GeoTravel: Folium-based Search Engine

Web Data - Assignment 2 - WSU Vancouver

Python 2/Flask/Whoosh/Folium/SQLite

Abstract

GeoTravel is a minimalist search engine implemented in Python using various libraries like Whoosh for data indexing, Flask for database interfacing, and Jinja for dynamic web page building. The search engine displays results and information on lakes, mountains, national parks, and waterfalls as per the user’s query. The data collected in the backend database is scraped from Wikipedia’s API and parsed into four data tables built in SQLite3, each containing information about their respective topics.

For more information, read the pdf documentation found in the /docs folder.

Screenshots

Fuji Search - Screenshot

Yosemite Search - Screenshot

Requirements

Python 2

Imports: Whoosh, urllib, folium, sqlite3, jinja2, flask, beautifulsoup, and requests

Note: The webscrapper constructed the SQLite3 database and has been included in this repository

Executing

Step #1

    ./flask_server.py

or

    python2 flask_server.py

Step #2

set browser URL to localhost:5000 after execution to land on the homepage of GeoTravel.

Addendium

Included is the Webscrapping program, WebScraper.py which takes many hours to process. Depending on changes to Wikipedia's API and format, the webscrapper may no longer work.