[OSGeo-Discuss] Is there a place to post local chapter meeting announcements on the OSGeo site?

[Bob Basques via Discuss]

All,

I think I’ve asked this before, but is there a place on OSGeo to announce local 
chapter meetings that are coming up?

Thanks

Bobb



Get me in 
Teams
PW19-S295-C024


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G South America

[Bob Basques]

Trying the whole set to PDF . . . . up to sheet 18 . . . 

bobb 




 George Silva georger.si...@gmail.com wrote:


Last year there was some buzz that the FOSS4G would be hosted here in
Brazil, but no one (or just a few people) wanted to help organizing the
event. 



It would be great to have an event here in Latin America, but for what
I can see OSGeo in Brazil is mostly used as a advertising strategy
(for some, at least), so we have little traction. 



Perhaps the folks that hosted other FOSS4G events could share a bit of
the experience that was. All of the work involved, the steps, etc. That
would help a lot of people and even make a few interested. 



Hoping to see a latin america FOSS4G, 



George


On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 4:20 PM, slesage sles...@geo.gob.bo wrote:



That's true that some members wrote us with that same subject. We are
very interested here in Bolivia, and it would be great to accord on a
way to coordinate and discuss. A mailing list ? A wiki page ? What would
you propose ?

Sylvain

El 2012-02-13 13:20, Arnulf Christl escribió:



Hi Conference Committee,
there are several mails related to having a FOSS4G in South America.
Mabye we can keep an eye on this and support them from OSGeo.

Cheers,
Arnulf

On 02/13/2012 05:24 AM, slesage wrote:



I hope we will succeed in having a close collaboration between
GeoBolivia and the OSGeo community in some way, this is very important
for us. And like you say, we are very enthusiastic in seeing and
contribute to a regional FOSS4G!

El 2012-02-12 22:25, Alex Borrell escribió:



Thanks for your nice reply, Sylvain.

I would certainly like to Bolivia (People say it's beatiful). Anyway,
if there is something I coul do to help,
count on it! Probably we'll see the day of a Latin American FOSS4G.

Regards

2012/2/10 slesage sles...@geo.gob.bo [19]




Hi Alex,

all the personal need to work in La Paz, Bolivia. But you can
compete and come to discover Bolivia for one year, you'll be welcome
:)

And like you say, there is much to do, but it's very useful to have
a growing users community, with additionally some users switching
from users to developers. Much to do too in translating to Spanish,
hope we will contribute a lot this year.

Sylvain
  

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--
George R. C. Silva

Desenvolvimento em GIS
http://geoprocessamento.net
http://blog.geoprocessamento.net 




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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Automatic geocoding of PDF documents

[Bob Basques]

All, 

I did something similar to this a couple of years ago (for fun of all things) 
where I parsed a Craigslist listing, and used the city location information (I 
used a Census Placename SHP file I think) to plot a location for each item for 
sale on a map.  The plan at the time was to mapify Craigslist and be able to do 
geo-filtered queries.  I gotrlb.sharedgeo.o it to work, but got onto other 
things and never went back to it. 

I used PERL, and as I recall, it wasn't that long of a script, maybe 50 lines 
or so.  I can look for the code if there is interest. 

bobb 



 Stephen Woodbridge wood...@swoodbridge.com wrote:


Here are some more links that you might find useful.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/10/385
http://www.ijcte.org/papers/005.pdf
http://www.e-perimetron.org/Vol_4_1/Martins_et_al.pdf
http://nltk.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/doc/book/ch07.html

I can not find a potentially excelent reference that was done by about 5
years ago by maybe a GSoC student that I think then hired on with
Google, but the basically he wrote a document parser that looked for
location references in the text and then tagged the document with
locations and lat/longs. If I remember correctly it as a gazetteer based
system and it is open source and was online somewhere also.

-Steve

On 1/13/2012 6:00 PM, slesage wrote:
 Hi,

 does anybody knows about some opensource software dedicated to automatic
 geocoding of text documents ? The idea of that black box would be:
 * give, as an input, a text document or a PDF,
 * receive, as an output, a list of place names with their coordinates /
 a map of POI corresponding to that places.

 Using the geonames database (http://www.geonames.org/), the solution
 appears to be only a fulltext search, that could be done using Lucene
 (https://lucene.apache.org/java/docs/index.html).

 I found the metacarta solution
 (http://www.metacarta.com/products-platform-geotag.htm) but couldn't
 find any opensource solution.

 Thanks for your suggestions.

 Sylvain Lesage.
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Mapping Tools for Real Estate Parcels

[Bob Basques]

Arnie, 

If you have landmarks to work with, I would just digitize off of a aerial map 
view.  Even if there are no landmarks, you may be able to find the parcels from 
a local resource like a county, in Raster form, and apply a projection to the 
raster file for overlaying and digitizing. 

Our Parcel Viewer has a coordinate tracking feature incorporated into it that 
can let you grab coordinates as well. 

Most of the GPS setup are pretty easy to figure out if you ever done any 
mapping stuff in the past. 

Something Like QGIS will let you import the points from a CSV file for example. 

bobb 





 Arnie Shore shor...@gmail.com wrote:


Hello all.  We have a need for mapping a few hundred parcels, and I
expect that will mean walking the property boundaries with  GPS device
in order to pick up corner coordinates, for subsequent entry into a
database.

Nothing at all unusual, I'm sure.

I'm OK with taking the point data for presentation, but I wonder if
anyone here can speak (actually, type!) to experiences with the
initial point data capture step; devices, etc, with recommendations.

AS
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Charter Member Nomination for Bob Basques [acceptence of nomination]

[Bob Basques]

All, 

I would like to thank Steve L. for his nomination and trust in me
related to OSGEO and other topics that we've worked together on in the
past.  Steve is in large part responsible for my interest in Open Source
alternatives that began with the use of MapServer in the early 90's. 

I've never really thought about being recognized officially other than
possibly wanting to vote on some interesting OSGEO issues here and there
over the years.  While I tried to attend the first OSGEO birthing
meeting, I ended up watching the process from the sidelines.  I seem to
have gotten my views on things out there never the less during my
participation on the (OSGEO) lists (I'm on nine of them right now), I
should also mention that I'm also on a few other open source lists that
are not specifically Geo related, and that I work in the area of
application usability.   

My main interest is in making the complicated tasks easier to
accomplish, for the ordinary user, primarily with Open Source tools
where feasible.  I also work with software and hardware in combination
to build information systems from the ground up, while others projects
are just intended as improvements to existing systems. 

My varied background in hardware and Geo related processes is
extensive, and it's in this cross pollination of ideas and open source
projects that I think makes me a valuable asset to OSGEO. 

NOTE: I don't know that the following is pertinent or related to this
response, but I include it because I would like to see a similar list
from others about their interests / uses of OS software. Additionally, a
area of general expertise might be nice.  Things like I'm interested in
promoting the US National Grid (USNG) for example. 

OpenSource background: 

Fluent in: MapServer and Mapfiles, GeoMoose, Perl, Shell scripts,
AutoCAD (FDO, WMS, WFS), Oracle Spatial 

Somewhat Fluent in: GDAL/OGR, QGIS, Open Layers, MapScript, Apache,
KML, JSON, POSTGIS, MySQL, WebDAV, Ubuntu (LiveDVD) 

Have used: MSQL, Nagios, Drupal, Plone, X3D 

Experimenting(ed) with: LAMP, QGGIS (portable - Android), Portable
GeoMoose Stack (Apache, GeoMoose, PostGIS, Openlayers), Pano3D, 3dPDF,
GeoPDF, Android OS 


Thanks 
bobb 

Bob Basques 






 Lime, Steve D (DNR) steve.l...@state.mn.us wrote:


Hi all:  

I’m pleased to have the opportunity to nominate Bob Basques as an OSGeo
charter member. Bob works for the City of St. Paul and has long been a
user and advocate of free and open source software and data. He is the
founder of the GeoMOOSE project (geomoose.org ( http://www.geomoose.org
)) an increasingly popular client environment that leverages other
projects such as MapServer and Open Layers. 
   
Bob has been a frequent contributor in local (Twin Cities MapServer
Group), state (MN GIS/LIS) and global (FOSS4G) events, doing
presentations and delivering workshops.  
   
Most importantly, Bob’s an idea guy, someone that every organization
needs. He is always thinking of new ways to use FOSS software and data
to solve day-to-day business needs. Those ideas have had an impact not
only the software he has developed, but also the software he makes use
of. I’m grateful for his input over the years. 
   
In short, I think Bob would be value addition to the OSGeo charter
membership ranks. 
   
Steve 
  
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] help with catalog of OGC services

[Bob Basques]

John, 

GeoMoose operates against data sources similarly to your descriptions.  Each 
data source has it's own MapFile control for the MapServer engine, and you can 
also let GeoMoose access the WMS services directly if you wish.  This makes the 
addition of new layers very easy in the configuration of the GeoMoose catalog 
(MAPBOOK)  

bobb 



 John Callahan john.calla...@udel.edu wrote:


I have about 15 or so OGC services running with MapServer, mostly WMS but a few 
WFS and hopefully some WCS in the future. I'd like to have an easy way for 
users to browse through my services. Of course, I can manually create a web 
page listing my services but there should be something better. A CSW catalog 
would be nice as traditional desktop GIS users can easily browse/search and add 
my services directly to their GIS. It'd also be great if my services could be 
harvested by other catalogs. 



Does anyone know of a way to run a CSW-compliant app by simply adding existing 
etCapability URLs? I know about GeoNetwork but it doesn't seem like I need the 
full GUI or multi-user editor as it's only me (plus I'd rather not have to 
manually create/maintain records for each service as I think I'd have to with 
GN.) Does anyone know if MapServer can perform like a CSW, perhaps by pointing 
to local map files? 



In the end, I'm looking for a way to easily maintain a catalog of OGC services 
through integrating existing services as much as possible. Thanks for any 
guidance. 



- John 



***
John Callahan, Research Scientist
Delaware Geological Survey, University of Delaware
URL: http://www.dgs.udel.edu
*

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Projects Mailing List

[Bob Basques]

Cameron for example would do a good use of this list when going after us
for LiveDVD updates. 

--

 
It that case I vote against it . . .  :c) 


It really does sound like a good idea, but with the expectation that it's an 
announcement list of sorts.  Success shouldn't be measured on amount of traffic 
for example. 


bobb 

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[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: [Live-demo] Please give us your feedback on OSGeo-Live DVDs and USBs at FOSS4G [GEOMOOSE WORKSHOP FEEDBACK]

[Bob Basques]

All, 

Was planning on doing this anyway, but since Cameron decided to ask the 
question now, here goes . . . 

The GeoMoose team used the DVD as released in it's WorkShop at the FOSS4G 
conference with great success.  We used many of the installed components in the 
workshop directly from the DVD.  I'm sure I'll miss listing something here 
about components used, but encourage others from the GeoMoose list and workshop 
to chime in on the LiveDVD usage at the conference.  The pieces I know we used 
were: 

   ** GeoMoose  
   ** MapServer 
   ** GeoServer 
   ** Natural Earth Data 
   ** QGIS 

The GeoMoose Workshop team all worked with the LiveDVD for the presentation.  
All of the participants of the Workshop used the LiveDVD as installed on the 
workshop portable computers in the VMs. We didn't build a custom install for 
the workshop, but chose to use the LiveDVD as-is.  Our workshop materials are 
based off of the LiveDVD and used the components that were already installed to 
great effect.  All of the examples and exercises were worked through on the 
LiveDVD VM and the results displayed in the VM.  We also described how to save 
the exercises and examples for re-use in their own setup of the VM back in 
their offices. 

We did build a couple of USBs with the DVD, but only as backups, and didn't end 
up using them at the conference. 

We had some networking glitches while working through some online examples, 
which worked for most of the users, but the LiveDVD worked in an offline mode 
very well.  The LiveDVD worked almost flawlessly for our workshop and I 
personally want to thank the LiveDVD creators for their work on putting it 
together.  It's a great resource in promoting FOSS4G. 

I encourage others from the conference to chime in here as well.  


Thanks (A lot!!) 


I've copied the (NEW) GeoMoose List as well with this message.. 

bobb 

 Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com wrote:


As we were approaching this year's OSGeo-Live release, we were finding
it hard to work out whether the previous release of USBs were considered
worthwhile or not.

So as you get back from FOSS4G, can you please share some of your
OSGeo-Live stories. You might want to mention some of the following:
* Who has tried the DVD/USB? (Developers? Users? Managers? Others in the
office?)
* What experiences have you had? Did things work? Anything easy or hard
to understand?
* Did you try the DVD or USB?
* Did you try in a VM, fast/slow desktop/laptop with lots/little RAM?

--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com

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[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G, GeoMoose, Tell your friends . . . [Workshop Plug]

[Bob Basques]

All, 


Still some openings for the FOSS4G workshops. 


Your's truely, Jim Klassen and Dan Little are putting on a GeoMoose workshop on 
Monday that still has some openings. 



Some trivia about GeoMoose . . . 

GeoMoose is an odd dog when it comes to showing it's potential.  Most of the 
trick stuff is behind the scenes.  One of it's major strengths is the ease with 
which external services can be integrated into it.  GeoMoose uses a XML file 
called a MAPBOOK, to describe it's user interface, user extensions and tools.  
This MAPBOOK is easily added to by an administrator and can even be created 
from scratch by and end user. 

A typical user tool, or service add-in, might look like: 

service title=Mailing Labels - Addresses default=true display=window 
icon=shared/images/toolbar/mailing_label.jpg 
highlight=shared/images/toolbar/mailing_label_selected.jpg  
 url/gis/address/cgi-bin/address_labels_ng.rb/url
 input type=hidden name=usestamp value=true/input
 input type=user name=name title=Generic Name: value=Resident 
notes=Leave blank to use STAMP name/input
 input type=area name=shape_id title=Selection Area: value= 
shape=polygon/input
 input type=select name=output title=Output Format
  option value=application/pdfPDF Labels (Avery 5351)/option
  option value=application/pdf%3b form=5161PDF Labels (Avery 
5161)/option
  option value=application/vnd.ms-excelExcel/option
  option value=text/xmlXML/option
  option value=text/plainPlain Text/option
 /input
/service


GeoMoose acts as a configuration and indexing tool for Geospatial and related 
data and services.  The Front end doesn't look that different from many of the 
other mapping packages out there.  It's more about what is going on behind the 
scenes with administration and maintenance aspects of the data, Each layer in 
GeoMoose is configured to run on it's own.  This allows an administrator the 
option of allowing a data owner or steward, the option of updating their data 
behind the scenes without impacting the whole of the GeoMoose instance.  The 
data owner has complete control over their publishing frequency as well as what 
the mapping cartography will look like in the GeoMoose interface.  They can 
even have multiple versions of each for the same data. By combining many such 
standalone services and tools together, GeoMoose allows a very high level of 
publishing freedom for the data owners and administrators.

Sign up for the GeoMoose Workshop and let us show you what you can build.

More GeoMoose Trivia as we close on FOSS4G.



bobb

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open source map server

[Bob Basques]

Hello, 

All of your requirements can be configured into a GeoMoose interface. 

The lookup aspects will require some extra setup steps, but everything you want 
out of the ease of use as well as the basic list you describe here of 
capabilities is in or can be added to a GeoMoose instance. 

Take a look at the online demos here: http://www.geomoose.org/info/demo.html  
If they look like they might work for you you can get started with GeoMoose 
here: http://www.geomoose.org/index.html  with the how-tos on that page. 

bobb 




 del cadarn del_cad...@hotmail.com wrote:


Hello all,

I am calling upon your Open Source expertise. I'm currently working on an  
online [censored] map for a community project. I am trying to find the right 
map server or web map services that would enables us to make the most of this 
project. I feel a little overhelmed with all the different options online and 
thought you could maybe make a few recommendations. 



Here are some more details on what I am looking for. 



At its most basic, I look for a server that enables to see georeferenced 
features on a basemap, click on a feature to display more information and also 
edit information. Ideally I am looking for a mapserver supporting WFS, enabling 
the display of multiple layers (that could be switched on/off) supporting 
simple queries ( intersect, buffer) and maybe also enabling links and photos. 



Unfortunately there are two main constraints: my limited knowledge in 
programming (I only know a little python and no java whatsoever) and 
user-friendliness of the finished platform is essential as it is aimed to local 
communities with limited computer skills. 


Merci,

 D 
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RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open source map server

[Bob Basques]

D, 

Styled Layer Description (SLD), and XML standard for stylizing stuff.  Lucky 
for you, I'm actually working on this at the moment . . .  :c) 

with a SLD, you can start with a WMS call like this: 

https://maps.co.ramsey.mn.us/arcgis/services/ParcelPolyWMS2/MapServer/WMSServer?WIDTH=600HEIGHT=600BBOX=44.95,-93.028,44.955,-93.023CRS=EPSG:4326FORMAT=image/png24STYLES=REQUEST=GetMapSERVICE=WMSVERSION=1.3.0LAYERS=0
 

. . . . which should return an image with the default styles configured on the 
server. 

you can change the styles by changing the call to include a SLD, like so: 

https://maps.co.ramsey.mn.us/arcgis/services/ParcelPolyWMS2/MapServer/WMSServer?WIDTH=600HEIGHT=600BBOX=-93.028,44.95,-93.023,44.955SRS=EPSG:4326FORMAT=image/png24STYLES=textSymbolizerREQUEST=GetMapSERVICE=WMSVERSION=1.1.1LAYERS=0TRANSPARENT=trueSLD=http://pwultra5.ci.stpaul.mn.us/ol/sld.poly.label.02.xml
 

The ( 
https://maps.co.ramsey.mn.us/arcgis/services/ParcelPolyWMS2/MapServer/WMSServer?WIDTH=600HEIGHT=600BBOX=-93.028,44.95,-93.023,44.955SRS=EPSG:4326FORMAT=image/png24STYLES=textSymbolizerREQUEST=GetMapSERVICE=WMSVERSION=1.1.1LAYERS=0TRANSPARENT=trueSLD=http://pwultra5.ci.stpaul.mn.us/ol/sld.poly.label.02.xml
 ) SLD= ( 
https://maps.co.ramsey.mn.us/arcgis/services/ParcelPolyWMS2/MapServer/WMSServer?WIDTH=600HEIGHT=600BBOX=-93.028,44.95,-93.023,44.955SRS=EPSG:4326FORMAT=image/png24STYLES=textSymbolizerREQUEST=GetMapSERVICE=WMSVERSION=1.1.1LAYERS=0TRANSPARENT=trueSLD=http://pwultra5.ci.stpaul.mn.us/ol/sld.poly.label.02.xml
 )http://pwultra5.ci.stpaul.mn.us/ol/sld.poly.label.02.xml parameter ( 
http://pwultra5.ci.stpaul.mn.us/ol/sld.poly.label.02.xml ) above is used to 
tell the server how to stylize the output instead of using the default style.  
While this is using a static SLD, the real power comes into the equation when 
the user has a SLD editor at the their disposal to change the STYLE on the fly. 

This email is just to get you asking questions, there's a lot more to it behind 
the scenes.  The server needs to be able to understand SLD calling, etc.  This 
service is using MapServer as the WMS server for example. 


bobb 



 del cadarn del_cad...@hotmail.com wrote:


Forgive my ignorance but a few of you mention SLD editor... What does that mean?

  Merci,

  D
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[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: [Live-demo] Do we want OSGeo-Live on a USB or DVD at FOSS4G?

[Bob Basques]

All, 

Just a note here about my experience with USB building. 

First I'm a complete newbie to this stuff. 

I managed to build a USB bootable device.  The main reason I was interested in 
a USB was the devices I was using them on were netbooks without DVD players.  
My development machine wasn't the newest hardware though, so getting the USB to 
boot was a little tricky.  Newer desktop hardware seems to boot from the USB a 
little easier. 

I'm personally 50/50 on which to distribute them on.  You might just think 
about doing half of each, and let the participants choose. 

bobb 





 Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com wrote:


OSGeo-Live will be handed out to all delegates at FOSS4G 2011 in Denver,
and what I'd like to know is whether we should distribute on a DVD or USB.

In Barcelona, we were unsure whether the USB version would work on most
computers, so we gave USB's to presenters only, who we thought would
likely be forgiving if it didn't work) and we gave DVDs to everyone else.

So my question to the community is:
If you were given an OSGeo-Live DVD at FOSS4G 2010, were you able to
boot from it on your computer (and whatever other computers you may have
at home)?

If you have experience building a bootable USB, I'd also like to hear
from you.
Probably best to reply to myself and/or live-d...@lists.osgeo.org and
avoid swamping the discuss list with traffic.

On 03/08/11 06:26, Peter Batty wrote:
 Do you have a preference between DVD and USB? My laptop doesn't do
 DVDs so I guess I have an inclination for at least having some USBs in
 the mix. Don't know how costs compare though, will research further.


--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Director
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] online open source polygon mapping, like OSM?

[Bob Basques]

Nitin, 

Openlayers can build polygons on the map. 

GeoMoose, which is built on top of OpenLayers can also do this. 

In both cases you will need to build out a service to store the created 
polygons. 

bobb 




 Nitin Gadia nitty...@gmail.com wrote:


Please help!!


Does anyone know an open online mapping platform like openstreetmap that does 
polygons (OSM only does lines)?

Basically, I'm envisioning something where someone can add polygons such as 
historical nations, and then be able to animate them. I should be able to type 
in, say, 1900 and see the way the world was then. I can then edit a map, 
changing and adding polygons, and their colors and metadata. I should also be 
able to view areas by, say, population density and other statistics.

The closest thing I've found is click2map, which is not opensource. Something 
needs to be created just like it. Try it out, and create a polygon:
http://www.click2map.com/free_map_editor




I want to help create an open historical map of the world. Check out the work 
I've done so far:
http://www.thenittygritty.org/intheworks.html

Also, check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxrXiO0zcVwfeature=related




If this is not available, I will do everything I can to help build it!


Thanks,
Nitin
 


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[OSGeo-Discuss] SLD - truncating text with, (how?)

[Bob Basques]

All, 

Trying to chop the leading data chunk of a PIN (Parcel ID Number) down to the 
last four characters. 

Is there a way to run a REGEX or some other filter in a SLD to accomplish this? 
 I don't think I'm using the correct search terms. 

Thanks 

bobb 

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Re: [OSGeo-Edu] Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Training and certification

[Bob Basques]

All, 

My thoughts on the Incubation process (which are in the archives over the 
years) was generally that it was too big a step in many cases for projects to 
take.  I've always wondered about some sort of process that could last much 
longer and with many more steps in it before being declared fully matured.  
I've also wondered a bit about how to monitor these matured projects after the 
back.  It seems like smaller certification steps/chunks could help here as 
well.  You wouldn't need to require a full review of the whoile incubation 
process for example. 

This allows the community much more time to feel out and discuss a project and 
it's workings as well as an opportunity to guide the process where possible.  
The all or nothing option of the Incubation process has bothered me from day 
one.  It also allows for at least, a rudimentary (public) history to be 
captured of a projects as it's developed. 

bobb 




 Jody Garnett jody.garn...@gmail.com wrote:


Interaction with other committees is separate to the the incubation process 
currently. 



I like the idea of the straight up reward system: 

- participation (provision of quick start etc gets you included on the live 
dvd) 

- provision of course materials perhaps could allow projects to participate in 
education initiatives 



The incubation process is already a MASSIVE ask. Just because it is one that 
has had some success please do not look at it as an opportunity to ask more 
from participating projects. 



As an example: incubation took GeoTools years to accomplish - and is taking 
many other projects years as well. Please don't add more work to a process 
already so slow is is ineffective. 



Is there any way to start these conversations off in the other direct? That is 
how can the live dvd project bring assistance to bear; or the education 
committee bring volunteers together to write course materials? 



Remember that these projects have one (and only one primary objective): 
bringing code together into releasable form :-) 


-- 
Jody Garnett


On Sunday, 12 June 2011 at 10:56 AM, Mark Lucas wrote:  




On Jun 11, 2011, at 8:24 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote: 





Mark,
Yes I agree that OSGeo-Live also provides a good framework for the periodic 
review of projects beyond incubation.

What we have on our side is:
1. A periodic release schedule
2. A valuable business driver which attracts projects to continue to work on 
OSGeo-Live (namely the marketing value of each release)

We do have the potential to gradually introduce review of incubation criteria 
into the OSGeo-Live release cycle.

 



I was actually thinking of the reverse - incubation graduation would be 
contingent on getting on the OSGeo-Live disk.  Agree it should be gradual, 
should start out as a goal. 



Mark 



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Training and certification

[Bob Basques]

All, 

I'm liking this thread.  Seems like a long time coming to tell the truth. 

I think this training aspect needs to happen no matter what.  I'm still foggy 
on the details to implement, same as everyone else.  It needs to be thought 
about in the context of moving projects as well as the OSGEO org ahead.  I 
don't see this as something that is likely to step on the toes of anyone 
already building out training materials, but more as a unified method for such 
entities to build out their training materials. 

My thoughts in this area focus on the projects themselves.  I think there is 
more than one level of certification that needs to be thought about.   

1.)  First (and of my personal interest) is how a individual project relates 
it's capabilities to the masses via training and education, with adequate 
upkeep of same, once something like this is started, it needs to be kept up as 
the project develops as well.  I always thought this should be something that 
was kept close to the Project authors themselves, or at least in a project 
sanctioned realm of some sort, am I describing another development silo 
possibly?  It also seems like it might be best to only task the project 
builders with a framework or basic description requirement of some sort, but 
also directly related to the building out of a much more detailed tutorial or 
educational curriculum for both the trainers as well as the trainees. Tips and 
tricks for operation also seem like they may originate this level on a version 
by version basis. 

2.) This seems like an obvious OSGEO incubation chunk of some sort.  Even if 
the incubation piece is only looking at the training foundational aspects.  
Once a foundational educational piece is in place, it should be much easier to 
build out detailed training materials after the fact.  Could this be related to 
some sort of ongoing incubation process, whereby a project is re-examined over 
time (see note below). 

3.) Some upper level recognition/certification system that can recognize an 
individuals adeptness at using the individual OSGEO products/projects.  This 
could be in partnership with higher level EDUs or even Private entities, and 
can be closely tied to a commercial effort without impacting OSGEO proper, 
which is (should be) in the position of facilitating this type of work, not 
competing with it. 

NOTE: A thought that popped up while writing this -How would previous incubated 
projects be retroactively brought up to some new OSGEO standards as they are 
developed, is there a re-certification process at some point that is already 
built in?, projects are constantly being developed/redeveloped over time.  What 
constitutes re-examination of a projection? 


bobb 



 Daniel Ames dan.a...@isu.edu wrote:


I tend to agree with Cameron on this one. There is already the GISci 
certification process that we don't want to compete with. Plus which particular 
tools from the OSGeo stack would one be required to be proficient in to be 
OSGeo Certified. I think that if a particular project wanted to create a 
certification program - perhaps with help from OSGeo - that would make more 
sense. One could become certified in GRASS. But to say you are OSGeo 
Certified would be hard to quantify/explain.


On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 1:08 AM, Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com 
wrote:



On 10/06/2011 4:07 PM, Paolo Cavallini wrote:



Il 09/06/2011 21:38, Tyler Mitchell ha scritto:




Anyone else thinking about this or want to weigh-in on what their thoughts were?
 
If this competes with the activities the professionals and enterprises are 
currently
offering, -1. We want OSGeo to support our work, not to compete with it. This 
would
have a number of negative consequences, IMHO.
All the best.
 


Like Paolo, I'm very nervous about OSGeo taking on a training role for the same 
reasons.
Providing good training is a difficult business, which is provided by many of 
the OSGeo businesses who back OSGeo. If OSGeo starts to act as a business by 
providing such training, then OSGeo will start competing against its' core 
supporters. This has the potential to fracture the very strong OSGeo community, 
which is a bad thing.

And while in principle, the idea of OSGeo providing a trusted, unbiased 
training certification program, I think a very quick review of the business 
case behind it will make it unfavourable. Either the training program will be 
of low quality and low credibility, or it will attach such high cost to courses 
that the courses will be harder to sell.

Creating certification takes a lot of work, which needs to be resourced. I 
might be wrong, but I can't see volunteers stepping forward to build a 
certification program, at least not in the immediate future. Maybe some 
Governments might step up (as has been done for certifying OGC standards), but 
I expect governments will have better things to spend money on. The other group 
who could write a certification program are training 

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Training and certification

[Bob Basques]

All, 

Sorry, I thought of another piece to this conversation that might stimulate the 
conversation. 

Here at the City we're currently pursuing a Public Works Accreditation for use 
of Best Practices. 

My question to the group would be, what would a theoretical response be from 
OSGEO on the question of What are the Best Practices related to the use of 
Open Source (geo) Software?  (or some such). 

Administratively, this type of question comes up often, and the vagaries of 
Open Source use don't seem to lend themselves to a concrete answer.   It seems 
like answering such a question with a more comprehensive level of training and 
certification in place would be much easier. 

Am I think about this in the wrong way? 


bobb 


 Bob Basques bob.basq...@ci.stpaul.mn.us wrote:


All, 


I'm liking this thread.  Seems like a long time coming to tell the truth. 


I think this training aspect needs to happen no matter what.  I'm still foggy 
on the details to implement, same as everyone else.  It needs to be thought 
about in the context of moving projects as well as the OSGEO org ahead.  I 
don't see this as something that is likely to step on the toes of anyone 
already building out training materials, but more as a unified method for such 
entities to build out their training materials. 


My thoughts in this area focus on the projects themselves.  I think there is 
more than one level of certification that needs to be thought about.   


1.)  First (and of my personal interest) is how a individual project relates 
it's capabilities to the masses via training and education, with adequate 
upkeep of same, once something like this is started, it needs to be kept up as 
the project develops as well.  I always thought this should be something that 
was kept close to the Project authors themselves, or at least in a project 
sanctioned realm of some sort, am I describing another development silo 
possibly?  It also seems like it might be best to only task the project 
builders with a framework or basic description requirement of some sort, but 
also directly related to the building out of a much more detailed tutorial or 
educational curriculum for both the trainers as well as the trainees. Tips and 
tricks for operation also seem like they may originate this level on a version 
by version basis. 


2.) This seems like an obvious OSGEO incubation chunk of some sort.  Even if 
the incubation piece is only looking at the training foundational aspects.  
Once a foundational educational piece is in place, it should be much easier to 
build out detailed training materials after the fact.  Could this be related to 
some sort of ongoing incubation process, whereby a project is re-examined over 
time (see note below). 


3.) Some upper level recognition/certification system that can recognize an 
individuals adeptness at using the individual OSGEO products/projects.  This 
could be in partnership with higher level EDUs or even Private entities, and 
can be closely tied to a commercial effort without impacting OSGEO proper, 
which is (should be) in the position of facilitating this type of work, not 
competing with it. 


NOTE: A thought that popped up while writing this -How would previous incubated 
projects be retroactively brought up to some new OSGEO standards as they are 
developed, is there a re-certification process at some point that is already 
built in?, projects are constantly being developed/redeveloped over time.  What 
constitutes re-examination of a projection? 



bobb 




 Daniel Ames dan.a...@isu.edu wrote:


I tend to agree with Cameron on this one. There is already the GISci 
certification process that we don't want to compete with. Plus which particular 
tools from the OSGeo stack would one be required to be proficient in to be 
OSGeo Certified. I think that if a particular project wanted to create a 
certification program - perhaps with help from OSGeo - that would make more 
sense. One could become certified in GRASS. But to say you are OSGeo 
Certified would be hard to quantify/explain.


On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 1:08 AM, Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com 
wrote:



On 10/06/2011 4:07 PM, Paolo Cavallini wrote:



Il 09/06/2011 21:38, Tyler Mitchell ha scritto:




Anyone else thinking about this or want to weigh-in on what their thoughts were?
 
If this competes with the activities the professionals and enterprises are 
currently
offering, -1. We want OSGeo to support our work, not to compete with it. This 
would
have a number of negative consequences, IMHO.
All the best.
 


Like Paolo, I'm very nervous about OSGeo taking on a training role for the same 
reasons.
Providing good training is a difficult business, which is provided by many of 
the OSGeo businesses who back OSGeo. If OSGeo starts to act as a business by 
providing such training, then OSGeo will start competing against its' core 
supporters. This has the potential to fracture the very strong OSGeo community, 
which

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] CommonMap in Canada

[Bob Basques]

Brendan, 

Have you figured out how other entities (like countries or ??) might implement 
a similar service node that could interact with your framework design? 

bobb 




 Brendan Morley morb@beagle.com.au wrote:


Hi all,

I just wanted to let you know that the CommonMap initiative is still alive, as 
am I.

To recap, CommonMap will be a collaboration and repository of 
liberally-licensed geodata (without share-alike) - accessible though an 
OpenStreetMap-style interface.  We will accept Creative Commons Attribution, 
CC0 and public domain geodata contributions, depending on your jurisdiction.  
We expect it will find fresh acceptance in the Gov 2.0 movement, since it 
allows governments to redistribute contributions from the community.  We also 
are quite happy to accept OpenStreetMap contributors who find themselves 
dissatisfied with its default licence.

We want to focus on a particular country at first, which is Canada.  Why?

 * It has quite a comprehensive open data catalogue;
 * It appears to have a compatible licence;
 * It also has a rigorous foreign key model, which bodes well for 
roundtripping back to government;
 * It's the home of Refractions Research, the custodian of PostGIS which is 
a good friend of mine;
 * Finally, it helps that Sam Vekemans is our enthusiastic man on the 
ground over there.

We want to get as much of Natural Resources Canada's GeoBase and Canvec 
publications into the CommonMap database as we can, and use Canada as a 
showcase country for what CommonMap can uniquely do.

The proof of concept API instance is currently at 
http://api.development.i386.commonmap.org/
It is hosting an overlay of:

 * Natural Earth Data;
 * Some sample Geobase National Road Network, National Hydro Network and 
Land Cover datasets.

(Hint: look up Victoria, British Columbia[1] for an example of all 3 datasets 
together.)


Next comes the challenge of ramping up to a public launch.  The core of 
CommonMap is a web-facing API and its one true database, a download site for 
XML full copies of that database, and a map tile server with its optimised 
database.  To run this at public scale will demand about 8-10 CPU cores and 
associated storage, or about US $10,000 per year.

Let's face it, we will require a higher rate of donations to do this. If you 
believe in the idea of CommonMap, a good way to show your support is to donate 
to CommonMap Inc.  (CommonMap Inc is the non profit body that operates the 
CommonMap internet resources.)

Potential donors, please head this way:
http://www.commonmap.org/page/donate

Even if you can't spare the cash, perhaps you can spare your skills or tools, 
whether they be in geodesy, obtaining or converting geodata imports, running up 
database or tile servers, or developing applications?  Let us know.


Please feel free to forward this news to whoever you wish.

I welcome all comments: You can make further enquires by return email, the 
commonmap.org website, or CommonMap at LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.  Sam 
Vekemans also has a group blog for CommonMap set up at Posterous.


Thanks,
Brendan

[1]
http://api.development.i386.commonmap.org/?lat=48.821lon=-123.574zoom=9layers=BFTF


-- 
Brendan Morley
President, CommonMap Inc.
morb...@commonmap.info
http://commonmap.org/
Queensland Incorporated Association 37762
Also find us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
--

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Comparison of Mobile GIS applications

[Bob Basques]

All, 

Just resurrecting this thread.  It's been 6 months.  I've done a couple of 
little projects with the N900 which are detailed here: 
http://pwultra5.ci.stpaul.mn.us/OPERA/ 

Question to Chris S., do you have any other insights into the directions that 
the N900 device (or others like it) might be taking in the future (that you can 
mention? :c)  I'm setting up some netbooks next for the two projects listed 
above, using essentially the same software stack as used for the N900, which it 
is somewhat amazing when you think about it.  I would still like to revisit the 
Mobile controls issues for OpenLayers and GeoMoose at some point, but focusing 
on flexibility with software stack at the moment. 

Thanks 

bobb 




 Christopher Schmidt crschm...@crschmidt.net wrote:


On Wed, Jun 02, 2010 at 03:25:45PM -0500, Bob Basques wrote:
 Milo,

 You mentioned MEEGO in your post, I just ordered a N900 to do some testing 
 for GIS related stuff on the N900.  What types of functionalities are you 
 focusing your efforts on for MEEGO?

Note that the current development platform for the N900 (and likely
for the next 6 months at least) is still Maemo. The two platforms
will likely not differ greatly; a lot of the UI functionality is already
SDK-level in Maemo, and apps themselves likely won't change much
other than packaging. In either case, it's mostly just a Very Small
Linux Box.

-- Chris, proud owner of an N900

 bobb



  miblon mob...@dogodigi.net wrote:

 I have been using navit and osm2go on moblin. There is a debian build
 for osm2go which is targeted at maemo, I managed to get it up on moblin
 and will try to get it running on meego.

 If you are interested in me filling the blanks for these 2 apps on your
 feature list, let me know.

 Kind regards,

 Milo van der Linden

 Miguel Montesinos wrote:
  Hello to all,
 
  I'm preparing a presentation for the FOSS4G, with title Comparison of
  Mobile GIS applications. I know some, but I think that the best way to
  make an objective analysis is to offer the chance for anyone to
  collaborate, in order to define common feature lists as well as
  perfomance or usability check lists.
 
  Is anyone developing or using a mobile geospatial application
  interested?
 
  Regards,
 
  -
  Miguel Montesinos
  CTO
  PRODEVELOP, S.L.
  mmontesinos [at] prodevelop [dot] es
  www.prodevelop.es
 
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[OSGeo-Discuss] Web mapping client comparison (V5)

[Bob Basques]

All, 

No affiliation on this end, but I think the work done here is excellent, 
especially for a first time implementer or user. 

http://geotux.tuxfamily.org/index.php?option=com_myblogtask=viewshow=Comparaci%F3n%20de%20clientes%20web%20para%20SIG%20v.5id=265Itemid=59#pc_303
 

bobb 
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Comparison of Mobile GIS applications

[Bob Basques]

Chris, 

Thanks for the info.   I kinda figured the Meego thing was stalling on my own.  
A couple of manufacturers I've seen so far, but no big numbers yet. 

I did send in some notes for the Mobile sprint a couple of weeks ago., never 
heard any comments though, so don't know where they went. 

I think my real question for the long term, is do I stick with Linux and bend 
it to my will  :c) , or go Andriod and/or Mac OS. 

bobb 


 Christopher Schmidt crschm...@crschmidt.net wrote:


On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 08:56:14AM -0600, Bob Basques wrote:

 All,

 Just resurrecting this thread.  It's been 6 months.  I've done a couple of 
 little projects with the N900 which are detailed here: 
 http://pwultra5.ci.stpaul.mn.us/OPERA/

 Question to Chris S., do you have any other insights into the directions that
 the N900 device (or others like it) might be taking in the future (that you
 can mention? :c) 

The N900 platform is dead. MeeGo will continue to exist as an open source
development platform, but you're not going to see it on any mass-produced
phones in the near future, based on public statements from Nokia. (I'd
expect numbers similar to the N900; you may see them, but it'll be a toy,
not a commonplace.)

 I'm setting up some netbooks next for the two projects
 listed above, using essentially the same software stack as used for the N900,
 which it is somewhat amazing when you think about it.

Maemo and MeeGo are definitely interesting platforms, though I don't know if
they're more exciting than other Netbook distros, since I haven't used many
of them.

 I would still like to revisit the Mobile controls issues for OpenLayers and
 GeoMoose at some point, but focusing on flexibility with software stack at
 the moment.

There's an OpenLayers sprint for Mobile taking place next week in Lausanne.
If you have things you've thought of, you should share them on the mailing
lists to help support the effort.

-- Chris


 Thanks

 bobb




  Christopher Schmidt crschm...@crschmidt.net wrote:


 On Wed, Jun 02, 2010 at 03:25:45PM -0500, Bob Basques wrote:
  Milo,
 
  You mentioned MEEGO in your post, I just ordered a N900 to do some testing 
  for GIS related stuff on the N900.  What types of functionalities are you 
  focusing your efforts on for MEEGO?

 Note that the current development platform for the N900 (and likely
 for the next 6 months at least) is still Maemo. The two platforms
 will likely not differ greatly; a lot of the UI functionality is already
 SDK-level in Maemo, and apps themselves likely won't change much
 other than packaging. In either case, it's mostly just a Very Small
 Linux Box.

 -- Chris, proud owner of an N900

  bobb
 
 
 
   miblon mob...@dogodigi.net wrote:
 
  I have been using navit and osm2go on moblin. There is a debian build
  for osm2go which is targeted at maemo, I managed to get it up on moblin
  and will try to get it running on meego.
 
  If you are interested in me filling the blanks for these 2 apps on your
  feature list, let me know.
 
  Kind regards,
 
  Milo van der Linden
 
  Miguel Montesinos wrote:
   Hello to all,
  
   I'm preparing a presentation for the FOSS4G, with title Comparison of
   Mobile GIS applications. I know some, but I think that the best way to
   make an objective analysis is to offer the chance for anyone to
   collaborate, in order to define common feature lists as well as
   perfomance or usability check lists.
  
   Is anyone developing or using a mobile geospatial application
   interested?
  
   Regards,
  
   -
   Miguel Montesinos
   CTO
   PRODEVELOP, S.L.
   mmontesinos [at] prodevelop [dot] es
   www.prodevelop.es
  
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: [Live-demo] Has anyone written a How do youXXX with Open Source GIS?

[Bob Basques]

All, 

Could an expanded version of something like this comparison work: 
http://geotux.tuxfamily.org/index.php?option=com_myblogtask=viewid=257Itemid=59lang=en
  I really like this comparison, and the fact that there are many versions 
available, each with added content, makes the whole process that much more 
valuable over time. 

If so, is there marketing fund available for building an expanded version.  
Germain may be interested in something like this.  May also have a good bead on 
what interested parties are looking for in a Geoproduct. 

This type of question/answer packet seems like a good fit for a promotional 
piece of OSGEO propoganda materials, and could be regularly upgraded.   Germain 
for example already has a third (v5) english version on the side lines waiting 
to be converted to english.   This type of product with the right additions 
seems like it might satisfy a large part of the question what tool for what 
purpose?. 

bobb 





 Tyler Erickson tylerick...@gmail.com wrote:


I don't think a FAQ needs to point to one single best tool. As Frank noted in 
his examples, the answer could be a list of tools if more than one provides the 
capability. Answers that include links to a description of the capability 
(and/or examples of usage) in the project documentation would be especially 
helpful. 



- TylerE


On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 1:07 AM, Hamish hamis...@yahoo.com wrote:



Jody:

 This request comes up yearly; and was
 one of the ideas for content for the osgeo website. The
 difficulty is finding resources to produce the content.

 The trouble is just because a request is common, and makes
 perfect sense from a marketing open source geospatial point
 of view, does not imply the foundation has the marketing
 muscle to get it done.


as noted in the original thread on the live-demo ML, much of the OSGeo software 
is somewhat interchangeable, especially for common desktop GIS tasks. Asking 
the collective authors/representatives of all OSGeo projects which is the best 
single tool to get the job done is not likely to converge on a single answer 
that doesn't leave at least one or two projects feeling a bit ignored.

this may be frustrating  overwhelming to the new recruit, but the only honest 
answer I could give to it is explore the Live DVD and find something that fits 
you well.


what's the best FOSS tool to edit a text file?
debian$ apt-cache search editor | wc -l
603

... it depends, take your pick :-/


solutions welcome,
Hamish
 






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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open source for local government resources

[Bob Basques]

All, 

The GeoMoose project (http://www.geomoose.org/) was initially created by, and 
for, local governments, expressly for use as an online mapping publication, 
information and discovery tool.   It's since gone on to see use in other 
business professions besides local government. 

bobb 



 Miles Fidelman mfidel...@meetinghouse.net wrote:


Charlie Schweik wrote:
 OSGeo colleagues,

 A colleague of mine is publishing an article in Government Technology
 Magazine. At the end of the article he wants to list some good
 resources that local governments might turn to if they were
 considering open source. I'd like to build such a list. This doesn't
 have to be OS Geo in particular. It could be just on open source in
 general.

 If anyone has links to good content that would inform local gov
 decision-makers, can you send to me? I'll compile and send out what I
 learn or perhaps will make a wiki page for us with that content.
The obvious starting place is Open Source for America:
http://opensourceforamerica.org/ (mostly a Federal focus)
for Defense: mil-oss.org
the GOSCON conference, which we all know about: gocon.org
Oregon State Open Source Lab (and particularly see their sponsor list):
http://osuosl.org
Redhat has a page on State  Local Government use of Linux at
http://www.redhat.com/solutions/government/state/ - with some links to
resources and case studies

Miles Fidelman, Principal
Protocol Technologies Group

--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
Infnord  practice, there is.    Yogi Berra


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[OSGeo-Discuss] Probably posted already, but I saw this new version of comparison of Web Mapping Clients was available . . .

[Bob Basques]

http://geotux.tuxfamily.org/index.php?option=com_myblogshow=comparaci%F3n-de-clientes-web-para-sig-v.4.htmlItemid=59lang=en
 

Sorry if it's been posted already . . . 

bobb 

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[OSGeo-Discuss] Geenral question about pinging a service for aliveness . . .

[Bob Basques]

All, 

I'm working on a system/services monitor, and got to wondering about how to 
best ping a map service without too much overhead. an I'm Alive function in 
the service would be the easiest way to approach it.  But that's probably not a 
viable thing to require.  I'm afraid of this getting too complicated when 
working across services as well, since the possible result types are so varied. 

I'm working on a MapServer (with WMS / WFS / KML) service first, but this would 
likely go to other services as well.  We're running GeoMoose, so each layer 
will be pinged and rated as well. 

The Client is simply a self updating HTML page.  But I'm wondering about how to 
set up the actual pinging process, what's the best thing to ask for, that can 
be readily examined easily in a dynamic fashion, without undue overhead. 

Also, if anyone knows of any PERL (or other CGI) type of product for this kind 
of monitoring I would be interested in taking a look at it. 

Thanks 

bobb 

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Geenral question about pinging a service foraliveness . . .

[Bob Basques]

Jeff, 

It's funny you replied with what you did, as I was in the middle of looking at 
how GeoMoose it self might be able to handle the pinging on it's own.  It's 
brings to mind all sorts of possible direction to take it.  But the end product 
would be specific to GeoMoose and it's Service connections exclusively. 

Ach!!, just looked at your link, PHP  (shudder) . . .  

 :c) 

bobb 



 Jeff McKenna jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com wrote:



 Also, if anyone knows of any PERL (or other CGI) type of product for
 this kind of monitoring I would be interested in taking a look at it.


In fact I have seen some nice demos of Mapbender out-of-the-box used as
a monitoring service (there seems to be notes on this at:
http://www.mapbender.org/MonitorCapabilities)

-jeff


--
Jeff McKenna
MapServer Consulting and Training Services
http://www.gatewaygeomatics.com/


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Geenral question about pinging a service foraliveness . . .

[Bob Basques]

Ok, this looks interesting . . . . 

bobb 




 Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) tmitch...@osgeo.org wrote:


http://nagios.org/ 
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RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Geenral question about pinging a serviceforaliveness . . .

[Bob Basques]

Tom, 

This would have been a more attractive offer for our tech guy, who has since 
gone onto other things . . . And I've moved aways from some of the deep 
development stuff. 

Thanks for the offer though, I'll keep the list up as I move forward on things. 

bobb 



 Kralidis,Tom [Ontario] tom.krali...@ec.gc.ca wrote:



I started a Python library on this some time ago, based on the FGDC
service status checker [1] approach, which can give some ideas on
how/what is monitored.

It would be valuable to have some health check type tools here; I'd be
happy to contribute the code and setup a public repo/effort.

..Tom

[1] http://registry.fgdc.gov/statuschecker/

 -Original Message-
 From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org
 [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Bob Basques
 Sent: Monday, 24 January 2011 11:17
 To: OSGeo Discussions
 Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Geenral question about pinging a
 service foraliveness . . .

 All,


 I'm working on a system/services monitor, and got to
 wondering about how to best ping a map service without too
 much overhead. an I'm Alive function in the service would
 be the easiest way to approach it.  But that's probably not a
 viable thing to require.  I'm afraid of this getting too
 complicated when working across services as well, since the
 possible result types are so varied.


 I'm working on a MapServer (with WMS / WFS / KML) service
 first, but this would likely go to other services as well. 
 We're running GeoMoose, so each layer will be pinged and
 rated as well.


 The Client is simply a self updating HTML page.  But I'm
 wondering about how to set up the actual pinging process,
 what's the best thing to ask for, that can be readily
 examined easily in a dynamic fashion, without undue overhead.


 Also, if anyone knows of any PERL (or other CGI) type of
 product for this kind of monitoring I would be interested in
 taking a look at it.


 Thanks


 bobb




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[OSGeo-Discuss] Conference Sponsorship . . .

[Bob Basques]

All,

is there a newer version of this somewhere: 
https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/foss4g/2010/documents/sponsorship-prospectus-09122009.pdf

Thanks

bobb



You can't be late until you show up.

You never learn anything by doing it right.

War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left.

Ramsey County Coordinates:
574813.30, 156134.50

Lat / Lon:
44.9447, -93.0944

USNG:
15TVK92557681++




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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Seeking Articles, Reports, and Volunteers for Volume 9 of the OSGeo Journal

[Bob Basques]

Tyler,

A couple of project that I've been working on that are (semi-)formally 
documented.

http://pwultra5.ci.stpaul.mn.us/OPERA/

These might be of interest to some.

bobb



On 1/14/2011 9:28 AM, Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote:

On 2011-01-14, at 7:20 AM, Landon Blake wrote:

I don’t think there is a problem covering other programs or libraries, as long as they are open source and related to 
geospatial data.


Landon's definitely right on this - and Ann we'd love articles re: 52 North or and other friends that are open 
source.  And a few other areas we'd be interested in seeing:

* Open data articles might also be of interest
* Proprietary solution mixed with open source, that would be a good case study
* Project introductions - here's how our program works
* In-depth technical articles welcome too - e.g. agorithms or functions you are 
developing

We're working on our 9th volume - that's 9 volumes and going into our 5th year - hopefully we're starting to have an 
impact and providing a valuable forum.  Keep those article proposals coming!


Tyler


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: [Incubator] Defining the Marketingrequirements for OSGeo Incubation

[Bob Basques]

All, 

This little piece has been nagging at me during this whole thread.  Rules based 
on a project that didn't use the rules.  (so to speak  :c) 

I mean, if I just need to start under the OSGEO umbrella, and then everything 
is all incubated, well, I can work with that system.  :c) 

(as and example . . .) My project(s) might get a little convoluted though as I 
keep partnering with different groups as we go around the incubation 
requirements (pure as an example) 

bobb 


. . . 
 Did the OSGeo Live project ever incubate at
all? Should be easy, maybe you want to apply?


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Acid Maps demo

[Bob Basques]

I've been calling this type of thing Thermal mapping for a few years
now.   I suppose Intensity mapping would work too. 

bobb 



 Yves Moisan yves.moi...@boreal-is.com wrote:

  Le 2010-10-18 11:12, Fabio Renzo Panettieri a écrit :
 Hi,

 I just wanted to let you know that we have put an Acid Maps demo
online.
 http://acidmaps.xoomcode.com/

 Sorry about the 2 week delay, but we discovered that heatmaps were
 acting 'funny', so we had to change that interpolation algorithm.

Hi,

I'm trying to find the definition of Acid Maps or some sense as to why
it was named that way and Google/Wikipedia don't help.  Any pointers ? 
Or is it just the name of a web server ?

TIA,

Yvesm
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs

[Bob Basques]

Allen, 

You need the Centimeter stuff to realize that something moved over the two 
years.  Besides, that just ends up being a re-projection in the end anyway. 

  :c) 

bobb 



 Allan Doyle afdo...@mit.edu wrote:


On Oct 5, 2010, at 9:58 PM, Bob Basques wrote:

  All,

 I'm a long time address database creation/maintenance/re-creation fiend 
 myself.

 I've also been working with the USNG (MGRS) gridding system the last few 
 years, and need to at least suggest the idea of
 using a Gridding system to locate things.  This idea is not nbew, but USNG 
 usage has gained quite a bit of ground the
 last couple of years across all level of government, with a large emphasis 
 placed on using it for disaster response.

 Tying a placeName to a grid location that can describe things down to the 
 centimeter if needed and still stay unique as
 a location is a very good thing.

Don't be too sure at the centimeter level.

The average rate of motion across the San Andreas Fault Zone during the past 3 
million years is 56 mm/yr (2 in/yr).  -- 
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/facts.php

I like Chris Schmidt's quote: The world is fuzzier than you realize.

Allan



 bobb



 On 10/5/2010 8:52 PM, Landon Blake wrote:
 The geonames ontology looks like it might work for me. I'll read it over 
 tomorrow.

 Thanks for the suggestion.

 Landon

 Sent from my iPhone

 On Oct 5, 2010, at 5:45 PM, Ian Turtonijtur...@gmail.com  wrote:

 On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 8:39 PM, Christopher Schmidt
 crschm...@crschmidt.net  wrote:
 On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 05:18:47PM -0700, Paul Ramsey wrote:
 All attempts to construct simple ontologies end up reinventing RDF . ?
 That was actually my first thought when I saw this: Hey look,
 someone else reinventing RDFa! :)

 Seriously, I say this with a bit of knowledge; I mean, after all,
 I sort of work on making places searchable on maps. For a company
 with a pretty big set of data about the hierarchy of the world.
 It's a lot fuzzier than you think :)

 Also, Landon, I do highly recommend looking into RDF -- specifically,
 RDFa -- because I think it's heading in a very similar direction to
 what you're describing, without the need for some all-world-hierarchy
 to tie it to, which might actually help you get a bit further.

 You might want to look at http://www.geonames.org/ontology/ which RDFs
 the GeoNames database.

 Ian
 --
 Ian Turton
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] GPS with gvSIS and BeeGIS

[Bob Basques]

 All,

The Nokia N900 may be an option.

bobb



On 9/26/2010 12:49 PM, andrea antonello wrote:

Hi Ravi,
I guess there was a missunderstanding here.
BeeGIS is a full gis for digital field mapping and works on a tablet.
I will not work on a minor power hardware.
Perhaps you want to use geopaparazzi, which was written for Android
and integrates with BeeGIS for processing the data?
Have a quick look at this:
http://code.google.com/p/geopaparazzi/wiki/GeopaparazziAndBeegis

Motorola Backflip (TM) - Silver is on Android 1.5, which is supported.

Another option is gvSig mini, which has a different target user and
might be of your interest. I have not enough knowledge to describe it
really well, so it is better if someone of that team jumps in.

Best regards,
Andrea






BeeGIS sure is doing great things. The poster is nice.

Motorola Backflip (TM) - Silver

This is, a mobile phone using android, will this do or do you have any 
suggestions.
Will be going back home (India) for conducting a Open GIS course, and would 
like to buy while in the USA a 4G cell phone that can work with BeeGIS.
Any pointers / suggestions

Cheers
Ravi Kumar
--- On Sun, 26/9/10, andrea antonelloandrea.antone...@gmail.com  wrote:

From: andrea antonelloandrea.antone...@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] GPS with gvSIS and BeeGIS
To: OSGeo Discussionsdiscuss@lists.osgeo.org
Date: Sunday, 26 September, 2010, 10:50 PM

Hi Ravi,


Pl suggest GPS that can work for on-line mapping with

gvSIS and

BeeGIS

Alternately, those that are not tested as yet may be given.

with online mapping you mean digital field mapping with realtime gps data?
If yes, BeeGIS works like that. At this year's Foss4G we had a poster
session about the new developments that are currently funded by a
local government agency.

The poster can be downloaded here: http://tinyurl.com/34bavrb

There are quite some new features and we are in progress to release
the first test versions of the new features in the next two weeks.
BeeGIS will be aligned with the latest 1.2 uDig version.

Best regards,
Andrea







Cheers
Ravi Kumar


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] WMS and layer stacking.

[Bob Basques]

 Well I did see that Opaque param in there.   It's better than nothing I 
guess.

It's looking like it's up to the client to keep track of such things, at least other than foreground/background hints 
from the opaque setting.


Thanks all.

bobb




On 9/15/2010 8:59 AM, Ian Turton wrote:

On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 2:59 PM, Bob Basques
bob.basq...@ci.stpaul.mn.us  wrote:

All,

does anyone know if there is a layer hierarchy setting in the WMS service,
which layers are on top of which layers (Z value=)?


There is an opaque hint in the capabilities document that suggests
that the layer should be a base layer. Other than that the layers are
just drawn in the order the client requests them and there is no
implied ordering from the capabilities file. For example GeoServer
returns the layers in alphabetical order by namespace then layer name.

Ian


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] help with geotifcp usage

[Bob Basques]

 Hmm, the help file doesn't say much does it.  Did you try using a thrid file 
name on the end instead of b.tif (again)?

bobb



On 9/15/2010 4:07 PM, P Kishor wrote:

I have a file a.tif with correct proj info embedded in it. I have
another file b.tif with no proj info in it. I want to take the proj
info within a.tif and embed it into b.tif. When I try the following --

geotifcp -g a.tif b.tif b.tif

my b.tif goes from around 321K to 8 bytes. Obviously that is no good,
but I can't, for the life me, intuit what the usage would be.

Corollary -- I have about a 100 target tifs... b_1.tif, b_2.tif, and
so on. I would really like to embed the proj info from a.tif into all
of the b_?.tif so what would that usage be?




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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Thoughts on how to use elevation in routing

[Bob Basques]

All, 

One thought just occurred to me related to this thread, what would street 
construction type add to the equation?  Dirt/gravel/blacktop/concrete, add on 
to that age of road/ADT and roughness might start becoming a factor as well.  I 
know these are getting a bit right or left of the original question, but if the 
data is available . . . 

Might be able to auto extract such things from high resolution photography, 
also spectral photogrphy is also a viable tool here. 

bobb 



 Stephen Woodbridge wood...@swoodbridge.com wrote:

Yes, this is another good factor to look at. Curvature can be computed
as the 2nd derivative or the rate of change in angle along the road.
This is a little harder to compute with segments as you need to join
adjacent segments to compute this or you get disconnects where they
join. And you have to figure out what are through streets at
intersections of more then two segments. But still a good measure.

Also curvyness can often com into play when following rivers and
streams even when there is not significant grade.

-Steve

On 9/14/2010 12:52 PM, Richard Greenwood wrote:
 I think cruvyness might also be a useful resistance factor, and it
 is often associated with grade, as in steep mountain roads with lots
 of switchbacks. After attending FOSS4G last week my wife and I have
 been driving and biking in the Pyrenees and experiencing the effects
 of both cruvyness and grade on our travel times.

 Rich

 On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 10:31 AM, Stephen Woodbridge
 wood...@swoodbridge.com  wrote:
 On 9/14/2010 11:43 AM, Bill Thoen wrote:

   Steve,

 Adding viewsheds to the package would certainly up the computing costs;
 I was wondering if you had a limit to what sort of processing power
 you've got there. ;-)

 It is not unlimited, so part of the problem that is interesting to me is how
 to find and compute economical way to do it.

 I also think what you're proposing might be interesting, but you have to
 be careful about what conclusions you can draw from it. At what point
 does the cost due to gradient variations become insignificant to the
 overall cost of a route for a particular type of vehicle? For a trucker
 on an interstate highway it doesn't signify because the statistical
 noise of factors such high speeds and short driving time balanced
 against the higher price of fuel, services and road freight taxes
 completely overwhelms the cost factor contributed by the change in
 gradients. So in those cases you'd be computing numbers but not saying
 anything.

 Agreed, doing anything for the trucking industry that would be useful
 probably requires a lot more understanding of the industry and regulations
 required for that. Luckily it is not my main focus :)

 A different scenario, where gradient /is/ a significant factor, would be
 a three-day 100 mile bike ride event through the mountains (like the
 'Ride the Rockies' event they hold around here every year.) The power
 that bicyclists can produce is so low that speeds and endurance are
 strongly affected by grades. But a bicyclist doesn't typically operate
 on the scale of the nation so applying the calculations to the entire
 TIGER file is overkill. Also, the bicyclist operates on such a large
 scale that the source data you're using to calculate gradient (30m DEM)
 may be too coarse to be reliable on the bicyclist's scale.

 Right, these points are all valid and have crossed my mind at one point or
 another. Applying this to the Tiger data set is not that big of a deal. I
 already have the Tiger data in XYZ so computing grades is not that
 difficult. Another reason for applying it to the whole data set is to build
 a web portal with US coverage. Granted any single route will not have
 continental scope, but individual routes might be anywhere on the continent.

 I'm not saying it isn't worth doing, I'm just saying you'll need to
 qualify the precision of your results before you can say much about
 applying this to any real-world problems.

 I'll post a link back if I get anything working. Meanwhile, thanks for the
 ideas and thoughts.

 -Steve

 - Bill Thoen


 On 9/13/2010 5:28 PM, Stephen Woodbridge wrote:

 Bill,

 Thanks for the ideas. I might try to do something with the viewshed
 idea in the future. It would need a LOT of computing to process all
 the road segments in a National dataset like Tiger.

 But for now I would like to figure out the routing costs.

 One idea I had was to compute the grade for a segment and then compute
 cost as:

 cost = (time or distance) * scalefactor * max(abs(grade), 1.0)

 This would have the effect of causing segments with a lot of grade to
 have a higher cost of traversal.

 Or similarly, if you want to pick roads with a lot of elevation
 changes then use cost factor like:

 cost = (time or distance) * scalefactor /
 abs(sum_elevation_changes_over_the_segment)

 This would have the effect of decreasing the traversal cost for
 segments that have a lot of elevation changes.

 These are 

RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Thoughts on how to use elevation in routing

[Bob Basques]

All, 

The view of road, got me thinking about auto-placement of bridges and their 
locations, and even what road is above what other road.  While not being able 
to tell exactly how long a bridge might be, it would be usefull for locating 
(and styling) a bridge location along a roadway, at least down to all but the 
highest level of resolution. 

Might also be a tunnel extraction method here with the right sort of DEM 
available. 

I also just thought of a question, in a high resolution environment (I have one 
foot contours/DEM data for our City), it might be beneficial to describe the 
line along it's length in some manner, where breaks in elevation occur, etc.  
Country and rural roads might not have breaks in them for some measure of 
distance, but have many vertical undulations along the space horizontal 
distance. 

bobb 



 Andy Turner a.g.d.tur...@leeds.ac.uk wrote:

Hi OSGeo Discussions, (cc Steve, Justin),

In terms of the computing of viewsheds, both Steve Carver 
(http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/people/s.carver/) and Justin Washtell 
(http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/washtell/) have done some work on this, but I 
don't know the latest...

It can be useful to compute which bits of road can be seen from other bits of 
road and what impact roads have on the perception of wilderness from off the 
road. Same true with vehicles on roads although these are usually moving.

I think the viewshed work though is somewhat orthogonal to including elevation 
in routing application outwith surveillance and visual impact contexts.

One further thought: it is much nicer to have junctions (where traffic is to 
slow and potentially stop for ordered inetrsection) well laid out at the top of 
small hills. This is for network flow and general economy and safety reasons. 
So in the analysis of a route, some quantification of junction impact taking 
into account elevation might be good.

HTH

Andy
http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/people/a.turner/


-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] 
On Behalf Of Stephen Woodbridge
Sent: 14 September 2010 17:31
To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Thoughts on how to use elevation in routing

On 9/14/2010 11:43 AM, Bill Thoen wrote:
   Steve,

 Adding viewsheds to the package would certainly up the computing costs;
 I was wondering if you had a limit to what sort of processing power
 you've got there. ;-)

It is not unlimited, so part of the problem that is interesting to me is
how to find and compute economical way to do it.

 I also think what you're proposing might be interesting, but you have to
 be careful about what conclusions you can draw from it. At what point
 does the cost due to gradient variations become insignificant to the
 overall cost of a route for a particular type of vehicle? For a trucker
 on an interstate highway it doesn't signify because the statistical
 noise of factors such high speeds and short driving time balanced
 against the higher price of fuel, services and road freight taxes
 completely overwhelms the cost factor contributed by the change in
 gradients. So in those cases you'd be computing numbers but not saying
 anything.

Agreed, doing anything for the trucking industry that would be useful
probably requires a lot more understanding of the industry and
regulations required for that. Luckily it is not my main focus :)

 A different scenario, where gradient /is/ a significant factor, would be
 a three-day 100 mile bike ride event through the mountains (like the
 'Ride the Rockies' event they hold around here every year.) The power
 that bicyclists can produce is so low that speeds and endurance are
 strongly affected by grades. But a bicyclist doesn't typically operate
 on the scale of the nation so applying the calculations to the entire
 TIGER file is overkill. Also, the bicyclist operates on such a large
 scale that the source data you're using to calculate gradient (30m DEM)
 may be too coarse to be reliable on the bicyclist's scale.

Right, these points are all valid and have crossed my mind at one point
or another. Applying this to the Tiger data set is not that big of a
deal. I already have the Tiger data in XYZ so computing grades is not
that difficult. Another reason for applying it to the whole data set is
to build a web portal with US coverage. Granted any single route will
not have continental scope, but individual routes might be anywhere on
the continent.

 I'm not saying it isn't worth doing, I'm just saying you'll need to
 qualify the precision of your results before you can say much about
 applying this to any real-world problems.

I'll post a link back if I get anything working. Meanwhile, thanks for
the ideas and thoughts.

-Steve

 - Bill Thoen


 On 9/13/2010 5:28 PM, Stephen Woodbridge wrote:
 Bill,

 Thanks for the ideas. I might try to do something with the viewshed
 idea in the future. It would need a LOT of computing to process all
 the road 

[OSGeo-Discuss] WMS and layer stacking.

[Bob Basques]

All, 

does anyone know if there is a layer hierarchy setting in the WMS service, 
which layers are on top of which layers (Z value=)? 

Thanks 

bobb 

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] WMS and layer stacking.

[Bob Basques]

Balint?, 

I was after something for a definition related to a image class, background, 
foreground, label, marker, etc. 

We've been using things with respect to stacking with Client side ordering for 
the most part for quite a long while now. 

I'm working on a AutoCAD OGC importer (besides just MAP 3D based) and the 
ordering aspects are time consuming if left up to the users.  So any sort of 
ordering would have helped.  It looks like the ordering is based on how the 
service advertises it's layers from what I've been able to find. 

bobb 




 Balint Persics persi...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi,

IMHO layer Z-order is defined by clients who use the maps. Think about
it: when using PosGIS, Oracle Spatial or any other geoinfor resource,
the Z order is undefined by the resource server, it is up to resource
clients to display them to any Z order the define.

Cheers,
Balint

On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 20:59, Bob Basques bob.basq...@ci.stpaul.mn.us wrote:
 All,

 does anyone know if there is a layer hierarchy setting in the WMS service,
 which layers are on top of which layers (Z value=)?

 Thanks

 bobb

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Thoughts on how to use elevation in routing

[Bob Basques]

Stephen, 

You didn't explicitly mention it, but TIME might be an additional item to 
include, as in different vehicles will take different amounts of time to 
traverse.  Once you ave a good set of constants for the different types of 
vehicles, you could add in Time to Traverse as a graph indicator. 

I would also lobby for the downhill sections for inclusion in a Bicycling 
report.  As in this route is generally less strenuous, etc.  :c) 

This next one is getting a little out there, but combining the elevation with 
Weather conditions might prove useful in extremes, either in height or in 
extreme weather (or both).   

Adding in Flood plains might be another interesting exercise, might not be much 
call for this though, generally. 

bobb 




 Stephen Woodbridge wood...@swoodbridge.com wrote:

Hi all,

(This is cross posting from the pgrouting list, sorry for the dups.)

I have preprocessed some shapefile data and added elevation information
in the Z value of the coordinates. I'm wondering how to best utilize
that in routes and would like any thoughts or ideas you might be willing
to share.

The obvious answer is to wrap the elevation data into the cost values as
this is simple and straight forward and does not require code changes.
This brings me to what have other people done or thought about doing in
this regard?

Here are some random thoughts I have had on this in no particular order:

o for bicycles, we probably only care about UP grade and length. This
would imply that segments need to be in a directed graph with different
costs going from A-B vs. B-A based on the upgrade

o for trucks, maybe an un-directed graph is ok, because they need to use
low gear both up and down depending on the grade and length

o for motorcycles, hilly terrain tends to mean more twisty roads which
are more fun to ride so lower costs for roads with lots of elevation
changes.

grade = (rise / run) * 100

where run should be the 2D length of the segment.

Is there a standard way of factoring grade into the route calculations?

Doing some google searches, most all papers I saw related to fuel and
emissions and did not seem to be very applicable to the above.

Thanks,
   -Steve W
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[OSGeo-Discuss] question about Tile retriever, if such a beast exists. . . .

[Bob Basques]

All, 

I have a question about a tile maker routine that may or may not exist (or 
project about).  I would like to be able to build a local cache of image tiles 
based solely on URL scripting, as in grab the tiles for an area automatically 
based on a Area of interest (BBOX) coordinate set. 

Anyone worked on some client code (either server or client side) for something 
like this? Sort of a pack and go Raster pyramid builder. 

Thanks 

bobb 
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] question about Tile retriever, if such a beastexists. . . .

[Bob Basques]

grab from where,  . .   

. . . from any (raster) image server. 

Your script sounds close, although I'm interested in grabbing directly from 
MapServer as well as WMS feeds.  It would get me started and probably lead to a 
mechanism of some sort that would allow for retrieving from these various 
services at the very least. 

If you feel inclined to share . . . 

thanks 

bobb 




 Arnie Shore shor...@gmail.com wrote:

Bobb, hiya. Now, ... grab the tiles ... from where?

I have a PHP script that given corner coords and zoom range, will build a 
directory set of tiles DL'd from OSM. (And the Open layers script that will 
call it.)

Dunno if this is close?

AS


On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 2:28 PM, Bob Basques 
bob.basq...@ci.stpaul.mn.us 

wrote:


All, 


I have a question ...



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] question about Tile retriever, if such abeastexists. . . .

[Bob Basques]

Thanks. 

I'll let you know when I have something to look at. 

bobb 




 Arnie Shore shor...@gmail.com wrote:

Well, as Cleopatra said to Caesar, I'm not inclined to argue. The controlling 
coordinates are at lines 59-64; no dependencies I can think of. Loads into 
sub-directory 'tiles'.

FYI, there's a one-second sleep at 26 to avoid hammering OSM.

AS


On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 4:40 PM, Bob Basques 
bob.basq...@ci.stpaul.mn.us 

wrote:


grab from where, . . 


. . . from any (raster) image server. 


Your script sounds close, although I'm interested in grabbing directly from 
MapServer as well as WMS feeds. It would get me started and probably lead to a 
mechanism of some sort that would allow for retrieving from these various 
services at the very least. 


If you feel inclined to share . . . 


thanks 


bobb 






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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Commercial support (Company profile improvement options)

[Bob Basques]

 All,

I know this has to be created and managed somehow, but here are some ideas on 
this:

   * Could there be some way of collecting business information related to not 
only OpenSource software but also a
 means for companies to describe themselves in their own words, even as it 
pertains to non-open products, as these
 are often a concern when bidding on projects.
   * A simple one pager type of thing, listing software (open and proprietary, 
possibly with the Open source stuff
 highlighted and linked) and a general company resume, maybe even including 
a link section for past projects.
   * Inclusion of the prospective company logo on the profile page.
   * A list of company partners.
   * It would be real nice as a company owner for example, to be able to link directly to 
a OSGEO support registry
 page.   I think a system like this would keep things updated regularly.  I 
keep forgetting the entry is even in
 there for my interests because I don't touch it enough.

Some possible enhancements to such a business registry:

   * A means to link back to the prospective companies information pages 
directly, then the information only needs to
 be built once. Is there a Company Resume data format standard for this 
already?)
   * A method of standardizing the data constructs for such an information page 
so that the same company profile could
 be used for other similar discovery mechanisms like the proprietary side 
of the equation.  Who has experience with
 Oracle and PostGIS, etc.

Is this sounding like it does to me, like a Project unto itself, like LiveDVD?  Such an enhancement should be able to be 
populated by the existing data initially, and then expanded upon by each business.  Is there some similar project 
already out there that might be leveraged for the same tasks?


bobb



On 9/3/2010 6:52 AM, Paolo Cavallini wrote:

Il 03/09/2010 11:49, Sebastian E. Ovide ha scritto:


Are you guys aware of companies that provide commercial support for
OSGeo  ?

Hi all.
To me, this means our marketing could be improved, raising the visibility of the
commercial support page.
All the best.
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Commercial support (Company profile improvement options)

[Bob Basques]

 Frank,

But the existing system doesn't get to the questions I've seen in this thread, namely, about searching for companies 
with mixed capabilities (open and proprietary) experience.  I also see it as expanding on what's there already, not 
overly complicating it.


bobb



On 9/3/2010 11:59 AM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:

Bob Basques wrote:

  All,

I know this has to be created and managed somehow, but here are some ideas on 
this:

* Could there be some way of collecting business information related
  to not only OpenSource software but also a means for companies to
  describe themselves in their own words, even as it pertains to
  non-open products, as these are often a concern when bidding on
  projects.
* A simple one pager type of thing, listing software (open and
  proprietary, possibly with the Open source stuff highlighted and
  linked) and a general company resume, maybe even including a link
  section for past projects.
* Inclusion of the prospective company logo on the profile page.
* A list of company partners.
* It would be real nice as a company owner for example, to be able
  to link directly to a OSGEO support registry page.   I think a
  system like this would keep things updated regularly.  I keep
  forgetting the entry is even in there for my interests because I
  don't touch it enough.



Bob,

I really think those who register as service providers should just
make an effort to provide the above details as they see fit on a
landing page on their own web site.  It feels like you are trying to
overcomplicate what is actually kept track of in the registry.

Best regards,


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Commercial support (Company profile improvement options)

[Bob Basques]

 All,

Replying to my own posting to make an addition.  There is still no indication on the front page about (commercial) 
Support providers.  Should there be some link on the front page about who (can) support the OSGEO projects?  seems 
like a link to the Providor page should be included at the bottom of the OSGEO Projects widget on the right side of 
the front page.  I know I've seen this go by the list more than once as a request, so I'm replaying the idea.


bobb



On 9/3/2010 1:02 PM, Bob Basques wrote:

 Frank,

But the existing system doesn't get to the questions I've seen in this thread, namely, about searching for companies 
with mixed capabilities (open and proprietary) experience.  I also see it as expanding on what's there already, not 
overly complicating it.


bobb



On 9/3/2010 11:59 AM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:

Bob Basques wrote:

  All,

I know this has to be created and managed somehow, but here are some ideas on 
this:

* Could there be some way of collecting business information related
  to not only OpenSource software but also a means for companies to
  describe themselves in their own words, even as it pertains to
  non-open products, as these are often a concern when bidding on
  projects.
* A simple one pager type of thing, listing software (open and
  proprietary, possibly with the Open source stuff highlighted and
  linked) and a general company resume, maybe even including a link
  section for past projects.
* Inclusion of the prospective company logo on the profile page.
* A list of company partners.
* It would be real nice as a company owner for example, to be able
  to link directly to a OSGEO support registry page.   I think a
  system like this would keep things updated regularly.  I keep
  forgetting the entry is even in there for my interests because I
  don't touch it enough.



Bob,

I really think those who register as service providers should just
make an effort to provide the above details as they see fit on a
landing page on their own web site.  It feels like you are trying to
overcomplicate what is actually kept track of in the registry.

Best regards,


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Commercial support (Company profile improvement options)

[Bob Basques]

 All,

Oops . . .

Oh, dopey me, I searched for Support, when I should have searched for 
Service on the front page.

disregard previous.



bobb




On 9/3/2010 1:02 PM, Bob Basques wrote:

 Frank,

But the existing system doesn't get to the questions I've seen in this thread, namely, about searching for companies 
with mixed capabilities (open and proprietary) experience.  I also see it as expanding on what's there already, not 
overly complicating it.


bobb



On 9/3/2010 11:59 AM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:

Bob Basques wrote:

  All,

I know this has to be created and managed somehow, but here are some ideas on 
this:

* Could there be some way of collecting business information related
  to not only OpenSource software but also a means for companies to
  describe themselves in their own words, even as it pertains to
  non-open products, as these are often a concern when bidding on
  projects.
* A simple one pager type of thing, listing software (open and
  proprietary, possibly with the Open source stuff highlighted and
  linked) and a general company resume, maybe even including a link
  section for past projects.
* Inclusion of the prospective company logo on the profile page.
* A list of company partners.
* It would be real nice as a company owner for example, to be able
  to link directly to a OSGEO support registry page.   I think a
  system like this would keep things updated regularly.  I keep
  forgetting the entry is even in there for my interests because I
  don't touch it enough.



Bob,

I really think those who register as service providers should just
make an effort to provide the above details as they see fit on a
landing page on their own web site.  It feels like you are trying to
overcomplicate what is actually kept track of in the registry.

Best regards,


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Commercial support (Company profile improvement options)

[Bob Basques]

All,

That's definitely a new look and much easier to navigate (real quickly) by eye.

bobb


 Alex Mandel tech_...@wildintellect.com 09/03/10 1:27 PM 
Bobb,

The Marketing Committee has been working on a planned overhaul of the
homepage(Landing Page). Here's a preview of the idea
http://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/marketing/website/design/draft2a.jpg
I'll note the link in question is right in the middle of the page.

For the details you'll need to trawl through the committee materials,
and if you have strong feeling on the topic please come to our next IRC
meeting (Anyone is welcome).
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Web_site_design
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Marketing_Committee

Thanks,
Alex

On 09/03/2010 11:07 AM, Bob Basques wrote:
  All,
 
 Replying to my own posting to make an addition.  There is still no
 indication on the front page about (commercial) Support providers. 
 Should there be some link on the front page about who (can) support the
 OSGEO projects?  seems like a link to the Providor page should be
 included at the bottom of the OSGEO Projects widget on the right side
 of the front page.  I know I've seen this go by the list more than once
 as a request, so I'm replaying the idea.
 
 bobb
 
 
 
 On 9/3/2010 1:02 PM, Bob Basques wrote:
  Frank,

 But the existing system doesn't get to the questions I've seen in this
 thread, namely, about searching for companies with mixed capabilities
 (open and proprietary) experience.  I also see it as expanding on
 what's there already, not overly complicating it.

 bobb



 On 9/3/2010 11:59 AM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
 Bob Basques wrote:
   All,

 I know this has to be created and managed somehow, but here are some
 ideas on this:

 * Could there be some way of collecting business information
 related
   to not only OpenSource software but also a means for companies to
   describe themselves in their own words, even as it pertains to
   non-open products, as these are often a concern when bidding on
   projects.
 * A simple one pager type of thing, listing software (open and
   proprietary, possibly with the Open source stuff highlighted and
   linked) and a general company resume, maybe even including a link
   section for past projects.
 * Inclusion of the prospective company logo on the profile page.
 * A list of company partners.
 * It would be real nice as a company owner for example, to be able
   to link directly to a OSGEO support registry page.   I think a
   system like this would keep things updated regularly.  I keep
   forgetting the entry is even in there for my interests because I
   don't touch it enough.


 Bob,

 I really think those who register as service providers should just
 make an effort to provide the above details as they see fit on a
 landing page on their own web site.  It feels like you are trying to
 overcomplicate what is actually kept track of in the registry.

 Best regards,



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: New and Noteworthy in OS Geospatial?

[Bob Basques]

 David,

The link to the last referenced item: 
http://proximity.houstoneng.net/webpage/proxfinder.html

bobb

On 9/1/2010 9:46 PM, Bob Basques wrote:

David,

Some stuff I've been involved with for the last few months (remember, you asked 
. . .):

* Minnesota Structures Collaborative, has a web interface, a database and 
means to capture and store data via a
  web mapping interface.   Involved the creation of four state coverage 
layers compiled from various
  authors/agencies around the state.  Fire Stations, Hospitals, Police 
Stations and Schools
  o http://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/committee/emprep/structures/index.html
* I've been working on a couple of OPERA 
(http://www.mnltap.umn.edu/About/Programs/OPERA/)
  o One for prototyping a portable field printing system for USNG 
Markers
+ 
http://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/committee/emprep/download/USNG/USNG_location_marker_proposal.html
+ Printing over bluetooth to a portable printer.
+ GPS capture of marker locations in the field as they are 
applied.
  o One for prototyping a low cost.AutoMated Vehicle Tracking system.
+ Auto tracking of vehicle/personnel location from phone, 
always on mapping, etc.
+ locally installed map GeoMoose map service on the phone.
  o Both projects are being built out using a Nokia N900 (linux) phone.
+ http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/
  o The projects are in their final stages before writing the project 
reports.  There will be about a year
testing process as well.  I'll post a link to the OPERA Grant 
reports once completed if you are interested.
  o These both involve the Phones running in a standalone mode when no 
network is available as well as being
able to sync their data with a network connection to a master 
server for redistrubution to other similarly
configured devices.
+ GeoMoose mapping stack on the phones, Apache, GeoMoose, 
MapServer
+ QRcode Generator on the phone, for generating QRcode (2d 
barcodes) -
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code
  o The software stack is pretty much a carbon copy of a linux install 
except for some styling and
configuration changes, and there is still some gesture programming 
to add to the Mapping (GeoMoose)
interface, which can be implemented as a browser dependent CSS file.
  o The hardware has a lot of potential for other uses, since it's 
Linux based, and combined with a portable
PC and or a larger control screen, the interfaces because they are 
all web based can be made to operate as
closely as possible to each other, whether in a vehicle or out of 
it and one the move in walking mode.
* The City of Saint Paul GISmo (public) https://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/ site 
has seen an explosion of data in the
  last year or so, and we're in the final stages of adding a 1920's vintage 
aerial photo dataset as a layer in our
  GeoMoose implementation https://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/gis/gismo_public/html/
  o Internally we're serving up 216+ layers, all as WMS/WFS.
  o Externally we're serving up 35+ layers (with more to come in the 
near future), again all as WMS/WFS
  o We've had a lot of interest in development of derived layers, that 
use one or more existing layers in
different ways.  One example was the need to see the Right-of way 
areas within the City.  This derived
layer was created by subtracting the Parcel polygons, and water 
bodies and what was left was
Right-of-way.  It's pointed out some error that we didn't know 
existed and has become a very popular layer
very quickly.
  o Another such derived layer, was a layer that delineates the 
Railroad own lands, this data was only aviable
in our Address database, since RailRoad addresses have their own 
classification in our addressing system,
by combing this with the County parcels layer via the PIN, we were 
able to build out a layer that depicted
the railroad ownership.  This has been another popular layer 
recently.
  o While these examples likely seem mundane to those folks that 
develop GIS systems, the piece that is
exciting for us, is that the desire came from the web mapping 
interface users who specifically asked for
these types of layers, and the fact that they wouldn't have come to 
this conclusion if not for the GIS
systems existence in the first place.
  o We're also building out toolsets for importing most of out OGS 
datasets into an AutoCAD session, while
we've done this for a number of years in the past, we're now able 
to read the data into AutoCAD as native
AutoCAD features, including AutoCivil Objects, which we've

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Best tool, shapefile to png, web

[Bob Basques]

All, 

Well, one could go old school, and just store the SHP files as the sourced 
data.  Have mapserver read them directly, either via a dynamically modified 
index file, or via  dynamically built MAPFILE.  This would be just about the 
least amount of moving parts and still get you what you are looking for.  I 
would still suggest moving to a DB a some point, but this would get things 
organized for a DB move at a later date. 

bobb 



 Peter web...@pl.net wrote:

 There is lots of documentation[2] and even a book[3].

Definition of a heavy app: one that requires a book. ;-) Honestly it sounds 
scalable, robust, all round good, and ill take the thing to bed with me for the 
next month, really, im a map freak.

 MapServer is not so much a complete server, as just a simple CGI
 executable (about a megabyte in size). You only need to [...]
  and it sends you the image file back.

So, my web app is going to have to?:
- write a map file to the filesystem, something we dont do much anymore in a 
word of dbs.
- open a http socket to a CGI eg 
http://localhost/cgi-bin/mapserv.exe?map=/ms4w/apps/tutorial/htdocs/example1-1.maplayer=statesmode=map,
 really? a socket to our own machine... ok.
- which writes my png to the filesystem, where i can get at it later.

Ive used web gis apps and i know how long they take to render. Thus the app 
needs to render the pngs either upon shapefile upload or overnite via cron, and 
store them for subsequent user consumption. I dont require (or want) the users 
to access the mapserver, hence the whole idea of running it as a cgi is 
pointless. Is there a way to run it as a binary system call?

 You can also use it with MapScript for PHP or Python.

This sounds promising. Only the documentation for it comprises this:

http://mapserver.org/mapscript/introduction.html


If i committed to put this together as a php class, and GPL it, would anybody 
be willing to give me a bit of a road map through the documentation.

Regards






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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] New and Noteworthy in OS Geospatial?

[Bob Basques]

David, 

I've been working on something (I think is interesting) with Linux Phones.  I 
have GeoMoose/Mapserver running on a phone as a standalone server, and can even 
print over bluetooth/wifi from the phone.   It's a little research project, but 
it's interesting to see that most things are simply a configuration exercise.  
Very little coding so far. 

I may play around with some OL interfaces as well, and/or add some gesture 
controls to GeoMoose. 

The general idea is to run the mapping locally (and in the background as much 
as possible) if the phone network goes away, and to sync with the home service 
if/when the network is available. 

I'm about 70% done, but it's a filler project and doesn't get a lot of 
dedicated focus, but I'm overdue on a report about it, so it needs to move 
along. 

bobb 




 Fawcett, David (MPCA) david.fawc...@state.mn.us wrote:

I am working on a presentation focused on, What's New and Cool in OpenSource 
Geospatial for a group of GIS professionals.  This group is most familiar with 
the proprietary ESRI stack, but there is a growing awareness and interest in 
OpenSource. 

My goal is to introduce people to cool projects or features, highlighting 
events and improvements from the past year.  I am thinking of categories 
including software, databases, community, and open data.

I would greatly appreciate any ideas that people have on new or noteworthy 
developments in OpenSource geospatial.  Think about new projects, new features, 
optimizations, events, use cases, etc.

Please feel free to email me off-list or just respond to this message.

Thank you very much,

David Fawcett
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Best tool, shapefile to png, web

[Bob Basques]

Peter, 

Ok, this is all going to sound a bit heavy (to use your words), but in the 
end you'll have a lot more flexibilty with the end toolset. 

I would suggest loading the SHP file data into a Database, Mysql would work, 
but POSTGIS would be better.  Then source that Spatial data via MapServer and 
use in any of a number of image clients. I'm partial to GeoMoose, but 
Openlayers would work too. 

Looks like you are tracking farm field tractor locations, by entering things 
into a Database from the start, over the long haul you'll be able to add in 
things like temporal reporting as more and more data becomes available.  This 
is where the up front heaviness will pay off. 

bobb 



 Peter web...@pl.net wrote:

Hi Guys and Girls,

After an embarrassingly protracted google session, im not doing so well. What i 
need is to turn a shapefile (from a trimble device) into a png as part of a web 
app.

Ideally it would be the simplist lightest tool/s that can do the job, bearing 
in mind that im working in php/mysql.

I found a script which did the whole thing in php (jjfmapper) which functions 
except development has stopped, and it doesnt support the version of shapefile 
i have. (jjfmapper reports it to be type 768)

The GDAL/OGR library is reported to do conversions of shapefiles to mysql. 
Would need to add on the png rendering using GD2.  Im sure i dont need to 
reinvent that.

And theres something called mapserver which seems to be a complete service.  
Sounds heavy.

The shapefile concerned contains a moderate number of simple polylines. Ideally 
the end result would be a png, a world file, and/or going further, being able 
to overlay the png over an aerial photo or png basemap.

If your'e interested a sample shapefile is here:
  
   http://www.zoneblue.org/files/BLK1_log.shp.zip

with the desired result here:

   http://www.zoneblue.org/files/BLK1_log.shp.jpg

Appreciate any pointers.

Regards

Peter Scott
NZ

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] beakdown of osgeo server projects

[Bob Basques]

Server (services) and Client (Interfaces), some are both, but I think a 
server component would win out in that instance.  You could also go with 
a third category like server/client


bobb



On 7/28/2010 11:29 PM, Hamish wrote:

Hi,

I'm no expert in the Web Services side of things, but for the FOSS4G 2010
osgeo live DVD I am tasked with splitting up the list of Server Apps
into smaller categories as the existing list has gotten a bit too large.

e.g. I've already split Desktop Apps into Desktop GIS and Navigation
and Maps.

any good ideas on how to split this list in half?

deegree
geoserver
geonetwork
geomajas
mapbender
mapserver
mapnik
mapguide
openlayers
qgis-mapserver
zoo-project
52n


thanks,
Hamish
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] How to make a map on a CD [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Bob Basques]

All, I did some related research on this last moth, trying different 
packages and ideas about hoe to create GeoPDF(a little easier) and 
3DPDFs(harder)  while both options for output are indeed open standards, 
there are only a select few tools to generate the output, and all the 
(good) ones I could find were commercial.


I've put aside the ideas for a while, but I'm still very interested in 
this type of processing, specifically the 3DPDF generation.   If any 
others here discover any tools related to U3D and/or 3DPDF generation, I 
would very much appreciate pointers.


Thanks

bobb



On 7/1/2010 12:31 PM, Mike Toews wrote:

On 1 July 2010 07:22, Arthur Molinaarthurmol...@yahoo.com.br  wrote:
   

Isn't GeoPDF a proprietary and payed format?
 

It is an open Standard. Both OGC 08-139r1 and ISO 32000. However, I've
never seen it used outside of the Adobe/ESRI scope, so a better
question is what OS software either support rendering or displaying
GeoPDFs?

Considering my impressions of the state of GeoPDF, I don't think it
ins't the best option for distributing data on a CD. My suggestion is
to store the vector data in SHP or Spatialite format, and have a
desktop GIS on the same LiveCD. My vote is for Quantum GIS (QGIS)
since it is the easiest to make a nice looking map that is also
interactive.

-Mike
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] How to make a map on a CD [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Bob Basques]

Leith,

I've managed to have GeoMoose run from a USB drive, complete with 
MapServer and PHP, nothing get's copied, you run everything from USB, 
even Apache.  Makes for a nice development environment, since you as a 
developer have complete control from front to back for the user 
experience.  When was the last time a developer had control over what 
browser was being used . . .


:c)

Anyway, I need to package the thing up and put it somewhere.   It didn't 
take me too long to get it all going, but there are currently a lot of 
pieces to it, and my plan before posting a package was to make it a 
single button start up affiar, just haven't gotten back to it for a 
couple of moths.  Too much other stuff going on.


bobb



On 6/30/2010 9:19 PM, Andrew Turner wrote:

Bruce Bannerman wrote:

Perhaps use GeoPDF [1] as the destination format on the CD?


Hrm, GeoPDF... that's a fun one :)

For Haiti, I took Chris Schmidt's HaitiBrowser [1] and modified it to 
run locally [2] by double-clicking the index.html file and loading 
local tiles. This was required as users didn't even have Admin rights 
to run VMWare or install any applications. It's also cross-browser, 
lightweight and effective.


You can also checkout MapsOnAStick [3]

All of these read from KML or JSON. There are also JavaScript 
Shapefile readers [4].


hope that helps some!

Andrew

[1] http://github.com/crschmidt/haitibrowser
[2] http://github.com/ajturner/haitibrowser
[3] http://github.com/developmentseed/mapsonastick
[4] http://github.com/RandomEtc/shapefile-js


Bruce

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoPDF



On 1/07/10 2:53 AM, Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com wrote:

Leith,

I believe what you are proposing may not be as simple as it sounds.

You might be able to create some type of live CD that they use
to demo Linux distributions, but otherwise your map viewing
software needs to be installed on the target computer.

There are a few good open source desktop GIS programs that can
display shapefiles. I'd promote OpenJUMP, but QGis is another
program I hear really good things about. MapWindow also runs as a
stand alone desktop program, not just a viewer.


*Landon
*Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268
Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658




*From:* discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] *On Behalf Of *Leith Bade
*Sent:* Monday, June 28, 2010 10:09 PM
*To:* discuss@lists.osgeo.org
*Subject:* [OSGeo-Discuss] How to make a map on a CD

Hi,



I am new to GIS.



I would like to make a vector map that can be burned onto a CD
then viewed just by running a program on it which copies the map
data and a simple viewer. The dataset is very large (all of New
Zealand) so the viewer needs to be effcient, and I have all the
data in shapefiles.



What would be the best way to do this?



I see that MapWindow lets you build a custom viewer application
around its map viewer, but it would only work on Windows.

Another idea I have is to make some sort of portable web server
that runs GeoServer or MapServer.



Otherwise I could start developing my own custom map viewer that
uses OpenGL/Direct3D/Direct2D or something to make the render
fast with smooth scrolling etc.

This would allow me to develop a data format that is faster for
rendering than shapefiles.



Similar commercial products are
http://www.maptoaster.com/maptoaster-topo-nz/topographical.html
or http://memory-map.com.au/products/maps/topo-nz-std.html


Thanks,
Leith Bade
le...@leithalweapon.geek.nz



*Warning:
*Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed
against defects including translation and transmission errors. If
the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified
that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this
communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this
information in error, please notify the sender immediately.



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Andrew Turner
m: 248.982.3609 e: and...@highearthorbit.com t: @ajturner
b: http://highearthorbit.com w: http://geocommons.com
Introduction to Neogeography - http://oreilly.com/catalog/neogeography


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] land records management with open source GIS

[Bob Basques]

Puneet,

This is a rather open ended process (or it can be) of managing cadastral 
records.  There are so many directions that this type of work can go and they 
play into so many different types of work processes, that in my experience the 
development of systems have been fragmented in the past.  

While I can't point to any one system that we have in place for this, I can 
tell you that we have put in a large amount of effort into digitally indexing 
and storing the data required to implement such a system.   We also have a lot 
of production processes that would likely be considered a component of such a 
system.  Our Survey section 

http://survey.ci.stpaul.mn.us/

 has quite a lot of available online data already.  And most of their spatial 
indexing is already available in our online mapping system (GISmo3 is not 
intended just for cadastral data) 

http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/

Our spatial distribution system, GISmo3, is more generic in that all spatially 
related information is grouped together into the same system for both external 
and internal use.

We've applied our efforts in making the publication and distribution efforts as 
easy as possible.  This has made for some interesting difficulties with regard 
to the amount of data we have available, especially for new users trying to 
find something quickly, the internal system has upwards of 160 layers currently 
and the number keeps going up.  The next versions of the system components will 
require more effort in the cataloging side of the equation as a consequence.

Oh, and it's all Open Source based, except for some Oracle Based data storage, 
that could just as easily be in PostGIS.

bobb


 P Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com 06/21/10 12:33 AM 
does anyone know of an existing product, or a firm that develops such
a product catering to cadastral and land records management, but using
a completely open source stack?

-- 
Puneet Kishor
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Tickets and OpenStreetMap

[Bob Basques]

Arnie, 

I'm assuming you are talking to me?? 

I'm actually working on something right now in a very similar vein.  The idea 
is to build out a standalone Web service (tile or non-tile, doesn't really 
matter in my Architecture, which will use something similar to LAMP) that can 
also update itself if/when an internet connection exists. 

This is being built out on a Linux based Phone that will track itself, as well 
as be able to report it's location to some master tracking system.  I'm at a 
bit of a loss as to how far to take the build out over the long run, as this 
essentially a proof of concept for a Poor mans version of a AVL/GPS tracking 
system, where the only purchase aspect is the smartphone to run it on.  There 
are the obvious expenses related to the master service that tracks all these 
standalone devices, but I would like to keep that as a separate conversation 
for right now. 

So getting back to your question, this particular piece of hardware has 32gig 
of on board storage, with another 16gig possible as a MicroSD card add-on.  
Further, if you wanted to also include (for more money) a localized Server, 
smallish CPU in a Vehicle let's say, that could be connected to via Wifi, well 
then the sky's the limit on what you could store. 

I'm interested in going down to the street intersection level of mapping 
especially where high resolution areial photo's exist, we have 4 per pixel 
coverage of the whole City for example ,which at our hiest resolution, ammounts 
to about 14k tiles for 70 sq miles of coverage. 

For your consideration, some basic storage capacities that we are at now : 

**  A 6in Aerial photography resolution coverage (JPGs) takes up about 5.8GB of 
storage for our City as a measurement. 
**  A 6in resolution (PNGs) dataset (similar to the OpenStreetMap tiles) for 
our Survey platting line work for the City takes up 10.5MB 

I can send example links if you are interested. 

bobb 







 Arnie Shore shor...@gmail.com wrote:

Bob, as an early step into moving tickets toward OSGeo, I've gathered the OSM 
tile sets of an county area of somewhere around 3600 sq. mi, at zoom levels 
from 9 to 17, for among other reasons to see what the storage server 
requirements might be for a slippy map presentation with full zoom.

Which turn out to be 'impressive'. But I expect there's a good bit of tweaking 
available that cd cut it down - if needed.

My question fer yah relates to what a reasonable storage budget might be for a 
representative application like CAD. Any ideas?

Admittedly very hypothetical, but what the heck!

AS

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating

[Bob Basques]

All, 

Close, but it's still got the five star thing, which I have to admit is
missleading.  Also, where are the criteria that were used to arrive at
those star ratings? . . .  I mean is that a popularity metirc?  In
relation to other projects, or simple number of downloads, etc. 

Also, the only way I could get GeoMoose to pop up, was by entering
GeoMoose into the search string.  This interface has some logic up front
that is arbitrarily being placed in there in some manner.  OpenJump
didn't come up either with the OSGEO sarch term. 

The layout is nice, but I was thinking more along the lines of a Product
spec sheet.  A long version, maybe a max page in length, and a shorter
version for use in the corner of a promotional page.  Some thike these
seem to have a lot of flexibility with regard to reuse by supporting
(commercial) interests in that the product sheets would look similar to
each other. 

bobb 



 Yves Jacolin yjaco...@free.fr wrote:

Boob,

You mean something like this : http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo (
http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo ) ?

Regards,

Y.
Le lundi 07 juin 2010 17:02:44, Bob Basques a écrit :
 All,

 Instead of a 5 star rating, what about  using a small standardized
chart of
 some sort.  5-10 items each with their own rating (or classification).
 One
 of these items could be tied to the incubation process for example.

 Some Items off the top of my head that would be useful (grabbing some
from
 the conversation too):

 *  Incubation status
 *  Age of project
 *  Number of commiters
 *  Language(s)  (Perl, Javascript, Java, etc)
 *  OS Supported (Window, Linux, Mac, etc)
 *  Mobile Version (Yes/No)
 * etc. . . .

 Also upon thinking on this some more, this smaller standardized form
could
 be expanded into a Specification sheet for each project.  Additionally
the
 standardized form could be mixed and matched based on the project
focus, so
 that the Project leader could decide which items go into the
standardized
 (smaller, Short Version of a) chart for Marketing.

 Just thinking out loud here.

 bobb

  Daniel Morissette dmorisse...@mapgears.com 06/06/10 7:21 PM 

 I'm also not too keen on a star ranking system, especially if it is
 mostly based on having passed incubation or not.

 To me, passing incubation is more an indication of good process
 management and long term viability than an indication of software
 quality/robustness and ability to really solve the user's needs.
 However, a star ranking system makes me think of hotel/restaurant
rating
 and would mislead the user to think that a software with 4 stars
 (because it passed incubation) does a better job than others with 2 or
3
 which is not necessarily the case.

 If the goal is to denote whether a project has passed incubation or
not
 then let's call the rating that way (which is what we currently do
when
 we differentiate between graduated and in-incubation projects on
 www.osgeo.org). If we want to create a project maturity rating then
it
 will have to take into account several variables as Andrea wrote
 earlier... and then defining those variables and evaluating each piece
 of software against them will be quite a task.

 In the end, I just wanted to register the fact that I too am worried
 about the possible side-effects of a poorly handled rating system on
our
 communities.

 Daniel

 Cameron Shorter wrote:
  On 06/06/10 10:14, Jason Birch wrote:
  IMHO getting into rating projects is just asking for trouble,
  infighting, bitterness, and people/projects walking away from
OSGeo.
 
  Jason, this is a valid concern with decent founding. However I think
the
  potential for conflict is not as bad as you may think, and there is
a
  very strong user community desire for, and value to be gained from
such
  ratings.
 
  1. We already have a rating system, based upon:
  * Project has completed incubati
on
  * Project is in incubatio  2. We already have a criteria for defining 
  this rating, (which may
be
  refined), which reduces the subjectiveness and hence the potential
for
  conflict.

--
Yves Jacolin

http://yjacolin.gloobe.org
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating

[Bob Basques]

Same here,  I would also lik to compare all Javascript like things with other 
javascript like projects for example. 

I'm not sure what the best approach to this type of thing either, but the 
Product data sheet seems like a reasonable method of applying a product summary 
that could be useful for most folks. 

bobb 



 Paolo Cavallini cavall...@faunalia.it wrote:

Il 07/06/2010 17:05, Yves Jacolin ha scritto:
 Boob,

 You mean something like this : http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo ( 
 http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo ) ?

BTW, I wouldn't agree with many of the ratings.
All the best.
--
Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating

[Bob Basques]

Additionally . . . 

Things like Services, vs Desktop, vs Web Frameworks don't seem to be defined 
for comparison purposes.  Wouldn't it seem prudent to classify the projects 
before trying to compare them? 

bobb 



 Paolo Cavallini cavall...@faunalia.it wrote:

Il 07/06/2010 17:05, Yves Jacolin ha scritto:
 Boob,

 You mean something like this : http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo ( 
 http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo ) ?

BTW, I wouldn't agree with many of the ratings.
All the best.
--
Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating

[Bob Basques]

All, 

Did anyone else hear that thunder in the distance?  :c) 

That's what I've been trying to say, let the projects handle this sort of thing 
themselves, but OSGEO CAN (and SHOULD in my mind) coordinate a standardized 
look and feel to such things. 

bobb 



 Howard Butler hobu@gmail.com wrote:


On Jun 7, 2010, at 11:03 AM, Bob Basques wrote:

 Wouldn't it seem prudent to classify the projects before trying to compare 
 them?

/me screams into a room that no one can hear.  Stop it!

This whole exercise is quite frankly, masturbatory, and does nothing to help 
the projects who would be rated, provides very little to those users of said 
ratings, and calls into question our credibility by having the arrogance to 
rate *our own* projects in any way.  OSGeo is doing enough by providing 
visibility for the projects, and it is up to them to pull them in as users with 
the quality of their software, the quality of their documentation, and the 
quality of their community.  A silly sticker by us or anyone else isn't going 
to sway that process in any way.

It would be more valuable to collate a series of elevator pitch-type material 
from each project who wishes to participate to make their case to the 
envisioned users of this rating.  Projects who do not participate in this for 
whatever reason implicitly make a statement about their quality. That's going 
to be far more useful to both the projects and the users than an elongating 
graphic.

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating

[Bob Basques]

All,

I guess it comes down to the argument of whether OSGEO stands for a state of 
mind, or should it be considered a brand only, not to be sullied by all those 
unwarmed projects?  Move over Apple, there's a new brand in town . . .

:c)

bobb



 Mark Leslie mark.les...@lisasoft.com 06/07/10 8:27 PM 
At the risk of sounding like a troll, why are we putting non-OSGeo 
projects on OSGeo marketing material?  If this is in fact the purpose of 
the Live-DVD, then the best way of identifying 2 or 3 of the best 
packages available for users to trial is to only include 2 or 3 of the 
best packages on the disk.  Presumably these could be graduated projects.

--
Mark



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Comparison of Mobile GIS applications

[Bob Basques]

Milo, 

You mentioned MEEGO in your post, I just ordered a N900 to do some testing for 
GIS related stuff on the N900.  What types of functionalities are you focusing 
your efforts on for MEEGO? 

bobb 



 miblon mob...@dogodigi.net wrote:

I have been using navit and osm2go on moblin. There is a debian build
for osm2go which is targeted at maemo, I managed to get it up on moblin
and will try to get it running on meego.

If you are interested in me filling the blanks for these 2 apps on your
feature list, let me know.

Kind regards,

Milo van der Linden

Miguel Montesinos wrote:
 Hello to all,

 I'm preparing a presentation for the FOSS4G, with title Comparison of
 Mobile GIS applications. I know some, but I think that the best way to
 make an objective analysis is to offer the chance for anyone to
 collaborate, in order to define common feature lists as well as
 perfomance or usability check lists.

 Is anyone developing or using a mobile geospatial application
 interested?

 Regards,

 -
 Miguel Montesinos
 CTO
 PRODEVELOP, S.L.
 mmontesinos [at] prodevelop [dot] es
 www.prodevelop.es

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Comparison of Mobile GIS applications

[Bob Basques]

Christopher, 

Understood, I went the Linux route on purpose.   

Maemo is fine for the time being.  Everything I need looks be in there already, 
 the Meego stuff just looked interesting, and the fact that someone else was 
talking about it made it even more interesting. 

C:) 

bobb 



 Christopher Schmidt crschm...@crschmidt.net wrote:

On Wed, Jun 02, 2010 at 03:25:45PM -0500, Bob Basques wrote:
 Milo,

 You mentioned MEEGO in your post, I just ordered a N900 to do some testing 
 for GIS related stuff on the N900.  What types of functionalities are you 
 focusing your efforts on for MEEGO?

Note that the current development platform for the N900 (and likely
for the next 6 months at least) is still Maemo. The two platforms
will likely not differ greatly; a lot of the UI functionality is already
SDK-level in Maemo, and apps themselves likely won't change much
other than packaging. In either case, it's mostly just a Very Small
Linux Box.

-- Chris, proud owner of an N900

 bobb



  miblon mob...@dogodigi.net wrote:

 I have been using navit and osm2go on moblin. There is a debian build
 for osm2go which is targeted at maemo, I managed to get it up on moblin
 and will try to get it running on meego.

 If you are interested in me filling the blanks for these 2 apps on your
 feature list, let me know.

 Kind regards,

 Milo van der Linden

 Miguel Montesinos wrote:
  Hello to all,
 
  I'm preparing a presentation for the FOSS4G, with title Comparison of
  Mobile GIS applications. I know some, but I think that the best way to
  make an objective analysis is to offer the chance for anyone to
  collaborate, in order to define common feature lists as well as
  perfomance or usability check lists.
 
  Is anyone developing or using a mobile geospatial application
  interested?
 
  Regards,
 
  -
  Miguel Montesinos
  CTO
  PRODEVELOP, S.L.
  mmontesinos [at] prodevelop [dot] es
  www.prodevelop.es
 
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Comparison of Mobile GIS applications

[Bob Basques]

Milo, 

You don't need to convince me on the Open side of things, it's why I chose to 
try out the Nokia.  I'm actually going to buy 3 more of them, if all goes as 
planned, mostly for prototyping and such to build support for follow on work. 

bobb 



 miblon mob...@dogodigi.net wrote:

Hello Bob!

I started out using moblin as my en route OS of choice. On my asus
1005HA eee pc, it turned out to be the fastest, easiest to use (even on
bumpy rides) and flexible enough. I managed to connect moblin via
bluetooth to my gps and to my mobile phone. I use my mobile phone as 3G
modem. Then I started using it for openstreetmap work by getting osm2go up.

My goal is to get meego up to the same task: an excelent mobile solution
for communication and (lightweight) geodata collection. Besides that I
am waiting for the nokia device that will follow up on the N900, rumours
has it will be called the N9, but those rumours haven't been confirmed
by nokia.

Why meego and not android? Because I am always looking at alternative
products that will prevent single parties to become dominant. This has
nothing to do with reason, it is purely out of ideology ;-)

I am now running the 1.0 release and believe it or not, it is a small
step down from moblin 2.1. Although it boots faster, the interface looks
like a candystore and not all components have a synced look and feel.
Chromium for instance is not integrated in the panels as much as the
moblin browser was, and some apps suddenly have gray window decoration
while others have black. With moblin I would have people ooh and aah
when I did a business presentation with it, meego with its OS for kids
look has to stay in the box a little while longer.

For me meego == choice. I don't intend my eee pc it to be a desktop
replacer, I cannot imagine myself programming on 1024x600 resolution.
But it is my companion on the road and since I travel by train a lot,
the best companion I had so far with almost 8h of battery power. And
even for business meetings, I don't need to bring a heavy 15 or more
anymore. The eee will do perfect and run like a charm



Bob Basques wrote:

 Milo,


 You mentioned MEEGO in your post, I just ordered a N900 to do some
 testing for GIS related stuff on the N900.  What types of
 functionalities are you focusing your efforts on for MEEGO?


 bobb




  miblon mob...@dogodigi.net wrote:

 I have been using navit and osm2go on moblin. There is a debian build
 for osm2go which is targeted at maemo, I managed to get it up on moblin
 and will try to get it running on meego.

 If you are interested in me filling the blanks for these 2 apps on your
 feature list, let me know.

 Kind regards,

 Milo van der Linden

 Miguel Montesinos wrote:
  Hello to all,
 
  I'm preparing a presentation for the FOSS4G, with title Comparison of
  Mobile GIS applications. I know some, but I think that the best way to
  make an objective analysis is to offer the chance for anyone to
  collaborate, in order to define common feature lists as well as
  perfomance or usability check lists.
 
  Is anyone developing or using a mobile geospatial application
  interested?
 
  Regards,
 
  -
  Miguel Montesinos
  CTO
  PRODEVELOP, S.L.
  mmontesinos [at] prodevelop [dot] es
  www.prodevelop.es
 
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] GPS Versus Maps

[Bob Basques]

David (and Peter?), 

Thanks for the pointer.  I dont' know that Iagree 100% with the research 
conclusions, mostly on the grounds that I think a Digital map can be made to be 
as useful or more useful than a paper version.  Forget about the GPS aspect for 
am minute, or put it into the background.   

A digital screen, even a small one, that can track itself with GPS and also 
provide a display based on directional bearing, would be ahead of the game with 
regard to paper maps right from the start. 

Don't get me wrong here, we print out paper maps for the Fire and Police Dept.s 
here every year a least, mostly because the digital infrastructure isn't yet in 
place to handle the previously described Map-enabled GPS. 

Basically I'm of the mind that there is a possibilty of having a digital 
replacement of the paper map, it may or may not have a GPS tied to it, but 
tying the GPS to a system of this sort as a background helper function, and not 
a main focus of the process would be more successful as far as usability. 

bobb 




 Sampson, David david.samp...@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca wrote:

This was an interesting resource passed around our offices I thought the
OSGEO community might appreciate.

Thanks Peter,

===

Source: Peter Paul, Natural Resources Canada

A brief discussion from the CBC Radio Program 'Spark' ...

Spark 115 - May 30  June 1, 2010
http://www.cbc.ca/spark/

Scroll down left menu to reach the title 'Paper Maps vs GPS', then click
the audio button to listen to Nora Young's interview with Prof. Toru
Ishikawa who has done some usability testing recently at the University
of Tokyo.

--Peter

===

Cheers
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] fastest option of serving huge imagery on web mapon the fly

[Bob Basques]

All, 

Related to this . . . 

From our perspective, which was to allow for the most flexibilty with regard 
to queries in the size of the images, we were willing to sacrifice the highest 
level of performance.  Most of the effort here was in organizing the tiles 
(tree index) behind the MapServer service.  Setting up the Mapfiles to 
generally drop pixels vs interpolating them (adding new ones) was a big piece 
of the performance issue in our configuration for example.  Simply setting the 
MIN/MAX scale params accordingly helped a great deal.  MapServer (and most 
other products BTW), seems to be better at dropping pixels (reducing the image 
size) on the fly, vs interpolating to add them in to scale the image up.  
There is still some pxel replacement going on, but generally making an image 
smaller is faster than scaling one up. Since we wanted to be able to query for 
any image size, we concentrated on setting up Mapserver to build from a tree 
index as fast as possible. 

This is our mainstay setup at this point and how all services run in production 
mode.  Our biggest bottleneck recently is network lag.  I'm looking at the 
various tiling conventions as well for caching,  probably a dynamic on demand 
caching system would be best in the end, and there is no reason this couldn't 
be applied to our current setup as a front end to tile based clients. 

One big reason we went with the architecture that we did, was to allow for high 
resolution importing for our AutoCAD based online customers for raster imagery 
and such.  There were also some groups of layer data that would prove much to 
costly to implement as separately configured cartographic layers as web 
services,  See this layer output for example: 

http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/PROPERTY/property_public.map?mapext=563896.8404047444%20154119.8027878841%20568990.907012015%20157551.40786712753mapsize=1146%20772mode=map
 ( 
http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/PROPERTY/property_public.map?mapext=563896.8404047444%20154119.8027878841%20568990.907012015%20157551.40786712753mapsize=1146%20772mode=map
 ) 
http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/PROPERTY/property_public.map?mapext=565159.2094367743%20155007.330481188%20567467.6297618784%20156562.39199164204mapsize=1146%20772mode=map
 ( 
http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/PROPERTY/property_public.map?mapext=565159.2094367743%20155007.330481188%20567467.6297618784%20156562.39199164204mapsize=1146%20772mode=map
 ) 
http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/PROPERTY/property_public.map?mapext=566363.9818826721%20153592.63001268354%20568111.2314970943%20154769.66029395218mapsize=1146%20772mode=map
 ( 
http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/PROPERTY/property_public.map?mapext=566363.9818826721%20153592.63001268354%20568111.2314970943%20154769.66029395218mapsize=1146%20772mode=map
 ) 
http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/PROPERTY/property_public.map?mapext=567200.2527496096%20153998.18707850928%20568073.8775568207%20154586.7022191436mapsize=1146%20772mode=map
 ( 
http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/PROPERTY/property_public.map?mapext=567200.2527496096%20153998.18707850928%20568073.8775568207%20154586.7022191436mapsize=1146%20772mode=map
 ) 

These layers (there's 50 plus ion there for example) would be a bear to 
maintain. So I decided to cheat and use a raster presentation layer instead 
that is generated automatically from our ACAD DWGs. 

These were major considerations for our design of the system, and may not apply 
to your situation. 

bobb 



 Jason Birch ja...@jasonbirch.com wrote:

I've often wondered if power-of-two was the best approach from a
perception viewpoint. It definitely makes the most sense from a code
perspective. Anyone know of any research on this?

On 2010-05-22, Christopher Schmidt crschm...@crschmidt.net wrote:
 On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 06:24:26PM -0300, Fabio Renzo Panettieri wrote:
 On Fri, 2010-05-21 at 13:17 -0700, Karsten-3-2 wrote:
  Yes. What I want to do is simply to find out the fastest options to
  render on
  the fly from raw data imagery
  (no tiles whatsoever  stored on disk in addition to the raw data ). I
  will
  check out what SpatialCache is...

 From raw aerial imagery:
  1. Store everything as uncompressed tiffs.
  2. Make images as large as possible. (This probably requires BigTIFF
 support.)
  3. Use overviews -- usually one for every power-of-two level from the base
 image up to the point where you have 256 x 256 overviews
 (gdaladdo)
  4. If you have too many images to make one large image practical, create
 one reduced size image that you use at lower zoom levels.

 All of this is based around serving with MapServer. I have no experience
 using other imagery servers to solve this problem.

 Regards,
 --
 

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] fastest option of serving huge imagery on web mapon the fly

[Bob Basques]

All, 

We went through this same exercise a few years back, and in the end just opted 
for Jpegs in a pyramid tile set behind the scenes with MapServer as the 
assembly service.  We had specific needs of being able to assemble seamless 
images from the aerials in any size and paid a lot of attention to dropping 
pixels vs adding them with Mapserver (one process is faster than the other). 

This setup has been serving us well for years. 

GUI interface (public version) is here: 

 http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/gis/gismo_public/html/ 

Try one of the default 5 layers in the Backgrounds folder. 

Here is a direct link to one of them: 

http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/AERIAL_CITIPIX/citipix_2001_public.map?mapext=572170.3096850861%20154364.2202090687%20574347.789661319%20157490.94035167122mapsize=679%20975mode=map
 ( 
http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/AERIAL_CITIPIX/citipix_2001_public.map?mapext=572170.3096850861%20154364.2202090687%20574347.789661319%20157490.94035167122mapsize=679%20975mode=map
 ) 

Our outside network is the slow part of the process.  Internally, the last link 
above takes 918ms to load in a browser. 

Here's a bigger one: 

http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/AERIAL_CITIPIX/citipix_2001_public.map?mapext=570924.4319667261%20154282.5149295%20575593.667379679%20157572.71610924698mapsize=1456%201026mode=map
 ( 
http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/AERIAL_CITIPIX/citipix_2001_public.map?mapext=570924.4319667261%20154282.5149295%20575593.667379679%20157572.71610924698mapsize=1456%201026mode=map
 ) 
(1.56s) 

and a still bigger one: 

http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/AERIAL_CITIPIX/citipix_2001_public.map?mapext=569231.1927510398%20153621.824605979%20577286.9065953654%20158233.33595476093mapsize=2512%201438mode=map
 ( 
http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/RASTER/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/AERIAL_CITIPIX/citipix_2001_public.map?mapext=569231.1927510398%20153621.824605979%20577286.9065953654%20158233.33595476093mapsize=2512%201438mode=map
 ) 
(4.56s) 

I also have them in WMS if you like. 

What type of performance levels are you looking for?  The above is running on 
some now outdated hardware as well. 

bobb 





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[OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source vs Closed source

[Bob Basques]

All, 

We've got a discussion going on in the office about the subject line.  I was 
wondering if folks here had any pointers to online information, both from a 
superficial view (low detail level, IE Manager speak) as well as some somewhat 
higher level information about costs, in the short term/ long term, etc. 

Thanks 

bobb 


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source vs Closed source

[Bob Basques]

Lester, 

I've already found a bunch of stuff, just trying to figure out the authority 
aspects, do the writers know what they are talking about, etc, need to pass 
things on to people that don't know or want to know the details, but are 
interested in savings (which is my primary sales focus, so far) 

We've had OpenSource software in place in the office for a number of years, but 
not in an end user exposed location, which is where this disucussion is aimed 
at.. 

This would be the early stage stuff, as in, what is OpenSource, sounds too good 
to be true sort of replies (Literally!!). 

bobb 





 Lester Caine les...@lsces.co.uk wrote:

Bob Basques wrote:
 We've got a discussion going on in the office about the subject line.  I
 was wondering if folks here had any pointers to online information, both
 from a superficial view (low detail level, IE Manager speak) as well as
 some somewhat higher level information about costs, in the short term/
 long term, etc.

How long is a piece of string? . ;)
What sort of information are you looking for? There is a growing catalog of
freely available data from various sources. The UK government has just released
some nice raster and tabular data, and the US government makes conciderable more
freely available. And there are plenty of open source software packages that
will work with it.

So what are you looking for?

--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact ( 
http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact )
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk//
Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Webinars on OS geo for local governments, schools and nonprofits?

[Bob Basques]

All,

I've been doing some research and resource collection around the idea of 
doing something similar.  I was planning on going it alone with some 
specific targets in mind, but I could throw into an effort if it could 
be made to be reuseable.


bobb



On 2/8/2010 8:15 AM, Charlie Schweik wrote:

OSGeo colleagues,

I was recently contacted by Ann Deakin, a Geosciences faculty at the 
State University of New York - Fredonia campus. She is also on the 
board of directors of the NYS GIS Association and the chair of their 
education committee. She was asking me about the possibility of 
offering a webinar to their members (and anyone considering getting 
into GIS) on open source GIS.


This sounded like a really good idea to me, as a possible new (?) way 
of promoting OSGeo technologies.


I'm wondering if anyone has already done this kind of thing?
Would any of our knowledge experts out there be willing to do such a 
webinar? (If so, let me know in what area)
If we can get something like this designed, we could either do it 
first working with Ann and the NYS GIS Association, or perhaps try and 
scale the webinar up to a larger and more international crowd.


Reactions welcome!

Charlie Schweik
OSGeo education chair


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] options for getting paid technical/mentoring support on foss geo applications

[Bob Basques]

All,

I just tried up to submit a new profile here: 
http://www.osgeo.org/submit_profile, for SharedGeo, but it says that 
there is already a record, but if I list everything and go through the 
list, I don't see it returned for any combination of filtering.


Anyone know who to contact about it?

Thanks

bobb



On 1/26/2010 9:33 PM, Jody Garnett wrote:

Thanks Cameron:

You will also find that most of the projects maintain a list of
organisations able to offer assistance.

As an example geoserver.org has the following page:
- http://geoserver.org/display/GEOS/Commercial+Support

Jody


On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 8:54 PM, Cameron Shorter
cameron.shor...@gmail.com  wrote:
   

Hello Maning,
LISAsoft is also in the business of providing commercial support for
Geospatial Open Source Software, and our staff in Australia in a similar
time zone to you in the Philippines.

Your request for mentoring is something that our customers find quite
popular here in Australia, where we help development teams quickly get up to
speed with OSGeo software. This typically involves:
* Either direct training, or having one of our experts sit with a developer
or development team, answering questions, and suggesting appropriate
technologies, or providing tips configuring software.

* Once the developers are over the initial startup hurdle, we provide
telephone support, allowing a developer to call one of our experts to give
advice on sticky issues or design decisions as they arise.

More details are at:
http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/support.html

On a similar note:
* I suspect you will be interested in the Geospatial Open Source Live DVD,
which provides a stack of Open Source Software installed on Xubuntu. It is a
very good demonstration tool, and is handed out at conferences promoting
OSGeo (like FOSS4G).

We are currently building the next release of the Live DVD. You might want
to get involved. You may be interested in being an early tester - which is
something we'd like some help with.

More details at:
http://arramagong.org
and
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc

maning sambale wrote:
 

Hi,

We are a non-profit research institution in the Philippines providing
geospatial related research to local partners.  This year we are
getting more involved with the use of several FOSS geo packages
(mostly under OSGEO projects).

We want to assist local partners in deploying FOSS products within
their institutions (either as a desktop or server based solutions or
customized apps).

In many cases we can get support from the numerous mailinglist.
However, there maybe cases when we will be needing paid technical
support or specific application customization.  In the future, we want
to develop this capacity in house and the give back to the community.
But for the moment, we are looking for developers or consultants who
can help us.

What we see is a sort of mentoring mechanism.  Our staff will be
involved with assisting our partners develop their geospatial
solutions.  But we may need regular mentoring/technical assistance.
Since we will be using several geo apps (desktop, server), we need
experts in many fields.

I'm currently looking at opengeo's services and it seems to provide
the support we need.
http://opengeo.org/
http://opengeo.org/products/

Any other ideas/individuals/orgs who can help us?  Note that we are
not looking for people to develop the applications for us what we need
are technical advise as we develop the request solutions from our
partners.

Many thanks in advance.

   


--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Looking for information about Open Data practicesand how it help to foster collaboration.

[Bob Basques]

All, 

Thanks for all the links to information, I've got a pretty good list of Federal 
initiatives, now I'm after more localized efforts, something at the City or 
Municipal level.  Really it can be anything related to making government 
(geospatial) data available to the masses and why it makes sense. 

I will post my (short) write-up here as well. 

Thanks again. 

bobb 



 Haris Kurtagic ha...@sl-king.com wrote:

I really like presentation from Jason Birch from City of Nanaimo about reasons 
to open data and how to do it. 
http://www.slideshare.net/JasonBirch/moving-beyond-the-desk 

 ( http://www.slideshare.net/JasonBirch/moving-beyond-the-desk )Don't forget to 
look at notes too, I did forgot first time.



Haris


On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 10:11 PM, Bob Basques 
bob.basq...@ci.stpaul.mn.us 

wrote:


All, 


I'm putting together a proposal here at the City to open up more of our 
datasets to the public. We currently have about 30 GIS data layers available to 
the public, ( http://, ) with ~170 layers that are not public. While there are 
some layers that won't be made available for security or licensing issues, 
there are many that the owners of simply don't want to make available. 


I'm looking for information to include in a short proposal that might sway some 
of the folks sitting on datasets internally to get them to publish the data to 
the masses and need points of reasoning to point them at. 


I already have some info related to general practices moving towards this type 
of data availability, and some of the recent threads on the OSGEO lists about 
data licensing would likely come into play as well. 


Thanks for any pointers on this. 


bobb 





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[OSGeo-Discuss] Looking for information about Open Data practices and how it help to foster collaboration.

[Bob Basques]

All, 

I'm putting together a proposal here at the City to open up more of our 
datasets to the public.  We currently have about 30 GIS data layers available 
to the public, ( http://, ) with ~170 layers that are not public.  While there 
are some layers that won't be made available for security or licensing issues, 
there are many that the owners of simply don't want to make available. 

I'm looking for information to include in a short proposal that might sway some 
of the folks sitting on datasets internally to get them to publish the data to 
the masses and need points of reasoning to point them at. 

I already have some info related to general practices moving towards this type 
of data availability, and some of the recent threads on the OSGEO lists about 
data licensing would likely come into play as well.   

Thanks for any pointers on this. 

bobb 



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] web mapping package

[Bob Basques]

John,

For the most part, GeoMoose relies on what MapServer can serve up.  With 
the exception of Aerial Photo's, the tiling of data doesn't really help 
all that much (IMO) with performance issues.  The OGR/Tiling/indexing 
can be used, but even it goes through MapServer.  All of my Aerial photo 
datasets run this route as well.


There are a couple of folks on the GeoMoose list that have brought up 
the idea of using tiled services.  And I imagine the support will be in 
GeoMoose sommetime in the near future, you can get more info from the 
GeoMoose list on that.


With the right indexing you can get pretty good performance, see here: 


https://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/gis/gismo_public/html/
http://sandy.utah.gov/gis/
http://gis.co.benton.mn.us:8081/geomoose/BentonCountyGIS.html

or for more . . . .

http://www.geomoose.org/moose1/index.php?option=com_weblinkscatid=19Itemid=27


bobb





John Callahan wrote:
Thanks Bob.  Yes, GeoMoose does seem impressive for what it can do out 
of the box.  I noticed there is a GeoMoose mailing list and will 
likely signup for that.  Quick question though: can the GeoMoose 
interface directly display png tiles (e.g., output from 
gdal2tiles/maptiler) or do rasters need to go through mapserver 
first?  (I have some imagery and openstreetmap data I think would be 
best served through TMS tiles rather than mapserver raster data sources.)


- John




On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 5:49 PM, Bob Basques 
bob.basq...@ci.stpaul.mn.us mailto:bob.basq...@ci.stpaul.mn.us wrote:


John,


First off, I'm close to the GeoMoose project, now having said
that. . .


GeoMoose will implement way faster out of the box.


Usually, the biggest hurdle, is if you need to change the
projection of the data you are displaying.  If all your data is in
the same projection, it's not a problem at all, pretty much can be
a plug and play with the datasets using the samples that come with
the GeoMoose package.  If you need to pull data from other
projections and overlay them onto your datasets then things get
decidedly trickier (in any application for that matter), although
once you have one layer working , it's usually not too big a deal
to get others working in GeoMoose too.


Don't take my word for it though.  I'm sure others will pop on
here and reply too, although, you might want to try the Mapserver
list with the question as well, there might be some other viewers
out there as well that might fit the bill.


bobb






 John Callahan john.calla...@udel.edu
mailto:john.calla...@udel.edu wrote:

I'm looking for a web mapping package that can be used to show 15
- 20 datasets at once. These data just need to be turned on/off
and maybe an identify/query feature. Data are points, lines,
polygons, and rasters (aerial imagery, DEMs, etc...) Basically,
I'm looking for a way to show these datasets to a few dozen
colleagues located in various depts.

So far, MapGuide OS and GeoMoose seem to be the two best options.
I have used Mapserver and Postgis before and could use these
again. Vectors are mostly shapefiles and rasters are img or ESRI
grids (I could convert to png tiles using GDAL or something similar.)


Any thoughts on the ease of setup/config of GeoMoose vs MapGuide
OS? Any other obvious packages I'm missing? (I know about ka-map
but don't think it's being developed, and may not add anything
over GeoMoose/MapGuide.) In the past, I've used ArcIMS and ArcGIS
Server for such a purpose. However, I'm looking for an open source
solution.

If all goes well, we may develop a more sophisticated application
in the future but for right now, viewing the data is most
important. Thanks for your help.

- John

**
John Callahan, Geospatial Application Developer
Delaware Geological Survey, University of Delaware
URL: http://www.dgs.udel.edu
**


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--
**
John Callahan, Geospatial Application Developer
Delaware Geological Survey, University of Delaware
URL: http://www.dgs.udel.edu
**


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Re: Fwd: [OSGeo-Discuss] Mind Map - Open Source Spatial Projects

[Bob Basques]

A thought here . . . . 

How would you see something like this working from a Project meta-data
perspective.  I'm wondering about the possibilty of each OSGEO project
handling their own branch of the MindMap diagram.  Is there a way to
link branches together? 

Another piece that is nagging at me somewhat is how to handle things
that might need to be cross indexed (if possible), GeoMoose might
(will??) have items that related to more than one other project, it's
now utilizing the OpenLayers display LIBs for example.  And I know of a
couple of other projects that may end up as connectors. 

Just wondering (or muttereing) out loud. . . . 

bobb 



 Bruce Bannerman bruce.bannerman.os...@gmail.com wrote:



 It would be great if you could add in the MapWindow project.
 MapWindow GIS Desktop Application is a C#/.NET desktop GIS
 that is completely open source and has about 6000 downloads
 per month from www.MapWindow.org.

 Also, under your library/developer tools, we the project also
 includes a set of .NET libraries and a COM C++ ActiveX
 component based on both NTS and GDAL.

 - Dan


done





 OpenScales is a user-friendly and fast interface written in
 ActionScript3/Flex/AIR designed to visualize and manipulate
 spatial data.

 OpenScales is open source with an LGPL license.



 Aurélien Barbier-Accary


done



Bruce


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Mind Map - Open Source Spatial Projects

[Bob Basques]

All, 

What's the best Client for this MM stuff?  A little research on it reveals 
there are more than one version of the file format as well as more than one 
version of client, and not all clients read all formats . . . 

bobb 



 Bruce Bannerman bruce.bannerman.os...@gmail.com wrote:

I have been developing a Mind Map for a number of years, showing various Open 
Source spatial projects, with a summary of project features and links to 
project urls. 
It should help as an aide-memoire for Open Source spatial projects. 

I've released this under a Creative Commons license with the source in the 
OSGeo subversion repository.



Details are at:

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Bruce.bannerman


The information in the mind map is a little dated. Perhaps a few of us can 
collaborate to maintain it.


Thanks to Tyler for his help in getting this into subversion.



Bruce Bannerman




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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] WMS Performance Shootout at FOSS4G 2009

[Bob Basques]

All,

Is there a list of the tests administered?   I would be interested in 
the rendering speed of differently sized images and where the sweet spot 
is for a particular engine in size vs rendering speed.  I did find the 
description of source data.  Also any thing related to reprojection of 
rasters on the fly?


Are the Live Benchmarks links going to be the same for the duration of 
the competition?


thanks

bobb


Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote:

Sydney, Australia. 5 October 2009. http://2009.foss4g.org

GeoServer, MapServer, and ArcGIS Server will be competing for the
title of Fastest Web Map Server (WMS) at the FOSS4G 2009 conference
at the end of October. The Web Mapping Performance Shoot-out compares
Web Map Servers in a variety of real world use cases.

This third installment of the FOSS4G shoot-out looks to be even more
exciting with the introduction of a team from ESRI. ESRI supports
interoperability with the OSGeo and open source community says Satish
Sankaran, PhD., ESRI Product Manager for Interoperability,  and, as
such, are happy to participate in the OSGEO demonstration-'shootout'
at FOSS4G. We are also participating in the OGC's Climate Change
Integration Plugfest at FOSS4G, and with our colleagues from 52North
who will be in the technical exhibits area.

The performance shoot-out will see GeoServer, MapServer, and ArcGIS
Server compared in terms of how long they take to generate a map
image, from a common set of spatial data. The data formats used will
be shapefile, geotiff, ECW, PostgreSQL/PostGIS, Oracle Spatial, and
SDE on Oracle. Benchmarking scripts will be executed on a common
platform running Red Hat Linux.

GeoServer will be represented by Andrea Aime (OpenGeo) and Simone
Giannecchini (GeoSolutions). With the rapid expansion of GeoServer's
capabilities each year, these benchmarking exercises are an excellent
forum for us to test it in new and challenging ways, said Chris
Holmes, Managing Director of OpenGeo and founder of the GeoServer
project.

One of the most important 'rules of engagement' for each Web server
team is that all parties must contribute any changes that they make to
their software for this exercise, back to their community. As
explained by Steve Lime, founder of Mapserver, Past benchmarking
presentations have brought about many improvements in the servers,
such as MapServer's improvements in large shapefile indexing, raster
read optimization, and labeling placement. The MapServer Project
Steering Committee is excited to help with this presentation again.
MapServer will be represented by Daniel Morissette (Mapgears), Jeff
McKenna (Gateway Geomatics), and Frank Warmerdam.

For more information about the Web mapping performance shootout, see
the wiki at: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Benchmarking_2009, or follow
along discussions in the benchmarking mailing list at:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/benchmarking.

== About FOSS4G ==

FOSS4G is the international Free and Open Source Software for
Geospatial conference, which comes to Sydney, Australia, 20-23 October
2009. FOSS4G offers presentations, workshops, demos, an install-fest,
and a code sprint. It is presented by the world's best Developers,
Policy Makers, Sponsors and Geospatial Professionals and includes the
latest geospatial applications, standards, government programs,
business processes and case studies. Topics include mobile platforms,
location based applications, crowd sourcing, cloud computing,
development, spatial standards, integration of cross-agency data,
Spatial Data Infrastructures, Sensor Webs, Web Processing Services,
Integration of Open Source and Proprietary Software and more.

== Upcoming milestones ==

20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
24 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

== Media Sponsors ==

Position Magazine: http://www.positionmag.com.au/
Asian Surveying and Mapping Newsletter: http://www.asmmag.com
Geoconnexions Magazine: http://www.geoconnexion.com/
Directions Magazine: http://directionsmag.com/
GIS Development: http://gisdevelopment.net/
Baliz Media: http://www.BALIZ-MEDIA.com/
SlashGeo: http://slashgeo.org

For more information or to keep informed from the FOSS4G Organising
Committee, join our email list or twitter feed at:
http://2009.foss4g.org/about_us/

or contact:

Cameron Shorter, Chair of the FOSS4G Organising Committee and
Geospatial Systems Architect at LISAsoft
tel +61-2-8570-5050 c a m e r o n . s h o r t e r @ l i s a s o f t . c o m
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] WMS Performance Shootout at FOSS4G 2009

[Bob Basques]

Ok, ok,

No problem.  It can wait till afterwards.  Just a thought.

bobb



Andrea Aime wrote:

Bob Basques ha scritto:

All,

The reason i asked about the stability of the WMS links in the wiki, 
was I was thinking about setting up a GeoMoose interface for the WMS 
calls for each layer, combining that with Firebug would give some 
good real (world network speed) information metrics for users, either 
during and/or after the compitition, BTW, how much/many of the 
services will stay inplace after the fact?  Might be useful during 
the thing as well.


The network connection to those servers is capped to something like
30-50KBytes/s, you won't get anything out of that.
Also please don't run any sequence of tests over them since:
- if anybody is running test benchmarks you'll skew the results
- our ssh consoles will be mostly stuck as you make requests since
  you'll be eating away all bandwidth

Please people, be patient until the conference is done

Cheers
Andrea



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo

[Bob Basques]

Eric, 

Now you're talk'in.  Sure took this thread long enough to get here.  :c) 

The Stick method allows for exactly what Eric describes, ease of use.  The same 
sorts of things I'm running into for Emergency Preparedness materials, I'm 
currently putting together as a prototype.  I've been pondering on getting a 
one-click setup for the data acquisition side of things, where the data service 
keeps itself in sync with some master (or set of master) database(s) online if 
there is a network available, otherwise it runs by itself with whatever it has. 
 Like in a class room setting. 

I'm running everything off the Stick too, Apache, Database(s), Firefox (as in 
I get to pick which Browser is used, big deal in some development circles).  
Where does this potentially go? 

One could address just about any sort of business need with this approach and 
set up a preconfigured system for desktop clients and or web clients.  Even 
running an impromptu webservice in the field from a USB stick during an 
emergency. 

The tricky part about the ease of use, is getting the data into/out of the mix. 
 There is always some sort of knowledge level required about a dataset that is 
generally needed to get it into a distributed system, is this where OSGEO comes 
in?.  Cascading services, and setting up EASY (as in automatic) syncing systems 
is the trick here, not putting the use tools together, most of us know how to 
do that already.  It's the data and making it easy to get at and consequently 
publish by the average (data) user. 

A user should be able to say, here is my data (in whatever form) and the 
software figures out what to do with it, how it's supposed to be indexed (it at 
all) and how it's supposed to be shared, as a desktop application dataset 
and/or as a published web accessible data source, all automatically. 

I have more ideas upon request . . .  :c) 

bobb 




 Eric Wolf ebw...@gmail.com wrote:

... 



Maybe we should focus on a GIS on a stick product rather than a LiveDVD? 



... 

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 2009 Board Election - Statements

[Bob Basques]

Is there anyone left to vote? What if everyone votes for themselves. 

:c) 

bobb 




 Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@lisasoft.com wrote:

A sign to me that the OSGeo Foundation is doing a good job is when we
have such a large selection of high quality candidates standing for the
board.
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Member_Nominations_2009

Voting will be hard this year.


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Next five years

[Bob Basques]

All,

Related to Arnie's posting here.  I would like to see some community 
organization around business specific products like the the items that 
Arie is describing here.  Example that meet customers needs more readily 
than by requiring the first time implementer to assemble a bunch of 
pieces (which it the right way to do it BTW!) to get what they need.  
While some business needs are fairly specific, there are certain things 
generic enough that they can scoped out and set up for the masses as 
examples where the potential useser can just plug any play so to speak.


This type of approach would leak over into training and education easily 
if done right and made very simple to get things going.




bobb


Arnie Shore wrote:
As a very interested lurker, and as one who has developed an Open 
Source Computer-Aided-Dispatch system that has embedded google's maps 
product, I can tell you that one of the deterrents I see is the 
relative complexity of an Open Source GIS implementation - as compared 
to the use of GMaps, which also, of course and notably, is free. The 
single source of both the tiles as well as the API is relatively 
straightforward for the non-cartographer novice.


My user community includes a fair-sized portion who have never before 
implemented a web-server-based system, and our package is designed to 
minimize the number of elements that need  separate collection and 
configuration.  To tell them that they need a map server in addition 
to the stack that WAMP, XAMPP, MAMP, installs in a single executable 
will turn away too many candidates, IMO.  In our case, the 
tile-serving capabilities could be met by a rather limited set of 
server-side functions that are OL-aware. But I haven't seen anything 
like that in the panoply of products that comprises the OSGeo world.  
Please correct me on this if such exits.


(Further evidence of the importance of the ease-of-implementation 
issue is the proliferation of open source libraries that include 
capabilities taht are based on a GMaps foundation.)


I will say that my users - many of whom are into emergency operations 
- indeed are asking for an implementation that wd allow operation 
while disconnected from the Internet.   Impossible in a GMaps-based 
solution, but completely feasible in one based on OpenLayers plus 
locally stored OSM tiles.  Users I've pointed to the available OSM 
sites have told me that the level of detail wd be completely 
satisfactory as a suitable replacement for GMaps.  Which is a 
critically important data point, IMO.


My perception of the current evolution of the world of Open Source GIS 
is toward greater complexity and richness.  Which certainly makes for 
excitement and challenge for its enthusiasts; but that isn't doing 
much for those of us along the borders looking over the fences, and 
with limited hours available to hop that fence and get involved.


Make entry easier than it is, folks.  Please?

A. Shore
Annapolis, MD


On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 5:09 PM, Ravi ravivundava...@yahoo.com 
mailto:ravivundava...@yahoo.com wrote:


Hi,
have been going through all the wishes, all the arguments about
how Open Source GIS must evolve etc. ...



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: [mapserver-users] Updated MapServer flyer

[Bob Basques]

All,

I could do something for collecting the data with perl, haven't worked 
with PDF output yet though.


bobb



Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote:

Not a bad idea Bob.  I'd also like to take it a step further and have
some basic web forms that help to create the flyers so that no software
is required on the client - e.g. enter the info, press create and
download a PDF.  Anyone want to help put their CGI and PDF lib skills
into this kind of thing?  It could even be used for creating business
cards, etc.

On Tue, 2009-09-15 at 08:38 -0500, Bob Basques wrote:
  
All, 



OK, probably a weird idea, but. . . . while looking for the brochure
mentioned here (only found the old one so far . . .came into the
thread in the middle) . . .a thought occurred to me.   Why not make
this project brochure creation thing a step in the incubation
process.  Use some sort of basic template and each project has it's
own brochure. 



bobb 









Lars Lingner m...@lingner.eu wrote:
  

Steve Lime schrieb:


Hi Lars, thanks for working up an updated brochure, looking at the
  

old one


it could use it. Some comments...

  - I think I'd avoid the MapServer website screen shot in favor of
  

another


app. The website text features the security fix announcements which
  

while


a reality in a project aren't marketing friendly. I can offer a
  

couple of sites


as could others I bet. I like your example, nice and colorful.
  

If someone could point me to MapServer powered sites, I'll update the
screenshot in the flyer.



  - Perhaps the screen shots could be a bit taller, more of a square
  

aspect


ratio#63;
  

Ok, I'll take a further look.



  - Under features it might make sense to highlight output options:
  

all sorts


of raster images, PDF, SWF, SVG and templated text

  - Might include input and the new output plugin architectures as
  

features


  - The Leverages best-of-breed sentence could be reworked to say
  

we


leverage other OSGeo projects including GDAL, GEOS, PostGIS and
  

Proj.4. I


think we should really emphasize the reliance on other OSGeo
  

projects.


  - In the last feature sentence I think MapBuilder can be removed.
  

There are


some frameworks specific to (or that at least favor) MapServer (e.g.
  

p.mapper


and GeoMoose) that could get some love here...
  

Thanks for this info. I'm putting it in.



I think the 5.6 features are performance centric (raster rendering
  

improvements,


single pass, etc...). The 6.0 release *should* have a more
  

output-based focus


with full support for the rendering plugin, new object structures
  

including


references, better SLD support, styles within labels and so on. XML
  

mapfiles


will be in 5.6. It's important to note that XML mapfiles allow users
  

to define


a configuration in XML but you must transform it to a .map file for
  

use. I hope


that might really have an impact on wysiwyg editors eventually.

  

Sounds like an interesting roadmap, I'll spread the word... ;)


Lars
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Geodata as Public Record in U.S.

[Bob Basques]

Take the space off the end of the link %20, 

It works if you paste in this link: 

http://home.centurytel.net/wilsonlandsurvey/docs/GIS%20Data%20as%20Public%20Record.pdf
 ( 
http://home.centurytel.net/wilsonlandsurvey/docs/GIS%20Data%20as%20Public%20Record.pdf
 ) 

bobb 


 Bill Thoen bth...@gisnet.com wrote:

Richard Greenwood wrote:
 A friend of my prepared this analysis of geodata distribution and fees
 at the county government level in the US:
 http://home.centurytel.net/wilsonlandsurvey/docs/GIS Data as Public
 Record.pdf
 http://home.centurytel.net/wilsonlandsurvey/docs/GIS%20Data%20as%20Public%20Record.pdf%20
  ( 
 http://home.centurytel.net/wilsonlandsurvey/docs/GIS%20Data%20as%20Public%20Record.pdf%20
  )
This comes up as 404 (not found) Is that the correct URL?

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RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats andProprietaryAlgorithms

[Bob Basques]

Landon, 

Rather than sput off about something theoretical, I'll relate our use of
MRSID deliverables. 

This is our Typical publishing process for MRSID format data that we
receive, which happens fairly regularly. 

Our use case in this instance is for visual inspection of aerial
photography. 

* First we extract JPG tile pyramids from the MrSID format into
MapServer ready tile layers doubling/halving the resolution of the
output for each level of tiles along with generating WORLD files for
each tile. (we actually have a static grid that we use for tiling that
makes this a one time process, since the WORLD files are reusable across
data sets.) 
* Then, index the tiles for each level for Mapserver's use  We start at
Level 0 (L0 = 6 resolution) and increase by doubling resolution until
we have a single tile at the City view level, ~L7. 
* Mapserver is setup with a multi-level display with cutoffs for each
tiled layer at the appropriate scales. 
* This approach guarantees only four tiles at most (as long as the
client viewer pixel width isn't bigger than the tile pixel size of each
tile) are ever retrieved by MapServer to build a composite output image.


The first three steps could be automated into a package that ran
automatically for example from most MRSID deliverables. 

Another use case might be DEM analysis, which might require converting
into other formats as well as the data originating in some other format
besides MRSID. 

Still another use case might be spectral separation and handling the
consequent analysis tasks. 

Anyway, the list goes on and on I sppose. 

bobb 



 Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com wrote:


Bob, 


What did you have in mind when you said “pre-processing”. 


Landon 



Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 



Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 



  


  




From: 

discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org]

On Behalf Of 

Bob Basques

Sent: 

Monday, August 24, 2009 9:21 AM

To: 

OSGeo Discussions

Subject: 

RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats andProprietaryAlgorithms 



  


Landon, 



  


Just had another thought . . . 



  


What about setting up a (openSource) tool set specifically for handling
Raster images for pre-processing purposes.  Might even be something that
publishers could re-distribute with their datasets, as in this processor
stack works with our data. 



  


Just thinking on the run here, no detail (or ramifications though
through [at all  :c) ]) 



  


bobb 



  




 Bob Basques bob.basq...@ci.stpaul.mn.us wrote: 


Landon, 



  


It would be interesting to come up with a standard structure on a
computer file system that could be used to accessed tiled raster data,
if this hasn’t been done already. One the file system structure was
defined, it would be fairly easy to write open source software that
accessed this structure and provided individual tiles as a service to
desktop GIS applications.   



  


Hmm, interesting angle, to expand on your idea a bit more, what about a
processing suite (or set of suites) that process data for different
types of uses, visual display, DEM analysis, etc.  Each processor
stack would/could have it's own rules associated with data resolution vs
files sizes, etc.   



  


bobb 









 Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com wrote: 


  


Bobb wrote: “Here's my reasoning, we're never (ever?) going to hit the
top end on how big files ever get, resolution just keeps going up and
up, so there is always going to be some upper limit that will need to be
breached somehow.  Working out a proper method for segregating the data
up front (dare I say it), as some sort of standard (which can be
adjusted as time passes) will make everything work nicely, then all will
work with available tools when they are available, if tools to handle
larger datasets become available, and the communityI agree with some of the 
points you are making in your argument Bobb.
There is certainly a practical limit to how much you data you should put
in a single file. That is why we have lumber cut to 8 foot lengths. You
don’t need a flatbed semi to carry it to your house. :] 


  





  


When you refer to a standard for splitting data up front, what do you
mean? 


  





  


It would be interesting to come up with a standard structure on a
computer file system that could be used to accessed tiled raster data,
if this hasn’t been done already. One the file system structure was
defined, it would be fairly easy to write open source software that
accessed this structure and provided individual tiles as a service to
desktop GIS applications. 


  





  


Landon 


  



  


From: 


discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org]



On Behalf Of 


Bob Basques 


Sent: 


Monday, August 24, 2009 7:33 AM 


To: 


OSGeo Discussions 



Subject: 


RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and ProprietaryAlgorithms

RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms

[Bob Basques]

All, 

Ok, I'm probably going to get someone irritated, but here goes . . . 

Why not approach this from the other end of the spectrum and work at making the 
original files smaller.  Work with the providers to make the images smaller in 
the first place, or at least come up with a maximum practical size to work 
with, I mean if this is the only (or biggest reason) for implementing JP2, then 
getting folks to make the smaller deliverables seems like a better long term 
approach. 

Here's my reasoning, we're never (ever?) going to hit the top end on how big 
files ever get, resolution just keeps going up and up, so there is always going 
to be some upper limit that will need to be breached somehow.  Working out a 
proper method for segregating the data up front (dare I say it), as some sort 
of standard (which can be adjusted as time passes) will make everything work 
nicely, then all will work with available tools when they are available, if 
tools to handle larger datasets become available, and the community feels there 
is a reason/need that these new larger files need to be handled, then they get 
to change the standard. 

bobb 






 Fawcett, David david.fawc...@state.mn.us wrote:


I realize that there are likely not a large number of people who have
the expertise and experience to write this kind of code. 

Is this a project that should be shopped around for funding?  Google
Summer of Code?  A grant from our ~benevolent overlord Google?  Some
other foundation or org interested in open data formats? 

David.
-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 4:36 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary
Algorithms
snip


 Do you know why there hasn't been a broader adoption of JP2?

Not through lack of trying on my part :-)

I think the two biggest reasons are:

(1) The algorithms for handling large images in memory really are rocket
science, and no one in the FOSS community has gotten the itch
sufficiently bad enough to go and do the work needed inside the existing
open source packages.  Hopefully someday someone will.


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms

[Bob Basques]

Rene, 

 how could we standardize for those future uses? 

I was thinking more along the lines of a standard file size more than
anything.  Nto all deliverable are even able to accomplish capturing a
whole contract in a single file, so if even a separation into more than
one file is needed, why not come up with some form of sizing standard, 
I realize that there are uses other than those that I have, but some
form of data tiling seems appropriate with this discussion. 

bobb 



 René A. Enguehard ahugen...@gmail.com wrote:

I agree, primarily because I just got a dataset from the city that was a
5Gb raster. I know hardrive space is cheap and so is processing power
but still, it took literally hours to get anything meaningful out of it.
Picking a more appropriate resolution, better compression and eventually
switching file formats would have helped immensely but wasn't done since
the prevailing attitude is that bigger is better. This attitude is
really the same as in the programming world, where programs keep getting
slower and slower (in terms of time complexity) but it's deemed okay
since computers are also getting faster.

I don't think this attitude is going to change any time soon though and
making some form of standard would simply not work. How could we
standardize what resolution and compression we should be using on
specific datasets for specific applications? There are uses we haven't
even thought up yet, how could we standardize for those future uses?

Just my 0.02$
R

Bob Basques wrote:

 All,


 Ok, I'm probably going to get someone irritated, but here goes . . .


 Why not approach this from the other end of the spectrum and work at
 making the original files smaller.  Work with the providers to make
 the images smaller in the first place, or at least come up with a
 maximum practical size to work with, I mean if this is the only (or
 biggest reason) for implementing JP2, then getting folks to make the
 smaller deliverables seems like a better long term approach.


 Here's my reasoning, we're never (ever?) going to hit the top end on
 how big files ever get, resolution just keeps going up and up, so
 there is always going to be some upper limit that will need to be
 breached somehow.  Working out a proper method for segregating the
 data up front (dare I say it), as some sort of standard (which can be
 adjusted as time passes) will make everything work nicely, then all
 will work with available tools when they are available, if tools to
 handle larger datasets become available, and the community feels there
 is a reason/need that these new larger files need to be handled, then
 they get to change the standard.


 bobb







  Fawcett, David david.fawc...@state.mn.us wrote:


 I realize that there are likely not a large number of people who have
 the expertise and experience to write this kind of code.

 Is this a project that should be shopped around for funding?  Google
 Summer of Code?  A grant from our ~benevolent overlord Google?  Some
 other foundation or org interested in open data formats?

 David.
 -Original Message-
 From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org
 [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P.
Gerlek
 Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 4:36 PM
 To: OSGeo Discussions
 Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary
 Algorithms
 snip


  Do you know why there hasn't been a broader adoption of JP2?

 Not through lack of trying on my part :-)

 I think the two biggest reasons are:

 (1) The algorithms for handling large images in memory really are
rocket
 science, and no one in the FOSS community has gotten the itch
 sufficiently bad enough to go and do the work needed inside the
existing
 open source packages.  Hopefully someday someone will.


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RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and ProprietaryAlgorithms

[Bob Basques]

Landon, 

It would be interesting to come up with a standard structure on a
computer file system that could be used to accessed tiled raster data,
if this hasn’t been done already. One the file system structure was
defined, it would be fairly easy to write open source software that
accessed this structure and provided individual tiles as a service to
desktop GIS applications.   

Hmm, interesting angle, to expand on your idea a bit more, what about a
processing suite (or set of suites) that process data for different
types of uses, visual display, DEM analysis, etc.  Each processor
stack would/could have it's own rules associated with data resolution vs
files sizes, etc.   

bobb 





 Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com wrote:



Bobb wrote: “Here's my reasoning, we're never (ever?) going to hit the
top end on how big files ever get, resolution just keeps going up and
up, so there is always going to be some upper limit that will need to be
breached somehow.  Working out a proper method for segregating the data
up front (dare I say it), as some sort of standard (which can be
adjusted as time passes) will make everything work nicely, then all will
work with available tools when they are available, if tools to handle
larger datasets become available, and the community feels there is a
reason/need that these new larger files need to be handled, then they
get to change the standard.” 


  


I agree with some of the points you are making in your argument Bobb.
There is certainly a practical limit to how much you data you should put
in a single file. That is why we have lumber cut to 8 foot lengths. You
don’t need a flatbed semi to carry it to your house. :] 


  


When you refer to a standard for splitting data up front, what do you
mean? 


  


It would be interesting to come up with a standard structure on a
computer file system that could be used to accessed tiled raster data,
if this hasn’t been done already. One the file system structure was
defined, it would be fairly easy to write open source software that
accessed this structure and provided individual tiles as a service to
desktop GIS applications. 


  


Landon 



From: 

discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org]

On Behalf Of 

Bob Basques

Sent: 

Monday, August 24, 2009 7:33 AM

To: 

OSGeo Discussions

Subject: 

RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and ProprietaryAlgorithms 



  


All, 



  


Ok, I'm probably going to get someone irritated, but here goes . . 



  


Why not approach this from the other end of the spectrum and work at
making the original files smaller.  Work with the providers to make the
images smaller in the first place, or at least come up with a maximum
practical size to work with, I mean if this is the only (or biggest
reason) for implementing JP2, then getting folks to make the smaller
deliverables seems like a better long term approach. 



  


Here's my reasoning, we're never (ever?) going to hit the top end on how
big files ever get, resolution just keeps going up and up, so there is
always going to be some upper limit that will need to be breached
somehow.  Working out a proper method for segregating the data up front
(dare I say it), as some sort of standard (which can be adjusted as time
passes) will make everything work nicely, then all will work with
available tools when they are available, if tools to handle larger
datasets become available, and the community feels there is a
reason/need that these new larger files need to be handled, then they
get to change the standard. 



  


bobb 










 Fawcett, David david.fawc...@state.mn.us wrote: 



I realize that there are likely not a large number of people who have
the expertise and experience to write this kind of code. 

Is this a project that should be shopped around for funding?  Google
Summer of Code?  A grant from our ~benevolent overlord Google?  
Some[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 4:36 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary
Algorithms
snip


 Do you know why there hasn't been a broader adoption of JP2?

Not through lack of trying on my part :-)

I think the two biggest reasons are:

(1) The algorithms for handling large images in memory really are rocket
science, and no one in the FOSS community has gotten the itch
sufficiently bad enough to go and do the work needed inside the existing
open source packages.  Hopefully someday someone will.


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RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats andProprietaryAlgorithms

[Bob Basques]

Landon, 

Just had another thought . . . 

What about setting up a (openSource) tool set specifically for handling
Raster images for pre-processing purposes.  Might even be something that
publishers could re-distribute with their datasets, as in this processor
stack works with our data. 

Just thinking on the run here, no detail (or ramifications though
through [at all  :c) ]) 

bobb 



 Bob Basques bob.basq...@ci.stpaul.mn.us wrote:

Landon, 


It would be interesting to come up with a standard structure on a
computer file system that could be used to accessed tiled raster data,
if this hasn’t been done already. One the file system structure was
defined, it would be fairly easy to write open source software that
accessed this structure and provided individual tiles as a service to
desktop GIS applications.   


Hmm, interesting angle, to expand on your idea a bit more, what about a
processing suite (or set of suites) that process data for different
types of uses, visual display, DEM analysis, etc.  Each processor
stack would/could have it's own rules associated with data resolution vs
files sizes, etc.   


bobb 






 Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com wrote:




Bobb wrote: “Here's my reasoning, we're never (ever?) going to hit the
top end on how big files ever get, resolution just keeps going up and
up, so there is always going to be some upper limit that will need to be
breached somehow.  Working out a proper method for segregating the data
up front (dare I say it), as some sort of standard (which can be
adjusted as time passes) will make everything work nicely, then all will
work with available tools when they are available, if tools to handle
larger datasets become available, and the community feels there is a
reason/need that these new larger files need to be handled, then they
get to change the standard.” 







I agree with some of the points you are making in your argument Bobb.
There is certainly a practical limit to how much you data you should put
in a single file. That is why we have lumber cut to 8 foot lengths. You
don’t need a flatbed semi to carry it to your house. :] 







When you refer to a standard for splitting data up front, what do you
mean? 







It would be interesting to come up with a standard structure on a
computer file system that could be used to accessed tiled raster data,
if this hasn’t been done already. One the file system structure was
defined, it would be fairly easy to write open source software that
accessed this structure and provided individual tiles as a service to
desktop GIS applications. 







Landon 





From: 

discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org]

On Behalf Of 

Bob Basques

Sent: 

Monday, August 24, 2009 7:33 AM

To: 

OSGeo Discussions

Subject: 

RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and ProprietaryAlgorithms 








All, 








Ok, I'm probably going to get someone irritated, but here goes . . 








Why not approach this from the other end of the spectrum and work at
making the original files smaller.  Work with the providers to make the
images smaller in the first place, or at least come up with a maximum
practical size to work with, I mean if this is the only (or biggest
reason) for implementing JP2, then getting folks to make the smaller
deliverables seems like a better long term approach. 








Here's my reasoning, we're never (ever?) going to hit the top end on how
big files ever get, resolution just keeps going up and up, so there is
always going to be some upper limit that will need to be breached
somehow.  Working out a proper method for segregating the data up front
(dare I say it), as some sort of standard (which can be adjusted as time
passes) will make everything work nicely, then all reason/need that these new 
larger files need to be handled, then they
get to change the standard. 








bobb 












 Fawcett, David david.fawc...@state.mn.us wrote: 




I realize that there are likely not a large number of people who have
the expertise and experience to write this kind of code. 

Is this a project that should be shopped around for funding?  Google
Summer of Code?  A grant from our ~benevolent overlord Google?  Some
other foundation or org interested in open data formats? 

David.
-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 4:36 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary
Algorithms
snip


 Do you know why there hasn't been a broader adoption of JP2?

Not through lack of trying on my part :-)

I think the two biggest reasons are:

(1) The algorithms for handling large images in memory really are rocket
science, and no one in the FOSS community has gotten the itch

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats andProprietaryAlgorithms

[Bob Basques]

Markus, 

What's the standard (OGC?) part of this, just the calling structure, and 
consequent responses?  It looks like anything can be on the backenda s the 
processor, and the only enforcements are in the calling and results for the 
getcapabilities, maybe in the service(s) requests as well . . .  Still looking 
. . . 

bobb 





 Markus Neteler nete...@osgeo.org wrote:

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 6:20 PM, Bob Basquesbob.basq...@ci.stpaul.mn.us wrote:
 Landon,

 Just had another thought . . .

 What about setting up a (openSource) tool set specifically for handling
 Raster images for pre-processing purposes.  Might even be something that
 publishers could re-distribute with their datasets, as in this processor
 stack works with our data.

Try this :)
http://pywps.wald.intevation.org/

Markus
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats

[Bob Basques]

All, 

I agree, very good conversation, I've already pointed a few folks at it as the 
same topic has come up here at work on two different projects, as well as a 
Survey I just completed yesterday for a Federal data provider. I pointed the 
survey taker at this thread as well. 

bobb 



 Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com wrote:



I think we were talking about the easiest way to implement saving space. :] 


I was trying to point out (and maybe Paul was also) that ease of implementation 
(now or in the future) should be a factor the government chooses when selection 
a file format/technology for data storage and distribution to the public. 


There are a number of other factors, as MPG mentioned. 


This has been a really good discussion, and I will try to get some content 
about open file formats on the wiki as Arnulf requested. Maybe next week? 


Landon 



Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 



Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 



  


  




From: 

discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] 
On Behalf Of 

Bob Basques

Sent: 

Friday, August 21, 2009 11:28 AM

To: 

OSGeo Discussions; Ivan Lucena

Subject: 

RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] OpenFile FormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] 



  


All, 



  


Can someone remind me again, are we talking about saving space, or making it 
easier to implement something . . .  :c) 



  


I personally prefer nice simple internal pyramided tiles with indexing, about 
10% extra space, and very good performance. 



  


Someone earlier in this thread spoke about some of these technologies being 
somewhat obsolete what with the new network and bandwidth speeds available for 
publishing. 



  


bobb 



  




 Lucena, Ivan ivan.luc...@pmldnet.com wrote: 


But you can't compress data types other than byte in JPG. Can you do that in 
JP2K?


  ---Original Message---
  From: Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com
  Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open 
 FileFormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
  Sent: Aug 21 '09 12:42
 
  Paul,
 
  I was wondering the same thing.
 
  It seems a little like choosing to drive a Honda Accord, or a Ferrari.
  The Ferrari is a lot faster and comes with a better looking trophy wife
  (or husband), but the Honda is a lot easier to fix. (Try finding an
  affordable Ferrari mechanic in Stockton, California.)
 
  To tie this back into our original discussion, it seems like the
  government should be choosing to drive a Honda Accord when it can,
  instead of the Ferrari.
 
  I guess you'd really have to crunch the numbers and see if the savings
  in bandwidth/disk space costs were really worth the compression savings
  that result from a proprietary compression scheme (wavelet black
  magic).
 
  The problem with this is a lot of the benefits that come from the Honda
  Accord (open image format + open compression algorithm) aren't easily
  calculated in dollars and cents.
 
  Still, this speaks to an important truth I have discovered in open
  source development: Simple is better, even when it isn't necessarily
  faster and smaller.
 
  I'd rather have code that I can understand, or a file format that a
  programmer in 20 years will understand, than a Ferrari you can't drive
  unless you have a PHD and did a thesis on wavelet compression. :]
 
  Landon
  Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268
  Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658
 
 
 
  -Original Message-
  From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org
  [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Paul Ramsey
  Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 10:36 AM
  To: OSGeo Discussions
  Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File
  FormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
 
  So hung up on wavelets, we are.
 
  Internally tiled TIFF with JPEG compression and similarly formatted
  internal overviews can achieve 10:1 compression rates without
  noticeable image quality reductions, and as an added bonus can be
  decompressed a heck of a lot faster than wavelet-based formats. The
  wavelet stuff is k00l, in that there is no need for an overview
  pyramid (it's implicit in the compression math) and much higher
  compression rates can be achieved. But operationally, you can go a
  long way with the more primitive (open image format + open compression
  algorithm) approach.
 
  P.
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RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo friendly countries to live in

[Bob Basques]

All, 

Chiming in here on this thread, good reading BTW . . . 

I would like to expand somewhat on the idea that Open Formats should be the 
number one consideration. 

I would personally like to see the data be primarily released in an open 
format, and then these other market related aspects taken into account.  If 
there seems to be more users of a certain type, then by all means accommodate 
them, but setting out initially with an open form will further reuse of the 
data much faster (IMO) and allow for others to reuse much easier. 

Too bad we could get companies to just serve things up in their repsective data 
forms as services and be done with it.  If it's to their advantage they can 
maintain the data in their desired form. 

bobb 



 Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com wrote:

MPG,

I didn't mean to shine a spotlight on the USDA's use of MRSID. It is one
of several examples of an attitude I was trying to describe.

I think you and I respectfully disagree with one another on one aspect
of this debate. In my humble opinion sharing data acquired with tax
payer funding in a format that is easily accessed without the use of
proprietary software should be the most important factor in a file
format decision by a government agency. (Well, maybe the second most
important. The most important is the license that data is released
under.)

A company is well within its rights to use and promote a proprietary
file format. I admit that file format may even have awesome benefits
when compared to the best equivalent open file format.

Just don't ask me to be happy when my government decides to use this
proprietary file format. I think it short changes the citizens of the
government and give that company an unfair advantage over its
competitors.

I'd much rather see the government support a company that was trying to
build its business around open technology standards.

In my opinion, you can't have it all. If you want to build your business
model around a proprietary file format like DWG or MRSID you should be
prepared to deal with a little push back from open source and open
technology advocates, especially when their money (in the form of tax
dollars) is involved.

One of the greatest things ESRI ever did was publish the Shapefile
specification. I don't doubt they have a software monopoly of sorts, but
I will always respect them for that move. In many respects it has
changed my view of their company. I don't know that the free software
movement on the geospatial side of things would have been widely adopted
without that standard way to share data.

But alas, I am just one man and my opinion doesn't count for much in the
greater scheme of things!

I appreciate having an open source advocate like you at LizardTech, and
please don't take my e-mail as a personal attack. The use of open file
formats by our governments is just something I feel strongly about.

Landon


-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 7:23 AM
To: OSGeo Discussions; punk...@eidesis.org
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo friendly countries to live in

Like the subject of patents from a couple weeks ago, we need to be
careful of painting
these things with too broad a brush.


 I've got to have MicroStation to work with CALTRANS, AutoCAD to work
with my local city,
 ESRI to work with the County's GIS department, and software from
LizardTech to use the
 imagery distributed by USDA for my County in MRSID format. To make it
even more pleasant,
 AutoDESK breaks its file compatibility every other version or so,
which means my company
 gets to purchase a license upgrade if we want to keep dealing with our
government clients.

 Money talks in United States politics, and I'm sure the big boys in
the software development
 throw plenty of greenbacks around when it suits there purpose.

I'm not sure what you mean by this -- lobbying?  Campaign contributions?
Yes, MrSID is widely
used in parts of the federal government but it is certainly not the case
that LizardTech has
ever thrown plenty of greenbacks around to get anyone to use our file
format.  (I doubt the
various owners of ECW ever have either.)


 I'm not saying there is a malicious intent on government agencies to
make life difficult.
 But I certainly don't see a widespread effort to embrace open source
for its benefits, or
 to look for any alternatives to the widely established monopolies.

In the case of one very prominent use of MrSID in the US federal
government, an open standard
solution was explicitly considered as an alternative, but it was notably
rejected in large part
because of the lack of penetration and technical expertise in the target
marketplace and
ecosystem.

I actually see a lot of explicit government consideration of open
standards and open source
software -- and it gets better every year.  However, adoption of new
technologies (when done
right!) requires 

RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Any interest in open source AutoLISPcodeforgeospatial applications?

[Bob Basques]

Landon, 

I don't know about advanced, but we did make a concerted effort to use
as generic as possible tools to put things together.  Everything is a
component that talks to another component. 

I've used a bunch of different routines over the years to achieve 
similar ends, importing stuff before OGC existed for example . . .
anyway, I would be interested to hear your experiences with the
Intellicad side of things, I did look at this a while back as a possible
fill in for additional AutoCAD seats.  While AutoCAD is easy to justify
for the all day user, the use of AutoCAD as an AutoMation tools (which
I've been doing for years) is starting to become much less cost
effective for us.   Our code may swap out with Intellicad with very
little effort and may be something were interested in pursuing
development wise. 

bobb 



 Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com wrote:


Bob, 


  


It sounds like your code is a lot more advanced than mine! I’m not
working with any Civil or Land Desktop tools just yet, because I want
all of my code to run on the IntelliCAD platform as well. 


  


I will keep you posted on my efforts, and I hope we find room to
collaborate in the future. 


  


Landon 



Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 



Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 



  


  




From: 

discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org]

On Behalf Of 

Bob Basques

Sent: 

Tuesday, August 04, 2009 8:17 AM

To: 

OSGeo Discussions

Subject: 

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Any interest in open source AutoLISP
codeforgeospatial applications? 



  


Landon, 



  


Related to the previous Email, we also have WMS and WFS services for use
by AutoDesk products with our own importers (so all AutoDesk products
can import, not just Map based)  We use our own Style templates and
everything, still a work in progress, but it's very closely related to
your original question as well. ,  The same processes are used for both
the general WMS/WFS service importing as are used for the Civil 3D and
LandXML based imports. 



  


I've been suggesting to AutoDesk rep's, when the opportunity arises,
that these interoperability things need to work across the product line.




  


bobb 



  




 Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com wrote: 


  


I’m a regular CAD user at my day job. I’ve been working for the last few
weeks on cleaning and packaging some of my AutoLISP code, which can be
used to customize Autodesk’s AutoCAD and IntelliCAD programs. I’m
getting ready to make my first release of the code. 


  


  


  


My focus with the AutoLISP code is the creation of functionality that
makes it easier to work with land surveying and GIS data in AutoCAD.
Tools to import and export feature geometry in OGC WKT format is one
example of the type of functionality I am talking about. 


  


  


  


I would like to know if there are other CAD users among the OSGeo that
would be interested in this code. If there is enough interest I would
like to release the code as part of an OSGeo Labs project. If there
isn’t sufficient interest, then I will release my code under my
SourceForge project. I’m asking now, before I make the initial release,
because the copyright for all of the code I release as part of my
SourceForge project is transferred to the Software Freedom Conservancy.
If I’m going to work on the code with others as part of OSGeo Labs, then
I will want to transfer the copyright to OSGeo. 


  


  


  


Let me know if you are interested. I don’t have the code online just
yet, but I can send you a copy if you want to take a peek. I will warn
you know that the code is nothing spectacular, and at this point is just
a collection and reorganization of some scripts I have had laying
around. 


  


  


  


Landon 


  


  


  


  


  


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] fleet management

[Bob Basques]

Alll, 

You can count me as interested, I'm also interested in the emergency Management 
side of the equation. 

bobb 



 Anton Patrushev anton.patrus...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Dimitris,

I don't know any open source fleet management solution, but I'm also
very interested in such thing and would like to join the group if
there we decide to start one.

Anton.


2009/7/15 Dimitris Kotzinos kotz...@csd.uoc.gr:
 Dear all,

 I have a couple of quick questions looking for equally quick :) answers.
 1/ does anyone know of an open source solution for fleet management?
 2/ if not, is there an interest of starting/setting up a group to work on
 this?

 Thanks in advance,

 Best,

 Dimitris


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] This Thread is Dead (was Re: Comparison between MapServer/OpenLayers and ESRI ArcIMS)

[Bob Basques]

All,

This THREAD will never be dead, only the subject will change (I'm 
afraid.)   :c)


bobb




Bill Thoen wrote:
Message subjects, like diapers, need to be changed once in a while. 
Usually for the same reasons, too.




Traian Stanev wrote:


 

However, they (the US govt.) don’t even need a specific legal 
provision to spy on data that is hosted outside the US, and they’ve 
been doing that since forever…


 


;-)

 

 

 

*From:* discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org 
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] *On Behalf Of *Richard 
Desrochers

*Sent:* Sunday, May 31, 2009 8:34 PM
*To:* rkgeo...@cadmaps.com; OSGeo Discussions
*Subject:* Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Comparison between 
MapServer/OpenLayers and ESRI ArcIMS


 

One thing to consider using a cloud approach with Amazon is the 
license agreement concerning your data.
Under the Patriot Act in the US all data hosted in the US could be 
made available to the US government.


Not all corporations are ready to live with that.

Richard

2009/5/30 Randy George rkgeo...@cadmaps.com 
mailto:rkgeo...@cadmaps.com


Cloud options are looking interesting.

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/  Windows, Linux, Solaris options

I imagine ESRI license entanglement with virtual servers could be a 
problem. But no problem at all with Open Source GIS stacks. No 
license to get tangled with load balancing and auto scaling where 
servers come and go as needed. Mostly I've seen small business 
interest since they tend to take overhead costs more seriously.


It might be useful to include a Cloud based server solution addendum, 
because that would be less optimal for an ESRI vendor and could look 
good compared to in-house hardware.


Unfortunately, medium and large organizations seem to have budget 
allocations already in place for the big ticket approach. But then in 
this economy even that could be changing.


AWS now includes Load Balancing and Auto Scaling options as well as 
S3 Backup, multiple offsite elastic block store duplication, edge 
cache, and elastic IP.
http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2009/05/17/monitoring-auto-scaling-elastic-load-balancing/ 



And for the real bleeding edge http://aws.amazon.com/elasticmapreduce/
(Not a selling point to small, medium, or large organizations, unless 
academically oriented :-)


rkgeorge

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org 
mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org 
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org 
mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Jason Birch

Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 5:49 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Comparision between 
MapServer/OpenLayers and ESRI ArcIMS


I think that it's generally less fear of the unknown or job security 
than it is the cost of adding complexity to what is often an already 
over-extended support load.  In many cases it just makes sense to 
spend $1000 for a server OS that doesn't require additional training, 
is easy to get qualified techs for, and just works with the 
existing systems.  It doesn't matter how easy Linux is; it's one more 
thing to keep track of and one more thing to go wrong.


If you want to win the open source battle at small organisations 
that don't already have OS operating system tendencies, focus on the 
application level where you can make a strong business case on a 
feature-by-feature level, and with additional arguments about truly 
open data being more sustainable and less risky.  Personally I think 
that an open source or bust attitude is not very pragmatic.  Sell 
open source software where it is the best tool for the job, but pick 
your battles.


Jason

-Original Message-
From: Alex Mandel
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 4:25 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Comparision between 
MapServer/OpenLayers and ESRI ArcIMS


That would be fear of the unknown(non gui) and job security at work.
Wouldn't want someone else in the org who knows more about running 
servers.
Maybe you can get them to throw a bone to demo something on a virtual 
machine hosted elsewhere(Amazon) just to show how easy it is.


Welcome to the land of small to medium government agencies, etc.
The best thing here is showing examples from equivalent groups, of 
which there are plenty online now.


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Liability Issues For Companies Supporting OpenSource Development

[Bob Basques]

Landon,

We've wrestled with similar issues, and took the stance that we either contract 
with the open-source project itself, one of it's developers or just plain old 
donate funds on a handshake agreement.  I have to admit the handshake stuff is 
only for small quick turnaround types of things.

A biggy piece though, is for the OpenSource group to have some sort of 
Corporate rep that can handle the administration of larger/longer term projects.

I'm involved in a non-profit (SharedGeo) related to this type of work.  It 
seems there is a need for this knowledgeable middle level admin component for 
largish projects related to OpenSource.

bobb



 Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com 04/02/09 1:46 PM 
I'm curious about the type if liability issues a company might open
itself up to by supporting open source software development. Let me give
you a scenario:

 

A graphic design company decides it will sponsor some development of the
SVG editor Inkscape. It puts out an RFP for the functionality it would
like added to the program. It sets up a source code repository for these
changes, hires a company/individual developer to perform the work, and
works with the community to integrate the improvements back into the
main development trunk.

 

What legal liability might this introduce the company to?

 

Is there an article or paper that discusses this question? I'm working
on small business support for an open source project, and I know one of
the first objections I will run into is we don't want to be liable for
any programming effort we support financially.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Landon

 

 



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RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Liability Issues For CompaniesSupportingOpenSource Development

[Bob Basques]

Landon, 

Then it sounds like you are setting yourself up as the middle tier project 
lead, doling out the monies to the developers and getting back the capabilities 
you desire.  I don't see the liability piece really getting in the way since 
Franks' explanation would put the Liability issue towards the disclaimer from 
the project itself, not your or your clients.

One thing though, you do want to follow through and make sure your additions 
get passed back to the OpenSource project (officially) so you are clear of any 
liability/ownership stuff.  Sometime this is hard to keep after , especially 
after you get what you wanted capability wise.  I like using the notion that 
we're liable if it doesn't get back into the developer/opensource project 
hands.  Sort of using the system so to speak.

bobb



 Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com 04/02/09 1:59 PM 
Bob,

I'd be issuing and RFP for the work, and we would be working with
another company. I hadn't thought about it, but that might alleviate
some of the concern.

Landon
Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268
Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658
 
 

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Bob Basques
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 10:56 AM
To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Liability Issues For Companies
SupportingOpenSource Development

Landon,

We've wrestled with similar issues, and took the stance that we either
contract with the open-source project itself, one of it's developers or
just plain old donate funds on a handshake agreement.  I have to admit
the handshake stuff is only for small quick turnaround types of things.

A biggy piece though, is for the OpenSource group to have some sort of
Corporate rep that can handle the administration of larger/longer term
projects.

I'm involved in a non-profit (SharedGeo) related to this type of work.
It seems there is a need for this knowledgeable middle level admin
component for largish projects related to OpenSource.

bobb



 Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com 04/02/09 1:46 PM 
I'm curious about the type if liability issues a company might open
itself up to by supporting open source software development. Let me give
you a scenario:

 

A graphic design company decides it will sponsor some development of the
SVG editor Inkscape. It puts out an RFP for the functionality it would
like added to the program. It sets up a source code repository for these
changes, hires a company/individual developer to perform the work, and
works with the community to integrate the improvements back into the
main development trunk.

 

What legal liability might this introduce the company to?

 

Is there an article or paper that discusses this question? I'm working
on small business support for an open source project, and I know one of
the first objections I will run into is we don't want to be liable for
any programming effort we support financially.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Landon

 

 



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] seeking OS client API to embed maps in desktop app

[Bob Basques]

All,

GeoMoose doesn't do everything you're looking for, but it's a very good 
for connecting and presenting different data streams in a single 
interface.  Combining it with something like QGIS is something we've 
looked at ourselves.


bobb



Tim Sutton wrote:

Hi


2009/1/23 Judy and Chris Beaudette jcbea...@yahoo.com:
  

greetings.

my company is developing a demo that queries tabular data for environmental
facilities based on environmental interests, NAICS codes, etc. and generates
reports that have embedded simple maps (google maps) with the facility
location and some facility details in a custom marker.  we want to embellish
the maps by pulling data from different sources as follows:
   - environmental tabular/attribute data in xml fed from Web services
   - GeoRSS with location data from the same Web services
   - spatial data from other WMS, WFS, WCS services

to that end, we're looking for an appropriate open source GIS client
application that can do the OGC stuff and that we can pass the attribute and
GeoRSS stuff for rendering the environmental data.

those are the gotta-haves.  the nice-to-haves are:
   - .NET or C/C++ API (preferred) or Java API, so that the maps can be
embedded in a desktop application, but barring that:
   - a Web API (HTML, python, php, etc.), and barring that:
   - a desktop client that can be invoked from our app that can do all of
the above

after browsing the products pages at osgeo.org, opengeospatial.org,
opensourcegis.org and freegis.org, the names that kept coming up were gvSIG,
iGeoPortal, and maybe uDIG, with various other possibilities (cartoweb,
GeoDango, Chameleon, Mapfish, and of course many others).

does anyone have any thoughts or opinions on what would:
   - work best to support the functionality required in the demo, while at
the same time (and to a lesser degree):
   - what is a viable long-term solution (i.e. not likely to go away any
time soon)

thanks in advance,

~~crb





QGIS (http://qgis.org) is probably a good fit for your needs - we have
an API that can be used from Python or C++. It doesnt have everything
you need (e.g. GeoRSS support isnt there) but its a great solution for
writing vertical applications with embedded GIS data browsing
functionality.

Regards

Tim

  
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Generating html clickable image maps from polygons

[Bob Basques]

MapServer can do this via Templates.

We use it in our GISmo (GeoMoose) interface quite a bit for Popups.

you can see it action here:
http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/gis/gismo_public/html/

Just zoom in a ways, a couple of blocks, turn on the Address Point
layer, and then switch to the Visible Layers tab, and make the Address
layer imagemap active, it should be highlighted in Blue in the right
hand control panel if you have zoomed in enough on the map.  Just toggle
it on and mouse over the Address Points.

If you want the technical peak at things, here is the imagemap output
call from Mapserver (that GeoMoose builds):
http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us/datasets/DB/SAINT_PAUL/PUBLIC_WORKS/ADDRESS/STAMP-active_public.map?mapext=587340.1267982177%20162002.83410579615%20588032.8548504771%20162477.73387889678mapsize=1218%20835mode=nquerysearchmap=true

The above link generates a Imagemap (only) fragment for use by GeoMoose.
 MapServer builds it based on Templates, as described in the MapServer
docs in someone else's reply.

bobb




 Alexandre Leroux alexandre.ler...@ec.gc.ca 01/05/09 3:07 PM 

Hi list,

A rather technical question. I was able to find a potential solution 
with GRASS GIS, but want to know if there are other solutions involving 
FOSS4G software.

Which other FOSS4G software can generate html clickable image maps out 
of polygons? The challenge is simple: a colleague has many polygons that

must be exported to several clickable PNGs like the example on this 
page: http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/warnings/sqc_e.html
(A webmap tool such as OpenLayers would be much more powerful, but in 
some cases we do need clickable PNGs.)

I found out it seems GRASS GIS 6.3+ can do it via its HTMLMAP driver:
http://www.phygeo.uni-hannover.de/grass/grass63/manuals/html63_user/htmlmapdriver.html
Can any other OSGeo software do the same?


Thanks for any reply!

Alex
-- 
Alexandre Leroux, M.Sc., Ing.
Environnement Canada / Environment Canada
Centre météorologique canadien / Canadian Meteorological Centre
Section de la réponse aux urgences environnementales /
Environmental Emergency Response Section
alexandre.ler...@ec.gc.ca
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