Todd Walton wrote:
On 11/24/05, Todd Walton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Is there map software for Linux?
Woo-hoo! There is now! Autodesk has released MapServer under the
LGPL, and it runs on Linux.
Well, actually MapServer has been available for many years (see my previous
post).
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051128/sfm053.html?.v=33
All the news articles seem to be based on (or repeat verbatim) the
press release from Autodesk, which uses the term "web mapping". I
thought for a while that it was network mapping, like show you nodes
and ping remote computers and stuff. But they mean that it's a
server/client model, and it serves maps of geography (or whatever else
spatial you feed it). Now we just need a useful source of maps!
Again, see my previous post. If you want very detailed maps, then you probably have to
pay. The details are put in by companies like ESRI, MapQuest, etc. so they can charge
customers money as a map VAR. They all get their data from the census to start, and then
go from there.
Also, there are conversion programs (free and otherwise) to convert the US Census
TIGER/Line map data into other formats (like ESRI Shape files) for use with MapServer.
I have used MapServer with Perl and a local web server coupled with a DB2 database to
build a tracking application that covered California, all running on a K6-180 Linux box.
It took me about 4 weeks to implement the initial version, and that included learning
Perl, MapServer, and DB2 (in other words, it's not terribly difficult). This was in 2000
when MapServer was still young.
It's nice to see MapServer support really get moving along.
PGA
--
Paul G. Allen
Owner, Sr. Engineer, BSIT/SE
Random Logic Consulting Services
www.randomlogic.com
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
