[Geowanking] Waypoints are in a narrative, or a narrative is in the Waypoints?

[Rich Gibson]

Hi All,

So I am interested in 'geospatially enabled narrative.'  Basically stories 
with a geospatial component.  This might be as simple as 'we drove down to 
Santa Rosalia <link to see map> to go fishing.' Or more complex, with odd 
convuluted ideas of sequence and space.  A story that derives its 
organizing metaphors from waypoints will be fundamentally different from 
one that derives from track logs.

In this context 'Waypoint' means a point, while 'track log' means an 
ordered sequence of points.  Either one could have additional data 
associated with each point.  

One idea would be to put bits of narrative within waypoints, and then 
allow a person to draw an arbitrary line across a map and 'play' the story 
by assembling the sequence of waypoints that are nearest to the line at 
each point.

I could see this is a way of exploring diaries of trips.  Where each entry 
is tied to a place, or a waypoint.  Depending on how you drew the line you 
could get back a narrative or diary that mixed different trips or 
different eras.

Drawing a line through from East to West towards the bottom of Wyoming 
would, based on my personal stories and resources, generate a narrative 
mixing several of my trips in the area with the Oregon Trail diary of a 
journey from 1852 that my Great Great Great Grandfather was on.

Using track logs of actual trips, or proposed trips, would come up with 
comments and notes and such from trips and stories past, but mixed up and 
presented in the order that you will experience those locations.

If you travel the Oregon Trail from West to East you are 'breaking' the 
historic model, at every step you are ahead of where they were.  But if 
that is what you are doing, then you may want to read narratives that 
reflect your experience.

That whole model reflect the idea that the stories, or diary entries, are 
stored 'in' the waypoints.  If we think of GPX files, where waypoints are 
in XML tags, we get something like: 

<wpt lat="41.311340" lon="-105.584107">
  <name>LARAME</name>  
  <desc>Fort Laramie</desc>
  <cmt>Fort Laramie was created in 18xx to protect emmigrants 
and settlers and to serve as a ...(narrative deleted)</cmt>
</wpt>

But then it gets a bit ugly...or at least, the data modeling gets messy.  
What about narrative like 'we passed by Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluff and 
then camped acrossfrom Fort Laramie the next day.'

I get the issue that a waypoint can contain zero or more 'stories,' but a 
'story' can contain zero or more waypoints.  But, heck, that is okay...

Anyway, that is my thought of the day.

Cheers,
Rich