Forum OpenACS Development: PostGIS / MapServer Maps

I have just uploaded one of the packages I wrote which helps you generate your own maps from a PostGIS database (http://postgis.refractions.net/) or a shape file. It is comprised of and depends on several pieces of software:

(a) first and foremost it is a port of ka-Map (http://ka-map.maptools.org/)

(b) it has a patch to help you create the tcl interface for MapServer

(c) in my case, I'm using the data from OSM (http://www.openstreetmap.org/)

(d) there is a MapServer style file (it lacks some features, e.g. tunnels are not defined) which direct rewrite of the style files from Mapnik (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapnik).

A couple of things to keep in mind:

(a) First and foremost I was planning to rewrite it to use XOTcl (you'll actually see some preliminary code there).

(b) It still depends on some code specific to my site: That includes a geoip-recognizer (you'll see [ad_conn UL_LNG] and [ad_conn UL_LAT] in the code), the directories are absolute (e.g. /web/data/fonts).

(c) You'll notice that the web directory is named www-global instead of www, and the index file is named pkgIndex.info instead of maps.info. The directory structure is such because I found it useful to keep UI components together (for example, for my blog application I have www-pvt, www-shared, and www-global corresponding to the private part of the blog, the public part of the blog, and the aggregator of all blogs).

(d) You can see it in action here: http://maps.phigita.net/

(e) You can download it from here: http://www.openacs.org/storage/?folder_id=2551358

I understand that the package is a mess. I didn't do that to give you any trouble at all. I hope that someone finds it useful. If there are any questions (and I'm sure they will be if you are planning to use it) please do not hesitate and ask. I do get busy at times and I hope you'll forgive me if I don't get back to you in prompt time. Please feel free to insist and bombard me with messages though, sometimes it works.

I have more coming but I wanted to get the first one out as soon as possible.

This is slightly offtopic. Could someone kindly edit the title so that it won't get cut by textutil::adjust or whatever is used in the front page?

Thank you Stefan.

Thank you Eduardo.

I did but I think the two are a bit different in the sense that this package generates its own maps using the OpenStreeMap data. It is not using the OpenStreetMap maps at all.

I have experimented more with PostGIS and to some extend I'm interested in that area but I'm not sure mashups are my thing --- at least, not yet :)

Furthermore, priority number one at the moment is the MediaBox: http://www.openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=2551843