OpenLayers
2009-02-16 15:24:26.741851+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments
2009-02-16 15:24:26.741851+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments
[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Maps and Mapping ]
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2009-02-16 15:37:13.493282+00 by: ebradway
Ahem... OpenLayers has pretty much become the de facto standard if you need to do something more than what the Google API allows (i.e., overlay some points over their basemap). It even speaks WFS-T, so you can do online editing.
I just presented a paper at a conference in which we started playing with adding geoprocessing functionality to OpenLayers and pushing the browser JavaScipt envelope. Hint: arrays give a performance hit (yeah, WTF?!?) and stack management in most JavaScript (ECMAscript) interpreters sucks so bad that if you recurse more than about three levels deep, you blow it out.
Biggest drawback (which is also it's positive) of OpenLayers is it pretty much is the reference client for OGC specs (like WMS, WFS and WPS). My trip to the Bay Area next week is very much about why OGC sucks.
#Comment Re: made: 2009-02-16 15:57:11.086546+00 by: Dan Lyke
I appreciate your insight into this, and I'll probably hit you up for some suggestions on additional helper information. Over on flutterby.net, I want to get away from using MediaWiki. I have a little bit of content over there created with the Google Maps API, but I'd like to do it with more open standards. And in migrating away from MediaWiki, I'll be losing the (admittedly pretty simple) app to create the tracks.
#Comment Re: made: 2009-02-16 16:06:35.976703+00 by: ebradway
OpenLayers is a good choice to help get away from Google Maps API (although it implements the Google Maps API as well as the Microsoft Live Maps API and Yahoo Maps API underneath - gotta get those basemaps somewhere - especially if The National Map isn't quite up to the job - but I didn't say that...).
You can also use OpenStreetMap as your basemap in OpenLayers. OSM lets you fill in anything you think is missing.
For the middle-range of apps that want to get away from Google or need more richness, OpenLayers has it locked up. For higher-end apps, you're likely to just take apart the OpenLayers code and repurpose it or just go with a canned architecture like ESRI ArcServer.
I'm in the process of securing my new home server with the goal of standing up a GeoServer instance so I can start playing with server-side ideas.