Cujo’s Byte

In the weeks preceding the historic Inauguration Day of President Barack Obama, my nights have been filled with nightmares of failing at the feats we attempted today. Sitting in the empty downtown newsroom surrounded by empty pizza boxes and illuminated only by the three monitors that have surrounded me for the last 26 straight hours, I can call the day a success.

Of course everything did not go as smooth as I had hoped but the contingency plans were not made in vain when all 25 Photo logging GPS units failed and starting at 9:00 a.m. we were unable to receive images through the cellular modems. Runners were deployed, photographers were called back early and the Web Ninjas (Jesse and Dan) in Arlington came through with several fixes in the clutch.

You all know about TimeSpace but the Inauguration version is different. In the Election and World versions we geo-code based on City, State and Country. For the Inauguration version we strategically placed 35 photographers and videographers through out the mall and the parade route  in order to provide a complete experience to those who could not attend the historic event. In order to cover the city in this way we drafted a small army of multimedia journalists from the University of North Carolina. The students and Post photographers were equipped with Canon and/or Sony HDVideo cameras, MacBooks or eeePC’s (based on security size restrictions), ATP Photologger GPS units (not recommended), and Sprint USB Sierra Wireless  broadband USB cards (TimeSpace is  sponsored by Sprint) .

I watched the sun rise over the National Mall on my computer as photographers transmitted images in close to real time and my confidence climbed. Images were coming in and TimeSpace was running smoothly. By 9:00 a.m. the stream began to crawl and as we noticed things slowing down the photos stopped coming and the photos we did receive arrived without the expected GPS data. The mobile data network was overloaded and for an unknown reason none of the GPS units could acquire the satellites. This is not how I wanted things to go but not far from waht I had envisioned. Despite the difficulties, TimeSpace delivered as promised because of the hard work of the students and the Web Ninjas. The students shot some nice images in tough conditions proving that it is possible to shoot well and transmit quickly.

Our team also provided a way for users to navigate large images in a small amount of space using Sea Dragon technology made available by Microsoft. We used the AJAX based feature to display a Satellite image allowing the users to zoom deep into the image and move through it.  We also built a photo mosaic based on a Jonathan Newton photograph but comprised of thousands of images from users, UNC students, wire services and The Washington Post photographers.

The day was successful. TimeSpace was one of the most viewed pages on washingtonpost.com, the students gained valuable experience working under deadlines and pressure, and we delivered the photo mosaic and satellite image in a new and interactive interface.

Now it is time for some much needed rest after I pick up days of empty water bottles and chip bags.

Note: Please excuse my grammer because I have had 4 hours sleep in the last 36 hours.