chose SVG over Flash for pure cost/development reasons. MotionBased was founded by myself and my partner, Aaron Roller. Neither of us had Flash development background and Aaron could work with SVG to provide us with the interaction necessary for our Map Player and Analyer.
Rest assured... we are HATING SVG right now in that Adobe has completely abandoned support on the SVG viewer and the native implementaion of SVG in Firefoz is weak at best.
Now that we sold MotionBased to Garmin and have more development $$$$, we are hiring engineers to work on a Flash implementation. I'm not making promises that we'll go Flash, but it sure looks that way. We hope to get some type of beta out this summer.