GeoWeb Software Development

A few days after the holidays, I had some time to revisit some specification documents. I had even considered posting a link to some of the work I've done using Yahoo! GeoPlanet, based on the GeoLocator comparison work that I said I'd be doing a few posts back. I've decided to not post it at this time since I've noticed a lot of bots attempting to access my http server and I'd like to check the logs before doing so.

In the meantime, I'm going to post a couple of cool links that some people might enjoy looking at. Equal Area Maps is a site that explains and shows map projections and explains coordinate systems. They've used OpenLayers to make the maps interactive. It is a pretty cool learning tool. Also, here is a web site that shows what coordinate systems are applicable for certain areas. It's called SpatialReference.org and it's used by the Proj.4 and GDAL libraries to query and obtain coordinate system information. (see the About page for more detail) Finally, there is an EPSG Registry that works similar to SpatialReference.org, but stores the coordinate system information as GML.

Here is a comparison of the New Brunswick EPSG:2953 coordinate system as served from two of the above registries as GML. A nice advantage to the SpatialReference.org site is that it supports more than just the GML representation.

http://www.epsg-registry.org/export.htm?gml=urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::2953
http://www.spatialreference.org/ref/epsg/2953/gml/

I hope you'll find these sites useful, and if you know of any other useful sites, please let me know.

Since Google Maps redefined web mapping on the Internet, many companies and groups have spent a lot of effort on improving the mapping technology available online.

Here is a list of the most popular web APIs available:

• Google Maps
  
• Yahoo Maps
  
• Bing Maps
  
• OpenLayers
  
• GeoExt
  

The first three APIs are dedicated and robust architectures that will meet the needs of most people who want to put a quick map on the web. The downside is that they are more restrictive if you have different types of data already that you want to fuse together. However, they do allow for simple overlays and build upon their strong search engines to offer great geolocator functionality.

The last two APIs are JavaScript specific. In fact, GeoExt extends OpenLayers to add more complex widgets expected to most GIS users. This is a similar approach that CARIS is doing, except they are using the YUI library to extent OpenLayers in a new framework called Oscar.

Over the next few months, I'll be comparing the different features of each API and the advantages and disadvantages of each. Currently my only limitation is that My Opera's blog will not allow me to embed maps. I'll try to work around this so that it will keep people entertained. On top of this research, I'll be making use of the CARIS Spatial Fusion Server to showcase some pretty awesome mash ups.

If anyone has done anything similar to this or has any comments or suggestions, please let me know what you're interested in seeing in regards to this pet-project of mine, and I'll see what I can do to accommodate you.

In the meantime, I highly recommend if you are interested in learning GIS on the web, pick up GIS for Web Developers. It is one of the best reads you can get.

Well, I obviously just upgraded to Opera 10 and decided to test out the new My Opera blog feature.

I've always thought about starting a blog, but never bothered since I'm a workaholic. I've always admired the blog posts on DZone so I'm going to start documenting my learning experiences and see where this goes. At the very least, I'll have something to look back on and laugh.