Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Thoughts on how to use elevation in routing
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. ;-) 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. 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. 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. - 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 pretty crude estimates and probably would need some fine tuning to get reasonable results. Thanks, -Steve W On 9/13/2010 4:24 PM, Bill Thoen wrote: Stephen Woodbridge 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? Since you seem to enjoy large database problems, have you considered loading the DEM data together with the roads and sample the viewshed every few km? You could then create an objective cost factor for scenic, proportional to the amount of land visible, with some adjusting factor that distinguishes morphology, land cover, or other weighted factors from each sample point. Creating a scale of scenic and picturesque as it goes form ho-hum flatland to precipitous, brake-burning, wheel-gripping adventurous might be fun all by itself. If you're looking for 3D ideas, there's a GIS consulting company across the hall from me that specializes in 3D information, visualization and analysis, and I know they are working on web services to deliver the sort of data that an application like yours would consume. Their website is full of 3D imagery, articles and examples that you might want to check out for ideas or inspiration There's a particularly good demonstration of using fog instead of shadow to create a visual representation of ridge lines, if your 're using those to determine a topographic index (see http://ctmap.com/serendipity/index.php). *Bill Thoen* GISnet - www.gisnet.com http://www.gisnet.com/ 1401 Walnut St., Suite C Boulder, CO 80302 303-786-9961 tel 303-443-4856 fax bth...@gisnet.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- *Bill Thoen* GISnet - www.gisnet.com 303-786-9961 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Looking for Yum or RPM Site for GIS Suite for Centos 5.5
Thanks! I've still got to finish getting the machine built and the RAID system set up and get PostgreSQL sorted out. Then I should be in position to start loading up on GIS tools. I'll probably be asking plenty of questions then. - Bill Thoen . On 9/14/2010 5:41 AM, Mathieu Baudier wrote: Thanks for all the help and advice on this, everybody! Especially for the info on EPEL and ELGIS. I guess I had no idea that getting stable and You can browse the spec files here: https://projects.argeo.org/elgis/svn/factory/trunk/rpmbuild/ in order to see whether the switches you need are all there. At first glance I think they are, but if you need some more, I can try to add them. software. And it sounds like QGIS is a non-starter on CentOS. But I've got I'm still trying to get QGIS fully working on CentOS 5, but as Micha put it, this may not be worth the effort given that RHEL/CentOS 6 is around the corner. For the time being you have QGIS 1.4 working, integrated with GRASS, BUT without the Python plugins (a big limitation). We also have SRPMS for QGIS 1.0.2 (their LTS version) but there was little interest in it, so we dropped it. I appreciate the help as always. Don't hesitate to join the EL GIS mailing-list: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/el This project is very user driven: we support what people actually use, so this is the right place to send your wish list. And feedback is very useful for us! ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- *Bill Thoen* GISnet - www.gisnet.com 303-786-9961 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Thoughts on how to use elevation in routing
Stephen Woodbridge 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? Since you seem to enjoy large database problems, have you considered loading the DEM data together with the roads and sample the viewshed every few km? You could then create an objective cost factor for scenic, proportional to the amount of land visible, with some adjusting factor that distinguishes morphology, land cover, or other weighted factors from each sample point. Creating a scale of scenic and picturesque as it goes form ho-hum flatland to precipitous, brake-burning, wheel-gripping adventurous might be fun all by itself. If you're looking for 3D ideas, there's a GIS consulting company across the hall from me that specializes in 3D information, visualization and analysis, and I know they are working on web services to deliver the sort of data that an application like yours would consume. Their website is full of 3D imagery, articles and examples that you might want to check out for ideas or inspiration There's a particularly good demonstration of using fog instead of shadow to create a visual representation of ridge lines, if your 're using those to determine a topographic index (see http://ctmap.com/serendipity/index.php). *Bill Thoen* GISnet - www.gisnet.com http://www.gisnet.com/ 1401 Walnut St., Suite C Boulder, CO 80302 303-786-9961 tel 303-443-4856 fax bth...@gisnet.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Looking for Yum or RPM Site for GIS Suite for Centos 5.5
Bill Thoen wrote: I hope this is the appropriate place for this general-GIS software question. Apologies if this isn't it. I'm looking for a yum repo or an rpm download site for the following set of GIS packages for a machine running Centos 5.5: PostgreSQL Proj4 GDAL / OGR tools GEOS PostGIS MapServer PHP Mapscript Open Layers Quantum GIS Thanks for all the help and advice on this, everybody! Especially for the info on EPEL and ELGIS. I guess I had no idea that getting stable and reliable CentOS 5.5 means going back to earlier versions of the working software. And it sounds like QGIS is a non-starter on CentOS. But I've got FC13 on another machine so I can set it up there. I appreciate the help as always. -- *Bill Thoen* GISnet - www.gisnet.com http://www.gisnet.com/ 1401 Walnut St., Suite C Boulder, CO 80302 303-786-9961 tel 303-443-4856 fax bth...@gisnet.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Looking for Yum or RPM Site for GIS Suite for Centos 5.5
I hope this is the appropriate place for this general-GIS software question. Apologies if this isn't it. I'm looking for a yum repo or an rpm download site for the following set of GIS packages for a machine running Centos 5.5: PostgreSQL Proj4 GDAL / OGR tools GEOS PostGIS MapServer PHP Mapscript Open Layers Quantum GIS I'd like to have PostGIS compiled with at least these switches or their equivalent built in: --with-pgsql=... --with-geos=... --with-proj=... --with-proj-libdir=... GDAL should have at least these switches set: --with-pg=... --with-geos=yes MapServer --with-proj=/usr/local/ \ --with-geos=/usr/local/bin/geos-config \ --with-ogr=/usr/local/bin/gdal-config \ --with-gdal=/usr/local/bin/gdal-config \ --with-postgis=/usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_config \ --with-wfs \ --with-wcs \ --with-wmsclient \ --with-wfsclient \ --with-curl-config=/usr/bin/curl-config \ --with-agg=/usr/local/src/agg --with-freetype \ --with-php= I used to just compile these from source, but my sysAdminis recommends that whenever possible, to use rpms to take advantage of yum's or rpm's file management. and inventory capabilities. Since this is a brand new machine, I'd like to follow the recommendations of people who know more than I do, whenever I can. So, does any know if there's a one-stop yum repository or rpm site where I can get everything as integrated, compatible rpms ? TIA, - Bil Thoen -- *Bill Thoen* GISnet - www.gisnet.com http://www.gisnet.com/ 1401 Walnut St., Suite C Boulder, CO 80302 303-786-9961 tel 303-443-4856 fax bth...@gisnet.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Looking for Yum or RPM Site for GIS Suite for Centos 5.5
Fawcett, David (MPCA) wrote: Micha Silver has a timely blog post: http://www.surfaces.co.il/?p=782 (via Planet OSGeo) Nothing like being in the right place at the right time. That article answers questions I haven't even formed yet. This paragraph alone has probably just saved me hours of frustration! The popular server platform, *CentOS*, can be nudged into service as a GIS workstation, but since it’s a 4 year old OS, many of it’s base packages (notably python is still at 2.4 on CentOS 5.5) are just too old to be compatible with the newer desktop applications. By adding the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux _EPEL http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/FAQ#howtouse_ repo you can install GRASS with a recent GDAL. PostGIS and Mapserver are also within an easy “yum install” command. But don’t even bother trying QGIS. Bottom line: CentOS 5 is the correct choice for a GIS database server, but for desktop use, let’s wait for CentOS 6. -- *Bill Thoen* GISnet - www.gisnet.com http://www.gisnet.com/ 1401 Walnut St., Suite C Boulder, CO 80302 303-786-9961 tel 303-443-4856 fax bth...@gisnet.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Working with shapefiles in PHP
Peter wrote: Regarding my previous query regarding tools to work with shapefiles in PHP, ive written a progress report, that might be useful to other passing PHP GIS newcomers. http://www.webspaces.net.nz/page.php?view=working_with_shapefiles Hi Peter, Thanks for the summary. That sort of stuff is gold for us who are newbies with some of these utilities. But I wanted to point out one thing you don't have right yet. You wrote: Mapnik is the new kid on the block, its used for open street map among other things. It does much of what mapserver does, but _mapnik has anti-aliasing_, hence does nice raster renders. The API is pretty much all MapServer does too. Just use the AGG driver in the OUTPUTFORMAT object in the mapfile to get nice-looking antialiasing over the entire map. -- *Bill Thoen* GISnet - www.gisnet.com 303-786-9961 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Anyone Know What's Happened to All the NAIP Servers?
Up until just a few days ago, USDA NAIP (US Dept of Agriculture's National Agriculture Inventory Program) 1-meter aerial imagery was available free from several government servers but suddenly they all seem to have gone dark. Both the USGS ArcGIS and USDA.gov servers and a couple of AFPO sources seemed to have dried up simultaneously. Doe anyone know why? Is it going to be restored or scrapped? Is It is available elsewhere? I was using the USGS server at http://isse.cr.usgs.gov/arcgis/services/Combined/USGS_EDC_Ortho_NAIP/MapServer/WMSServer? but it's now broadcasting a runtime error instead of images. I hope it's not gone for good because it is a great source for free aerial imagery. So if anyone knows what's happened or what's unfolding here I'd like to find out. With the GeoCommunicator site announcing its shut-down soon I'm getting concerned that something bigger might be happening to US govt. spatial data resources. - Bill Thoen ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Geodata as Public Record in U.S.
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 This comes up as 404 (not found) Is that the correct URL? ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source Lurkers
I've been a moderator for a commercial desktop mapping forum for more than 10 years and this behavior is quite common. I think it has more to do with how people adapt to a social network than it has to do with anything unique in the Open Source world. Like Chris mentioned, the majority of subscribers prefer to lurk below the public visibility horizon in a way that resembles an iceberg where only the tip remains above the waterline while the majority of its bulk lurks below. People lurk for many of the reasons you suggest, but I think the most common one is that they don't feel expert enough to contribute anything useful to a thread, and the risk of saying something stoopid --in public... and worse, thus revealing to their GIS/mapping peers the depth of their ignorance-- is just too embarrassing to contemplate. Especially when compared with the perceived safety of remaining anonymous in the shadows where they can drink in new knowledge like free beer while also being entertained by the interplay of the forum's regularly featured fools and sages. If we assume that Maslow was right about what motivates people (self-interest) then lurking in an open source community and not participating is exactly the wrong thing to do. If your business depends on some FOSS tool, then it's in your self-interest to expand the environment in which it operates as much as possible. Because if what you sell depends on tools like OpenJUMP, you want OpenJUMP well supported with a lively user group, a good supply of free data, technologically competitive, and actively being developed. This is the key to making money out of bits instead of atoms. If you sell services, give away the software and the infrastructure of the environment it runs in. This expands the market for your services and since the tools are free, the more people who download them the bigger your market share gets. If you sell software, give away services that leverage it. But if you lurk and don't contribute to its development or the development of the environment in which it operates, then you're sort of stepping on your own air hose. - Bill Thoen Landon Blake wrote: I would like to get some comments on a phenomenon I have discovered among the OpenJUMP community. I know for sure of one (1) company that maintains a separate fork of OpenJUMP, but which monitors our mailing list and likely grabs patches form our source code repository. They never participate in the forums or make known their use of OpenJUMP in any other public manner. I think there is at least one other company that does this. I only learn of these companies when I am contacted by private e-mail to work for them on OpenJUMP development, usually by some headhunter. I actually did a little work for one of these companies (which was not a great experience, but that is another story) and I was surprised at how important OpenJUMP was to their operation. They even distributed it to their customers. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why this company wouldn’t take a more active role in supporting the OpenJUMP community. I’m not necessarily talking about money here, but about writing documentation, contributing their own patches, or answering questions on the mailing lists. Our community is very informal and open, and an organization could likely have a large influence on the direction the program took with an investment of some resources. Is OpenJUMP the only community with these open source lurkers? How many of these companies do you think there are? (I’m not talking about one guy who downloads an open source app and uses it. I’m talking about actual companies with more than one employee.) Why don’t they get more involved? Are they embarrassed? Do they not want their competition to find out about the open source program they are benefiting from? Are they violating the terms of the license and don’t want to get busted? Do they not understand that their involvement is a key part of the program’s survival? This has become an important question for me recently as the active development of OpenJUMP has slowed. We don’t have any organizations actively participating in development. (Well, maybe one or two, but they have been quiet lately.) I’m the only one working on serious improvements or changes, and not just bug fixes. I would really like to reach out to these lurkers to get them more involved. Ultimately, the survival of the project may depend on it. What do you think? Send an e-mail to the project list with an invitation to contact me privately about getting more involved? Are these lurkers worth the time? Landon *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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Patent for feature of paper map.
You might be surprised what people might be able to get away with, though. There's been repeated attempts to patent web mapping for example, and if it wasn't for the efforts of a few dedicated people, there would now be patents in both Britain and the USA on displaying maps over the web. But the threat is not dead yet, believe it or not, and it may culminate in a battle between Microsoft and Google sometime in the near future. Check out Daniel Morissette's blog entry for Feb 21, 2009, Microsoft Patents the Map at http://www.systemed.net/blog/?p=68. If Microsoft really uses the Multimap patent to put the bite on Google, then you can bet your bippy that it'll affect your web mapping business too. If reading that article brings your blood to a righteous boil, and you want to know more about who really invented web mapping, see Carl Reed's 2004 article, Intellectual Property, Patents, and Web Mapping: Historical Perspective at http://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=28360. - Bill Thoen And I believe there actually was a patent issued for René A. Enguehard wrote: I suspect they might be applying for the patent but in for quite a surprise when it gets rejected. Features for maps would be very tricky to patent and, more importantly, not in the interest of the general public. As such the patent applications would probably get rejected. Would we really want people patenting things like projections, north arrows, scale bars or legends? I don't think it would be productive and suspect any patent office in its right mind would see it the same way. Patents were created to help people protect their ideas for a length of time so they could reap the rewards of their work and refine it without fear of being copied or undercut. This works very well for many things but fails miserably for conceptual things like maps or layouts for books or posters. This is why many patent offices now require people to patent systems rather than things. I don't see how a wrap-around map could be explained as a system. René IANAL Landon Blake wrote: The latest issue of the ACSM Bulletin had an interesting article about a map matrix that wraps around the edge of a paper map. It seems the company that is using this feature of hard copy map design is applying for a patent. I didn’t even think you could get a patent a feature of a paper map. It got me wondering who holds the patent on the use of a north arrow and scale. At any rate, here is the article if you are interested in reading it: http://www.webmazine.org/issues/current/documents/wrap.pdf I couldn’t find the patent application, or I would have posted a link to it. Let me know if you have any comments. Landon *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. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Patent for feature of paper map.
Christopher Schmidt wrote: Er, that blog is written by Richard Fairhurst. http://www.systemeD.net/blog/about.html Oops! Sorry about that. Too many windows open at the same time, I guess I lost track. Probably explains the double post too. Thanks for catching that. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: [Geodata] GeoNetwork opensource v2.4.0 released
Jeroen Ticheler wrote: We're proud to announce the release of GeoNetwork opensource 2.4.0. This is a major release for the project. GeoNetwork opensource ( http://geonetwork-opensource.org ) is a standards based geospatial catalog application that helps people and organizations to organize and publish their geospatial data through the web. It is currently used in numerous Spatial Data Infrastructure initiatives across the world. The link to Source Forge just takes me to an empty top-level SF page, and then when I try to downlaod I get the following error: Unable to find any mirror information for the GeoNetwork%20opensource/GeoNetwork%20opensource%202.4.0/geonetwork-install-2.4.0-0.jar file. Please select another file. Did I do something wrong or is this an installation malfunction? Regards, - Bill Thoen ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] This Thread is Dead (was Re: Comparison between MapServer/OpenLayers and ESRI ArcIMS)
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. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org mailto:Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Richard Desrochers ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Comparision between MapServer/OpenLayers and ESRI ArcIMS
Thanks for the help folks, especially to John Callahan. That was the best description of the problem with the ESRI solution that I've seen to date. What they offer may be good or not --I don't have the experience to argue that point-- but they are even more expensive that I had imagined. I'm very impressed with ESRI's marketing -- if they can sell this, they could sell snow to Santa Claus! Regards, - Bill Thoen ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Comparision between MapServer/OpenLayers and ESRI ArcIMS
I need to make a case for developing a map and data server using Open Source software such as MapServer, Open Layers, PostgereSQL/PostGIS to counter a proposal to go with ESRI's solutions. The client who this would be directed to manages a lot of land parcels on which some development is planned. As part of the support for this, the object is to build an Internet-accessible server that maintains about 800Gb of spatial and tabular data, that can provide interactive maps of the properties, data downloads of selected areas and layers in shapefile, AutoCAD and other formats. It also needs to generate 3D surfaces from dense LiDAR data that's available. It also needs a database cataloging system that can be searched for data held in the system. Finally, it needs to provide different access privileges to various personnel who will be using restricted data sets. So what I need are some *current* facts about what packages are needed to do this completely with ESRI software and what it will cost. Have any of you had to address this 800-lb gorilla problem recently and do you have any advice or facts I can use? I have to present my case to people who don't know much about GIS so I think price is going to be my best argument. So far, all I've been able to ascertain is that an Internet license for ArcIMS costs about $9 - $10K per dual core machine per year. Is that true? And don't you also need ArcSDE for the database connection, and some Arc3D for surface generation from LiDAR and copies of ArcGIS all around, and is data downloading even available through ArcIMS? What functionality comes out-of-the-box with ESRI's tools that meets what I've listed above? Is there something in the ESRI stable that can maintain differential, password-protected user access? How much would still have to be developed? And what about training and staff to maintain the system? What's that cost? If anyone has answers to any of these questions I'd be grateful if you could give me some facts. As it stands I can put those questions out for consideration, but I'd like to know the answers too. Thanks, - Bill Thoen ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
