Drupal and the Geospacial Web

session detais: Drupal and the Geospacial Web

• Google Maps is a good start, but look is not customizable
• custom modules can render SVGs but require a lot of work and maintenance
• Mapnik http://mapnik.org is open-source platform for producing "beautiful maps"
• 5 problems to resolve:
  • language -- interface of Google Maps is translated, but map content is in English and sometimes other languages intermixed
  • history -- Google Maps only shows today's borders
  • usage -- Google Maps assumes user should be able to explore the map and wants to see streets, etc.
  • privacy -- information is not always public, but Google Maps cannot be behind password-protected sites
    
  • look -- Google Map may not meet the client's expectations or informational needs
• example: Stumble Safely
• Mapstraction or Nice Map modules plug into Google but also other mapping services
  
  • Cloudmade (beta) can customize look of maps from Open Street Maps data
  • FreeEarth display for satellite imagery
  • NASA display
  • WMS = Open Geospatial Consortium Web Map Service -- opengeospatial.org
  • http://openstreetmap.org
  • http://openaerialmap.org
• Drupal should be negotiable too -- may need to map data from other sources
• WMS is great, but request & response format is very complex
• KML is a simple format, now stable; also GeoRSS
• AtomPub-Geo allows geo data to be subscribed to by other sites
• how to query?  OpenSearch standard for structuring queries; OpenSearch-Geo for geo data
• where to get data?  Flickr, Panoramio, Yahoo! Search, Wikipedia, Twitter, local governments, global NGOs, http://geonetwork.org
• repositories and aggregators: http://geocommons.org
• another reason not to use Google Maps: data ownership -- they own any data you map!
• http://opendatacommons.org - open database license (currently in development)
• where do these data come from?
  • O'Reilly "Geowankers" team -- so named so they won't appear in any major media
  • http://osgeo.org - Open Source Geospacial Foundation
  • data mapping parties and geocoders
• A Drupal example - what might you do?
  
  • real estate data from Trulia, bar locations from geocommons, weather from NOAA, locations from GPS enabled devices
  • exchange info with other CMSes via GeoRSS