MeetYourCosmos| Hey! What Are You Looking At?
Hey! What Are You Looking At?
MeetYourCosmos HEASARC Visualisation Interface
Summary
The aim of the project is to create a newer and user-frienly version of SkyView from NASA HEASARC, incorporating archives from CADC and having different ways to search for data in a responsive site using wordpress and the nasapress repository.The initial idea was to have also a visual interface (like a map) for general public, and an advanced search option for scientific use.
How We Addressed This Challenge
We are proposing a simpler and modernized online platform to search astronomical data, with an interactive set of functions, for example: a timeline. General Public may not understand some terms, so we planned to add a simple search tool, and a second option for queries using different search criteria depending of the chosen catalog in a most efficient way. We hope to be able to create a completely functional web platform that allows more people to easily and quickly find images and information.
How We Developed This Project
We wanted to do something difficult. We started by using the actual websites and resources to have a feedback. From that, we started to propose ideas of how we would like the platform to be (skyview), and then, we started to see how to obtain all the data. We were not able to easily access to the information like you do with a CSV file or from a SQL remote acces, but we downloaded some data from HEASARC and we created a CSV file. One part of the team worked on the DB, and the others in the front-end and design. For simplicity, we created a Wordpress Installation and we planned to add blocks with HTML to the main page for the search and query, The CSV was imported to the website database in PHPmyadmin. Due to some complications (Denied Shell Access to cPanel) it was impossible to have a functional demo. NASAPress, required some packages that could only be installed via SSH (nodeJS, Yarn).
For demonstration Purposes, we created a concept design on meetyourcosmos.co, trying to follow the design standards of the new NASA websites. That was only created as a demonstration for this competition.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
For the creation of a small database, the team had used files from the FTP index of HEASARC. With that data, we were able to create a CSV table that was uploaded to PHPmyadmin on a web server.
The NASA Web Design System and the NASAPress repository were vital for the demo design. The header, content and footer are based on the NASA WDS. We also used the Glenn Research Center website for visual references due to the implementation of NASAPress on the before-mentioned website.
Interface First Iteration (non-functional) Demo:
