Friday, December 31, 2021

Real-Time Map Annotations

The JavaScript image annotation library Annotorious has created a demo application which allows you to annotate a map in real-time in collaboration with other users.

You can view the Annotorious real-time annotation demo in action on this Thayer's Map of New Mexico. Using the drawing tools provided you can highlight any area on this vintage 1880 map and add your own annotations. Share the URL of the map with your friends and they can then click on the areas that you have highlighted to read your annotated notes. They can even add their own annotations to the map. 

The Annotorious demo works with any map which has a IIIF manifest (for example most of the maps in the David Rumsey Map Collection). Here is an example using the 1633 Nova Yirginiae Tabula from the David Rumsey Collection. To create this map I just cut & pasted the id number of the map (from the map's IIIF manifest) into the Annotorious demo URL. Each time you add a new manifest ID to the URL you create a new instance of the Annotorious demo.

The map doesn't have to be from the David Rumsey collection. You can use any IIIF manifest with the Annotorious demo. You don't even have to use a map, as you can use the IIIF manifest of any image. For example here is an image annotation demo using a Van Gogh self-portrait.

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