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Show HN: World of X – An Interactive Exploration of the World of Marvel's X-Men

44 points by kyleconrad 12y ago

kyleconrad 12y ago
Cross-posted this to Designer News, but just wanted to share it here as well as I just finished building and deploying this morning. Ever since Marvel announced their API, I've been looking to find something to build using it. A friend of mine is big on MeteorJS, so I decided to combine the two - using Meteor, the Marvel API, and the Google Maps API, I put together this interactive map that lets you explore the world of the X-Men based around key locations in their history and the stories based there.
- colinramsay 12y ago
  The fact that there's a Marvel API is amazing in itself! http://developer.marvel.com/docs http://developer.marvel.com/docs
- daveytea 12y ago
  Great work! Please also create this for alternate timelines, i.e. Age of Apocalypse :D
  - kyleconrad 12y ago
    Ohhhh I love this idea. Days of Future Past, Age of Apocalypse... hmmm. Might have to look into those events to check out some locations.
psweber 12y ago
Pretty cool. Some kind of clustering solution for points that are near each other would be nice.
- kyleconrad 12y ago
  Agreed entirely - there's a set of Google Maps utility tools that Google put out that tie into the API and I'm actually using the markers with labels one to show the markers as it is now. They also have a library that can cluster markers. From my initial research, those two can't exactly work alongside each other (due to conflicts), but I'll certainly look into possibilities of combining them for a better experience.
Domenic_S 12y ago
Pretty cool. Zoom animation was choppy, quad core FF/mac. `esc` key should zoom back out imo.
- colinramsay 12y ago
  Really cool, but yes - the pan/zoom was definitely jerky for me on Chrome 37.0.2062.122 on OSX.
- kyleconrad 12y ago
  Yeah, I actually just changed it to a simple zoom with no pan about an hour ago. I was using an interval to adjust the zoom function with the Google Maps API, but everyone said it seemed super choppy. Unfortunate, because I was hoping that would be a cool effect, but don't want to let something like that get in the way of a good user experience. So now just panning to the location at your current zoom level when you click a marker, hopefully that's smoother!
mikeleeorg 12y ago
Great work! I saw your map on The Next Web [1], so it looks like you're already getting some good press. My first thought was this map reminded me of Cerebro, so I expected to be able to find individual characters too. That could be a nice next step. And after that, maybe some map overlays to show the geographic distribution and progression of various Marvel Universe events. Then ? And finally, profit! [1] http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/09/24/interactive-map-x-men-universe-new-favorite-thing/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/09/24/interactive-map-x-m...
- kyleconrad 12y ago
  Oh man, thanks for the link! Super excited about that. I like the idea of individual characters, I could see having locations with different colored markers for their origins/birthplace. That wouldn't be super super difficult to build out, either, as there's a lot of information there to pull from. Someone else in another comment suggested doing locations based on events/alternate timelines, which sounds pretty similar to this idea, and also could be very cool. Just a matter of doing research - the Marvel API is great for single data points (i.e. character, series, single comic), but gets super overwhelming (and a little useless for this kind of thing) when you search for an event or the like. But yeah, definitely doable as a Phase II kind of thing.
timthimmaiah 12y ago
Just noticed that this URL will get flagged/blocked by network admin content filters ;)
- kyleconrad 12y ago
  Haha I know, I know - I tried to get a few different domain names before settling on this one. Fingers crossed that there's enough context around the link (and whatever metadata those filters need) to make sure it doesn't get ignored/blocked.

44 points by kyleconrad 12y ago

Cross-posted this to Designer News, but just wanted to share it here as well as I just finished building and deploying this morning. Ever since Marvel announced their API, I've been looking to find something to build using it. A friend of mine is big on MeteorJS, so I decided to combine the two - using Meteor, the Marvel API, and the Google Maps API, I put together this interactive map that lets you explore the world of the X-Men based around key locations in their history and the stories based there.

colinramsay 12y ago
The fact that there's a Marvel API is amazing in itself! http://developer.marvel.com/docs http://developer.marvel.com/docs
daveytea 12y ago
Great work! Please also create this for alternate timelines, i.e. Age of Apocalypse :D
- kyleconrad 12y ago
  Ohhhh I love this idea. Days of Future Past, Age of Apocalypse... hmmm. Might have to look into those events to check out some locations.

psweber 12y ago

Pretty cool. Some kind of clustering solution for points that are near each other would be nice.

kyleconrad 12y ago
Agreed entirely - there's a set of Google Maps utility tools that Google put out that tie into the API and I'm actually using the markers with labels one to show the markers as it is now. They also have a library that can cluster markers. From my initial research, those two can't exactly work alongside each other (due to conflicts), but I'll certainly look into possibilities of combining them for a better experience.

Domenic_S 12y ago

Pretty cool. Zoom animation was choppy, quad core FF/mac. `esc` key should zoom back out imo.

colinramsay 12y ago
Really cool, but yes - the pan/zoom was definitely jerky for me on Chrome 37.0.2062.122 on OSX.
kyleconrad 12y ago
Yeah, I actually just changed it to a simple zoom with no pan about an hour ago. I was using an interval to adjust the zoom function with the Google Maps API, but everyone said it seemed super choppy. Unfortunate, because I was hoping that would be a cool effect, but don't want to let something like that get in the way of a good user experience. So now just panning to the location at your current zoom level when you click a marker, hopefully that's smoother!

mikeleeorg 12y ago

Great work! I saw your map on The Next Web [1], so it looks like you're already getting some good press. My first thought was this map reminded me of Cerebro, so I expected to be able to find individual characters too. That could be a nice next step. And after that, maybe some map overlays to show the geographic distribution and progression of various Marvel Universe events. Then ? And finally, profit! [1] http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/09/24/interactive-map-x-men-universe-new-favorite-thing/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/09/24/interactive-map-x-m...

kyleconrad 12y ago
Oh man, thanks for the link! Super excited about that. I like the idea of individual characters, I could see having locations with different colored markers for their origins/birthplace. That wouldn't be super super difficult to build out, either, as there's a lot of information there to pull from. Someone else in another comment suggested doing locations based on events/alternate timelines, which sounds pretty similar to this idea, and also could be very cool. Just a matter of doing research - the Marvel API is great for single data points (i.e. character, series, single comic), but gets super overwhelming (and a little useless for this kind of thing) when you search for an event or the like. But yeah, definitely doable as a Phase II kind of thing.

timthimmaiah 12y ago

Just noticed that this URL will get flagged/blocked by network admin content filters ;)

kyleconrad 12y ago
Haha I know, I know - I tried to get a few different domain names before settling on this one. Fingers crossed that there's enough context around the link (and whatever metadata those filters need) to make sure it doesn't get ignored/blocked.