I guess I should apologise for the cross posting, I know this is gonna get to lots of people more than once, but hopefully it will be of enough interest that you'll at least read one of them :-)
There has recently been a thread on the Postgres user list about a web based postgres user/developer map. Claire has built a Google map based system, getting locations from IP addresses. I suggested a fully Open Source based system might be appropriate, and could even be a OS GIS suite showcase (applications and global raster & vector data) if anyone wanted to take it that far. Postgres/Postgis/mapserver seems the obvious mix, though I admit it is not the only one. ka-map could also fit in there... as well as plenty of other OS web-mapping related packages. A small minority of Postgres users seem to use spatial data, and this could present & foster a Postgres based solution for anyone interested in adding location functionality to existing Postgres implementations. So, is anyone out there in OS GIS world interested in becoming part of a team to help put this together? Brent Wood On Wed, 26 Oct 2005, Claire McLister wrote: > I took a look at your map, this is great wonderful that you were > already thinking along these lines. > > Looks like there are two issues here: (1) Getting the data points for > users/developers maps, and (2) using the most appropriate mapping > technology. > > I think we can use the Zeemaps service (http://www.zeemaps.com) for > number (1) above. The way this works is that you create a map and set a > few passwords: (a) moderator, (b) member, and (c) viewer. Using the > moderator password, you can set certain map properties, e.g., > attributes to maintain with each entry, color legends, etc. With a > member password you can modify entries and their attributes, and with a > viewer password you can just see details without the ability to modify > anything. A casual user can just see the map with the markers and their > names, without access to any details for the entries. Hence > distributing the member password to the group and having each person > add his or her details would be a good way to go. The number of points > for Postgresql users can, of course, go pretty high. So far, we have > seen reasonable performance with up to 500-600 markers. I don't know if > there is an easy way of partitioning the user base into segments that > can fit within this range. Another idea would be to just split the map > after say 500 points. > > For the number (2) the choice seems to be between Google Maps vs. > Mapserver and its associated Open Source tools. Having looked at > Brent's follow up emails, it seems that Mapserver and associated > toolkits can give much more flexibility. Plus they have the advantage > that we are not limited by Google's terms, the most annoying of which > is that you cannot save, copy, or distribute the map images created. > So, it seems best to move towards the Open Source alternatives, > specially since they have better images as Brent points out. I've been > looking at some of the Mapserver toolkits, and there seems to be an > overwhelming amount of choice available for what to pick and not. So, I > don't feel qualified to pick the right technologies to use for the base > implementation. If someone can pick the mantle on that, I'd be happy to > work with that person to see how we can exchange information from the > map points stored from (1). If for the time being you feel comfortable > continuing with Google Maps, then there's multiple ways we can share > information developed by (1) through some kind of a web service API. > > Claire
