Hi,
It is not "simple" to create such a program. Several hundred hours of
work go into a setup like musicplasma.com has. I would venture to
guess that the final product has something close to 3000 lines of code
in the flash swf file, and uses a great deal of custom math features
for the sizing and colorizing of the related entities.
On top of that it you have all the supporting PHP programs scripts
behind the Flash, to get the proper variables from the server, pass
them to the Flash program, and search the database. User information,
query history, separate languages, etc. It is quite complex. Probably
another 3000 lines of code back there taking care of all that.
Then, there is the data or the XML text files being loaded. They are
using PHP and MySQL on the backend, you can see this by checking the
file http://musicplasma.com/resultats4.php .. it won't do anything
except show an error message because the variables weren't sent with
that, but it verifies what I thought about the program when I saw it.
Once you get through all of the programming aspects of the site, you
then have to address the design of the site itself. A good 100 to 150
hours there, if everyone is on the ball and good communication is
established between owner, artist and programmers.
I would say you are probably looking at a programming man-hours
ranging between 2000 and 2500 . The quality of the programmers for
the PHP and Actionscript behind the program is going to need to be
expert level. This is not to say that less experienced programmers
could not create the site, ... the expert is going to be able to
create the site so that it works smoothly and responds quickly. Then
you would add the design and art costs to that.
They also have connections to amazon.com nestled in there for queries.
You can see that working at http://www.musicplasma.levillage.org/ .
All of the images you see are dynamic in their creation, because of
the relations to each object on the screen, the colors and sizing
changes as well, so it can't be using static images.
After you have all of this, you then start in on the real work,
creating the data that the program uses to create its relations. There
is quite a bit in there for that area of the project. In fact they
probably use the same technology that http://clusty.com/ uses for
clustering their search results, that being Vivisimo
(http://vivisimo.com/ ), or perhaps something like the ThinkMap from
Sony (http://www.thinkmap.com/). I can't think that they seriously sat
down and started keying in all that information. Either they created a
clustering engine, or they used one that already exists.
If you have specific questions regarding what it takes to create a
site like this I would be happy to find some links for you. But
really, the basic tutorials and example files available on the
Internet are not going to express the level of coding going on here. I
said that there is probably 3000 lines Actionscript in the main Flash
program, but really, what ever count they really have probably
materialized after writing and discarding twice that many (just from
personal experience working on projects of this level).
The search engine Kartoo (http://www.kartoo.com/ ) uses the same type
of interface, using close to the same type of code base as well.
Neither of these sites are "box sets" you can just install and use
your own data with. From what I can tell, both were created in house.
(Lack of comments in the code areas describing creator companies and
authoring programmers is a dead give away for that).
Here is a article regarding the site,
MusicPlasma Helps You Visualize Your Musical Outlook
http://www.masternewmedia.org/2004/01/27/musicplasma_helps_you_visualize_your.htm
Thanks,
webadept-ga |
Clarification of Answer by
webadept-ga
on
04 Feb 2005 16:46 PST
By the way, the Thesaurus you were thinking of is probably this one.
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/
That is made with the Thinkmap Clustering engine from Sony.
http://www.thinkmap.com/
Using Thinkmap, if you are starting from scratch, is really the only
reasonable way to go in starting a project like the one you are
describing. Otherwise you are looking at 1000's of hours to create
what they already have.
If you aren't "scared off" at this point, I would like to check around
and see what other clustering engines are out there which might take
some of the bite out of a project like this. The next post will
probably be a bit more technical, but you mentioned you are fairly
versed in the Internet programming areas. Since it is the end of my
day and my interest is peaked, let's see what we can find out.
webadept-ga
|
Clarification of Answer by
webadept-ga
on
04 Feb 2005 17:09 PST
I found some similar projects Touch Graph is one of these, and they
have a GoogleBrowser to show off their ability
http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html
http://www.touchgraph.com/index.html
There is also one called Ceryle
"Ceryle is a free tool to help you get organized. If you use a lot of
post it notes, are a writer, journalist, researcher, student, or
anyone compiling a lot of information for a project, maybe just trying
to organize your recipes, bookmarks, or your MP3 collection, Ceryle is
designed to assist you in keeping track of things. Ceryle includes
features to help you store, find and even visualize your information,
using what is called a graph visualization. Those same graphs also
enable you to create structures for your documents, see relationships
between ideas, and even generate composite documents based on those
structures, like building a book from its chapters or a screenplay
from its scenes."
http://www.altheim.com/ceryle/
And there is another open source project called MyGrid
http://mygrid.sourceforge.net/
The clustering is key to a project like yours. The interface costs
I've already described, but if the interface is not showing the proper
information, it is all for naught. The projects I've listed here might
help in bringing costs down for that area of your project.
I said I would probably get technical on you, but really, those pages
get technical enough. I am personally very interested in the Ceryle
Project, as it deals with character and writer information.
If you have any questions on this, just use the Clarification Button
and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
webadept-ga
|
,
0 Comments
)