So I’ve finished cutting a draft tileset using mapnik, depicting bus routes in Bellingham, WA. Now that the cartography is well in progress, I’d like to add some interactivity to the map. My first attempt at this will be to utilize MetaCarta (Chris Schmidt)’s FeatureServer. FeatureServer allows one to use standard HTTP verbs to GET [...]
With the routing database configured and populated, and with geoserver rendering the WMS, now the focus can shift on designing the actual display and functionality.
The conceptual plan is as follows:
Extract the geometry of a user’s click on the map.
Pass the extracted geometry to a PHP script, via an HTTP GET request.
Use the PHP script to [...]
Since compiling Orkney’s pgRouting extension to PostgreSQL/PostGIS, I’ve decided to try my hand at creating a simple web interface to poke into the database. The current setup is as follows:
Display: OpenLayers
Renderer: Geoserver (via non-cached WMS)
Spatial Backend: PostGIS/pgRouting enabled PostgreSQL
Data: Public GIS data from the city of Bellingham, Washington’s GIS department.
For the sake of brevity, (but [...]
While working through Regina Obe and Leo Hsu’s PostGIS In Action I thought that I’d jump into the world of routing. My plan was to develop a sample application that could be used to plan bicycle routes throughout the city of Seattle. A quick google search proved that someone has already done it, and done [...]
I never knew about the MetaCarta Labs’ Map Rectifier tool, but I’ll expect to be using it more in the future. After uploading an image to the site, a user has full control over the creation of Ground Control Points. The advanced nature of this tool is shown though included RMS error reporting as well [...]
I just found a neat feature from CloudMade, a heat map showing intensity of their tile requests at each zoom scale. As can be expected, Europe and North America are the definite zones of high activity. It’s also interesting to note the high activity in other regions such as Chile and the Philippines.
Following the link [...]
Until today, I had never truly appreciated the value of unit testing. I recently had the need to bring these ArcGIS REST controls, designed for version 2.6 of OpenLayers, into the current development version. Having no real idea how to get started on this process, I looked to the unit tests as a guide to [...]
I’ve been playing with the motion chart gadget in Google’s AJAX API Playground recently, and have found it to be an extremely interesting tool to use. In order to produce data rich charts, all that is necessary is to import a tabular datasheet into google docs and call on it within a javascript function.
The spreadsheet [...]
Another great OSM Mapping Party is underway in Tempe Arizona. Brandon of CloudMade came out to run the show, with local hosting by James Fee of RSP Architects. Coffee, pizza, libations, and Open Source GIS provided a great foundation for lively discussion on the practical and philosophical aspects that OpenStreetMaps provides.
Of particular interest was a [...]
The vacation is over. A new job and a new semester are already providing plenty of opportunities to explore those crazy technologies of the geoweb.
A need to incorporate the Yahoo Geocoder into a new OpenLayers app has proved to be a great learning experience in the navigation of the development version of OL. The YahooGeocoder.js [...]