Image Mapping/Referencing Help

[aown61]

Firstly Hi to all, ive stumbled upon this site while trying to find out some more information regarding the topic title, and was hoping that someone might be able to point me in the right direction of a solution to this.
Basically, I am making an itinery on my companies intranet, detailing all IT equipment that we have onsite, and where is all located/installed. Since my place of work is huge I have got it into my head that it would be a good idea to link each piece of equipment to a map of the building.
The idea is that I would have a schematic of the building and each piece of equipment will have a 'find me' link which would place an arrow into the schematic of the building detailing where it is located.
Problem is I dont have a clue where to start with this. If anyone knows of any tutorials for something like this that they could point me to, it would be much appreciated!
-Andy

[Eye for Video]

How you do this will probably depend on what type of software you have and/or want to work with.
Where or how will the building schematic be displayed (Web browser based or local machine)? Do you envision using a database to track the inventory? If so, what type, an Access DB or MySQL or something else? When a certain piece of equipment is selected do you simple want a arrow to pop up or an arrow and some text, something like on a Google map (name, date installed, serial #, etc.)?
How would the user find the various pieces of equipment? Will this include a search feature (list all monitors, for example) or just a really long list? What would that interface look like?
Here's an example of a simple Flash based "Special Features" plot map (bottom of page):
http://www.wirtahospitalityworldwide.com/projects/wash_st_plz.html
Thinkin' 'bout it.....
EfV

[aown61]

Hi, thankyou for your reply.
I do indeed intend to display this schematic web browser based, and the link that you have posted is exactly the kind of thing I am looking at creating! unfortunately I am not experienced with SQL although i have dabbled in it in the past, this is more of a project over a long period of time and also as a learning experience, so that said I plan to brush up on my SQL skills. I would think that an access database would be the best way forward.
and your assupmtion of "All Monitors" is the kind of thing i will be looking at, although it would break down further.
For example

'Monitors'
-> Department
->Area
And then the link to the schematic showing exactly where in the building it is located.
I like your idea of displaying the extra info like serial numbers etc...
this database is not only intended for hardware, the original plan was to mainly locate all of the network ports, radio transmitters, server boxes etc... and your idea of the extra info could be used to display the ip address, mac address, patch cable location, and port numbers etc...

Are there any books that or tutorials that you could recommend for me to start with?
Many thanks
-Andy

[Eye for Video]

For planning purposes you might want to break the project down into 2 areas, front end development (the display and user interface) and the back end development (the server side database).
Since I'm sort of a Flash guy, take at look over at
www.gotoandlearn.com
or
www.flashkit.com
for tuts on the display and how to make Flash work with PHP/MySQL.
To get started with PHP you could also check out:
http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp
In the mean time, be sure to take notes of your ideas, sketch out your interface, create a DB table naming all the various fields that you might use. Then as time passes you can review and edit your notes so when final development starts you have a pretty clear picture of the end goal and you won't need to constantly be changing your design while in development.
Best wishes,
EfV

[tedscoffee]

Do you have an image (JPG, PNG) of your intranet? Or you can create an image using any image software such as Photoshop or Fireworks.

You can then use iMapBuilder -- an interactive map converter (http://www.imapbuilder.com) to convert this image map to a Flash Image Map, with clickable icons, lines, arrows, popup messages ,etc. It can be done very easily without any PHP or Actionscript.

We used it to create a floor plan for our exhibition, and found it easy to use.

hope this helps.

Ted