Heatmapping biodiversity.
A project with Encyclopedia of Life & GBIF
THE PROJECT
We are especially proud of having worked for Encyclopedia Of Life, one of the most important sites on the Internet related to biodiversity.
We helped them integrate the visualization of species’ geographic occurrence data (extracted from GBIF) in a light and user-friendly map in their site.
We contributed:
- Interaction and visual design
- Front-end development
- GIS development
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THE CHALLENGE
We wanted to provide an engaging visualization that let the user navigate more than 200 million biodiversity records freely on the map. From viewing the data worldwide to viewing the data in their backyard.
At the same time, the user had to be able to quickly access information about the data providers on the map. -
THE SOLUTION
Using a new processing algorithm we were able to generate tiles from over 200 million records at a speed that humans perceive as instant (<100ms).
The multiple dimensions of the data made caching impossible so fast render of tiles from a huge central database was a must. Providing 23 levels of data in Google Maps produced a totally new way of looking at GBIF data. -
THE RESULTS
A lightweight and fast solution that runs smoothly on the existing EOL website, supported by a very tuned SQL database.
We are working to generate the tiles using Hadoop and store them directly on Amazon CloudFront.
HIGHLIGHTS
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Data visualization performance
The technical solution allowed us to show occurrence data in a progressive way, adapting the visualization resolution to the zoom level and improving performance and interface responsiveness.
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Raster visualization of data
Using Google quadtrees for preprocessing the data we can generate gridded heatmaps on the fly.
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Data providers information
GBIF integration includes information about providers of occurrence data, presented to the user in a non-intrusive way.