GSoC 2013 idea discussion

CesiumJS
1

Hi,

I am interested in the misc project, Offline Web App Support mentored by Scott K. Hunter. I have read the contributors guide, and set up Cesium on the system. I have started experimenting with SandCastle.

Previously, I have worked with HTML5 and JavaScript as a part of summer project and have been working on both ever since. Through GSoC, I want to step into the world of open source and learn as much as possible by getting exposed to open source code.

If I understand correctly, the target of this idea is to provide offline support for cesium, which can be done using localStorage, IndexedDB or WebSQL database. I have a few ideas on how to store the map data in the localStorage, which is preferable as it has great support in major browsers. For browsers that do not support localStorage, PersistJS can be used which provides fallback support for such situation. I would like to know if this idea will suffice as the GSoC project, or will there be anything else wanted during the period?

Thanks for your time! :slight_smile:

Regards,
Vatsal Juneja

2

Hi,

Thanks for your interest. There’s been some discussion of this idea here on the dev list already to take a look at:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/cesium-dev/nijPVlTjDGo/aqKpPHdsQo4J

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/cesium-dev/qVIZ11MTEWU/discussion

Your summary of the idea is accurate. I think the main technical hurdle will be to find a solution that will allow storage of a large amount of data (possibly hundreds of MB, depending on user selection). Some of the APIs have a very small size limit by default.

Also, when considering browser support, keep in mind that Cesium itself requires WebGL as a baseline, which isn’t supported in legacy browsers such as Internet Explorer anyway, so browser compatibility here is more about Chrome, Firefox and Safari on desktop and Android. Also, a good solution that uses experimental APIs that aren’t widely supported can still be quite useful, if it looks like support will increase in the future.

thanks,

Scott