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In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

Take Control of Your Maps

posted by Satri on Wednesday April 09, @07:49AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the how-to-take-control-of-your-webmapping-life dept.
Web Mapping Open Source Community Software
Stefano Costa writes "A List Apart has an interesting article by Paul Smith of EveryBlock about open source software for creating webmapping applications. From the article snapshot: "Rolling your own maps need not be an intimidating affair, provided you understand the problem and the tools to fix it."" I included below several related previous stories. Thanks Stefano for your submission.

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Related Stories

Industry: OpenLayers 2.5 Released [+]
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.
TileCache 2.0 Released [+]
The Technical Ramblings blog informs us TileCache 2.0 has been released. From the announcement: "* ArcXML Layer: The ArcXML layer adds support for speaking ArcXML style requests directly to a server. This layer type is experimental, and was designed and tested using the MassGIS ArcIMS server. * MGMaps Service: The MGMaps service accepts requests in the format used by the MGMaps client, a mobile map browsing client. * WMTS Service: The WMTS service is a (tile only) implementation of the current WMTS discussion paper release by OGC." Spatially Adjusted discuss TileCache's ArcIMS support. See also our introduction of TileCache 10 months ago.
QGIS 0.9.1 Released [+]
I'm happy to read the OSGeo's open source Quantum GIS (QGIS) 0.9.1 was officially released a week ago. From the announcement: "This is primarily a bug fix release and includes the following key changes: 70 Bugs closed, Added locale tab to options dialog so that locale can be overridden, Cleanups and additions to GRASS tools, Python Plugin Installer for installing plugins from the PyQGIS repository, Documentation updates, Improvements for building under MSVC." I copied some of the previous stories on QGIS below.
Mapnik 0.5.0 Released [+]
Mapnik.org announced the release of Mapnik 0.5.0. From the site: "This release brings numerous stability and performance improvements. I am particularly excited to see Mapnik performing well in multi-threaded setups, offering scalability. [...] Here are some people who use Mapnik : OpenStreetMap, OSM Cycle Map, EveryBlock, Космоснимки, MySociety - travel maps, 10East, Placebase, Heritage Walks [...] List of some new/improved features: support for native builds on Mac OS X (both Tiger and Leopard), support for single/multi-threading variants, gdal raster support [list continued on the site]" Older geoblog entries regarding Mapnik includes a comparison with MapServer by PerryGeo and comparisons with Google Maps tiles and API from Mapperz.
Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source [+]
The Spatial Guru blog informs us about the coming release in March of the book titled "Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source" by Gary Sherman. The "About this book": "Desktop GIS explores the world of Open Source GIS software and provides a guide to navigate the many options available. Discover what kind of GIS user you are and lay the foundation to evaluate the options and decide what software is best for you. Desktop GIS examines the challenges associated with assembling and using an OSGIS toolkit. You’ll find strategies for choosing a platform, selecting the right tools, integration, managing change, and getting support. The survey of OSGIS desktop applications provides you with a quick introduction to the many packages available. You’ll see examples of both GUI (Graphical User Interface) and command line interfaces to give you a feel for what is available. Once you have a grasp of the OSGIS landscape, the book delves into a detailed look at the major desktop applications, including GRASS, Quantum GIS, uDig, spatial databases, GMT, and other command line tools. Finally, the book exposes you to scripting in the OSGIS world, using Python, shell, and other languages to perform GIS operations and create output." The other book mentioned on Spatial Guru is GIS for Web Developers: Adding Where to Your Web Applications, already mentioned on Slashgeo in our Books section.
Comparison of Open Source Desktop GIS Software [+]
The Free Geography Tools website links to two tables comparing open source GIS software: "Desktop GIS means thereby that we did not inlcude map web server tools or basic GIS libraries. Please be aware that this listing is probably not comprehensive." Despite missing software, the tables are quite informative. There's a recent book on desktop open source GIS and a two-years old discussion. Slashgeo regularly cover open source desktop GIS software news.
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  • What about data?

    (Score:2, Insightful)
    by bandersnatch (1548) on Thursday April 10, @08:17PM (#2276)
    ( http://www.blavel.com/ )
    My problem with this is how can you replicate the amount of data that is in Google Maps from free or public domain sources? Has this been done? I understand that U.S. Census Bureau has free information and you could use geonames, etc. But even if you could get a hold of free roads, country and state boundaries, imagery, cadastral boundaries, etc. with global coverage, how much of a hassle would it be to actaully integrate all that data together?
    [ Reply to This ]

    • Re:What about data?

      (Score:3)
      by Satri (3) on Thursday April 10, @09:16PM (#2277)
      ( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @05:07PM )
      Hi -
      I think this is in progress of being done. More and more geodata is available publicly, and as for integrating all the data together, with standards (de facto or OGC), it's every year easier. Take a look at OpenStreetMap [slashgeo.org], it's one great example of publicly available data integrated together competing Google Maps.
      [ Reply to This | Parent ]

      • Re:What about data?

        (Score:3, Interesting)
        by bandersnatch (1548) on Thursday April 10, @09:43PM (#2278)
        ( http://www.blavel.com/ )
        OpenStreetMap looks like a great project, I hadn't seen that before.

        What about imagery? Do freely available data sources for imagery exist?

        That would be the deal-maker for me. If I could get:
        - that OpenStreetMap data
        - overlaid on global coverage imagery ata a similar quality to Google's
        - with Geonames over the top
        I would use that on my site over Google Maps any day!

        I already use Geonames for geocoding, so using a custom 'roll-my-own' map would have the added benefit of making the place names on my map line up with the co-ordinates I use for geocoding.
        [ Reply to This | Parent ]

        • Re:What about data?

          (Score:3)
          by Satri (3) on Thursday April 10, @10:01PM (#2279)
          ( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @05:07PM )
          "What about imagery? Do freely available data sources for imagery exist?"

          Yes and no. Depends on what you want :-) There's worldwide L5 and L7 data available for free (pan band at 15m). If you need a higher resolution, there's OpenAerialMap [slashgeo.org] (original post [slashgeo.org]). There's more and more remote sensing data available publicly, but since the acquisition of such data is costly, it takes time for that kind of data to reach public domain.

          As for replacing the Google Maps API itself, there's a lot of choice, you can start by taking a look at TileCache, OpenLayers, GeoServer/Mapnik/MapServer/MapGuideOS, all mature open source geospatial software. Search Slashgeo and you'll find more about these :-)
          [ Reply to This | Parent ]