MS:SensorMapUserGuide

From SwissExperiment

This is an unofficial SensorMap user guide provided by the Swiss Experiment team and is currently in development.

Sensormap can be found at http://atom.research.microsoft.com/sensewebv3/sensormap/

Contents 1 User Registration 2 SensorMap General 2.1 Plotting 3 Data Access Permissions 4 Time Traveller 5 Visualisations 6 Downloading Data

User Registration

By clicking on 'Sign In' in the top right-hand corner of the SensorMap page, the user will be taken to the log in page which also contains a registration link. Click on 'Sign up for a new account!' to access the registration page.

On filling out the required online form, the user will be provided with a user account. During this registration process, you will be provided with the Microsoft Terms and Conditions. Please read these.....they are quite different to Google's terms and conditions!

SensorMap General

On accessing the SensorMap interface for the first time, the user is taken to Seattle. Note: your last SensorMap view is held in the cookies, hence when you access SensorMap in future, you will be taken to the point that you were last viewing.

When not logged in, SensorMap will currently display only the public sensors. This will in future be changed to show all sensor positions and parameters, but not data. In this way, the user will know what data is available if they apply to the relevant party for access.

SensorMap is based on the Virtual Earth Map engine, hence the navigation controls are the same. 3D viewing requires installation of the Virtual Earth 3D application.

By clicking on a sensor, you will be presented with the sensor parameters and (if you have the permissions) the latest sensor data. Sensors shown within SensorMap are intelligently displayed. If many sensors are available at points too close for SensorMap to display, it will aggregate them into a group and will only show the common parameters of the sensors in this group. On zooming in, the group will be split into the individual sensors.

Plotting

By clicking on the 'chart' link next to the parameter, the user will be presented with a window containing a chart history for a short period leading up to the current time. The period displayed can be changed using 'time-traveller'.

Clicking on multiple 'chart' links from either multiple parameters within a single sensor or multiple parameters from multiple sensors will provide window containing:

• A plot of all the parameters at the top of the window
• A plot of the last parameter that you clicked on at the bottom of the window
• Any metadata linked into SensorMap for the parameter in the bottom window

A legend is shown underneath the top plot. On hovering over a parameter, you are given the option to remove it from the plots (checkbox). By clicking on the parameter name in the legend, you can change the parameter displayed in the bottom plot.

Data Access Permissions

In order to gain access to sensor data, the data owner (the user who created the group in which the data is included) must add you to their group.

The method by which the data owner adds/removes a user to/from the group is as follows: If this is the first group that the user has joined, the message 'user does not exist' will be displayed on carrying out the method below. If this is the case, the username must currently be sent off to the SensorMap team for activation.

• Click on 'User Profile' in the top right hand corner of the SensorMap page.
• Under the section 'Add/Remove User', check the tick box, enter the username in the 'User ID' field and select the group to which the user is to be added from the 'Group Name' drop down box.
• Click on Add or Remove as required.

Time Traveller

Time Traveller is opened by clicking on the link in the SensorMap top menu bar.

Time traveller is the method by which the user selects the time period which they wish to view.

By clicking on the dates at either end of the time traveller scroll-bar, the start/end date/time can be selected. By moving the scroll bar slightly, these changes are then registered by SensorMap as displayed by the date/time in the top-centre of the tool bar.

Use of Time Traveller for Plots: the data shown in SensorMap plots will start and end at the times to the left and right of the Time Traveller toolbar.

Use of Time Traveller for visualisations: the visualisation shown in SensorMap will reflect the time at the top-centre of the Time Traveller scrollbar. Changing the dates to either end of the toolbar changes the time period available for plotting visualisations and also changes the accuracy to which you can select your visualisation time by moving the scrollbar. Using the play, pause etc. tools at the end of the toolbar allow you to play through your visualisations in time.

Resolution: changing the resolution in the Time Traveller changes the time steps of both visualisations and plots. Sampled data points between these times will be averaged to provide the resampled data point. This resolution field defaults to the sampled value. Note: you will need to move the Time Traveller scroll-bar to get the new resolution to register. Data resampling to time resolutions below the original resolution is currently not supported.

Visualisations

Several types of visualisation are currently available by selecting the 'Manage visualisations' menu item.

Visualisations will always be created for those sensors currently visible in the map window.

(more to come)

Downloading Data