Technical questions + potential solutions

[LanesGood]

Technical questions

• I surmise that a user can upload an image via a <Input type=’file’> component
• Could an implementation of the EXIF.js library be run immediately on an uploaded picture, without needing to store the image?
  • Ex: I upload an image, or series of images. I hit “submit” and the exif data is then stripped from the photos and stored in a temporary (tied to that browser session) state/data object. This is then used to submit a query to a routing engine, which then returns the route
• Alternatively, does the photo need to be stored? What needs to persist? Do page reloads need to take place, and would those wipe out a current data state?
  • If storage is needed, the application could ideally permit users to persist uploads and routes between sessions.
  • E.g., I upload a series of photos, get the route between them, and can then revisit that route
    • Maybe: store a route in a json object? Especially if a route is just the routing algorithm processing multiple lat/lon pairs, the application could store the point coordinates, and then submit a query to the routing service each time it’s requested/refreshed
• Is a database needed? What would be stored
  • If the image itself is stored, could probably then persist those images and use them in a later state of the app
    • For example, upload photos, submit request
  • Redux? Some sort of store?
• Could this work with photo URLs?
• Obvious main shortcoming of the app is that most social apps strip EXIF data. Is it possible to immediately detect if Exif data is even available?
  • If user tries to add an image without exif data, application should immediately inform user that they can’t use it for routing.
    • Don’t even store it/submit for routing?
• Would it be possible to triangulate an image given multiple (minimum 3?) photos?
  • Assume that all three photos are of the same thing and the thing is in the center of the photo

Technical requirements/solutions

• Web vs. native application
  • Mobile - could use React Native?
• EXIF stripping:
  • Exif.js
• Routing options
  • Tom Tom Matrix routing
  • Mapbox routing?
  • Open source
    • OSRM - http://project-osrm.org/
    • Open Route Service - https://openrouteservice.org/
    • Valhalla - https://github.com/valhalla/valhalla
    • GraphHopper - https://www.graphhopper.com/#directions-api
  • Closed source/Paid
    • TomTom Matrix Routing - https://developer.tomtom.com/routing-api/documentation/matrix-routing-v2/matrix-routing-v2-service
    • Mapbox Directions API
    • Google Directions API - free up to 1000 requests?
    • TrueWay
    • GeoApify - free up to 3000 requests
• Storage
  • localStorage

[LanesGood]

Currently going with

• Exif.js for image exif data processing
• GraphHopper api for open source routing
• Leaflet for mapping

[LanesGood]

Some higher level questions:

• do I need to use classes? OOP?
• If/how to structure a javascript application that does or does not use OOP/Classes

Later Ideas

create the same application in:

• OOP class based syntax
• React, Vue, Svelte, React Native