Slashgeo

The PerryGeo blog ask an interesting question about comparing FDO, GDAL/OGR and FME. From the blog: " FDO, GDAL and FME all seem to operate in roughly the same domain - Providing a data model, API and tools to translate between spatial data formats. Does anyone know of any good write-ups comparing/contrasting the features of these three libraries?" Read the very informative answers on the blog. See also related stories below.

Kurt's Weblog links to the Spatial References website, which lists projections information in various formats. In addition to seeing existing EPSG codes, users can submit their own projections. Information for projections are translated in GML, Proj4, ESRI WKT, OGC WKT, USGS and JSON. Comments about the projections can also be shared. See also related stories below.

The official OpenLayers blog informs us OpenLayers 2.5 has been released. From the blog: "As of this final release, the OpenLayers 2.5 release closes 190 outstanding tickets, more than any other OpenLayers release to date! [...] Now on to new features! SLD, client side reprojection, improved documentation and examples, tile transitions… so many neat things that 2.6 will hopefully bring." See this previous post on what's new in OpenLayers 2.5. The Earth is Square adds a post on OpenLayers working on the iPod Touch. See related stories below, OpenLayers has been covered regularly.

The OSGeo mailing list tells us the OpenLayers project graduated from the OSGeo incubation process: "Graduating incubation includes requirements for open community operation, a responsible project governance model, code provenance and license verification and general good project operation. Graduating incubation is the OSGeo seal of approval for a project and gives potential users of the project added confidence in the viability and safety of the project." Here's the OpenLayers website, see also related stories below.

The GDAL mailing list informs us the widely used GDAL/OGR 1.4.4 has been released: "This is a bug fix release in the 1.4.x stable release series and adds no significant new features. This release replaces the GDAL/OGR 1.4.3 release which has been retracted by the project as it included an unexpected ABI (Application Binary Interface) change from the earlier 1.4.x releases." Here's the detailed changes.

The OSGeo-Announce mailing list informs us the open source GDAL/OGR 1.5.0 has been released. Considering the almost ubiquitous use of GDAL in open source and proprietary software, this is doubtlessly great news, especially with the numerous new drivers included for 1.5.0. Mateusz Loskot provides a few statistics: "more than 420 tickets closed on the Trac, implemented 17 new GDAL drivers for raster formats, and 4 new OGR drivers for vectors, implemented 4 (5 counting RFC 16) RFC documents, added 5 new command line utilities, plus, big number of features and improvements in SWIG bindings for scripting languages." In related news, Proj.4 4.6.0 has also been released.

Late last December the Fuzzy Tolerance blog ran a nice demonstration of building a geoportal with open source software such as OpenLayers, TileCache, GeoServer, PostGIS, jQuery, REST and AJAX. Here's the resulting geospatial portal. From the blog: "From a developer’s perspective, the biggest advantages I’ve found with OpenLayers-Tilecache-jQuery-REST is speed and simplicity. The beta site went from an empty text file to release in only a few weeks of actual development time nestled in between other projects, with a lot of that taken up by a jQuery/OpenLayers/GeoServer/SLD learning curve, design, web service work, software setup, etc. It is also marvelously simple, being nothing more than Javascript and HTML. From an end-user perspective, you get a much more responsive application, a nicer map interface than I usually give people via OpenLayers, and everything is free and open source." I copied below some of the previous Slashgeo stories regarding the software used in the demonstration.

Spatially Adjusted late in December discussed a simple yet revealing example of using OGR to visualize data. From SA: "Take GDAL/OGR for example, the webpage probably scares off most users because of the lack of examples of how to use both toolsets. But the tools themselves are so easy to use this shouldn’t scare anyone off. [...] That said Tom Kralidis has a great example of using OGR to convert a Microsoft Excel file to KML. GDAL/OGR is integral to so many GIS applications (even ESRI uses it) that any GIS professional should have at least a basic understanding to how it works." GDAL/OGR 1.5.0 was released late last year and see also this story when OpenLayers revealed itself as a data converter and an example of using a one OGR command to publish a point shapefile to html.

The Earth Is Square and the official OpenLayers blog brings us news about the just released OpenLayers 2.6. A huge release in itself. It closes over 294 outstanding tickets and has a lot of new features. Please visit any of the following links above to get the full list of features.

In case you've been under a rock, here is a little background info on OpenLayers. "OpenLayers makes it easy to put a dynamic map in any web page. It can display map tiles and markers loaded from any source. MetaCarta developed the initial version of OpenLayers and gave it to the public to further the use of geographic information of all kinds. OpenLayers is completely free, Open Source JavaScript, released under the BSD License."