[OSGeo-Discuss] Symbology/styles exchange

Olivier ERTZ olivier.ertz at heig-vd.ch
Fri Dec 26 05:55:36 EST 2008


Hi,
while you read my little answer, just imagine a big smile on my face, 
because what you describe in your call is something that really 
motivates me. I was currently doing a kind of same investigation, and 
Osmarender, Kosmos, MassGIS Wiki on SLD, ... could all be added to your 
starting list, and I came to the same conclusions : having a symbology 
and styling platform to share would be great, and I sign up with two 
hands. So, I'm ready to help in building a wiki page to write the 
specification of such a platform. Of course, OSGeo_map_symbol_set is 
then to be taken in consideration, and for sure people who wrote this 
wiki page will feel concerned...

Best regards,
Olivier

Andrea Aime wrote:
> Hi,
> lately I was looking around for places where
> sample map styles, sample map symbols, and
> public discussions (forums/ml) about the topic
> of map making on web/desktop platforms.
>
> I've found something around, like the MapServer
> symbology exchange, or the italian OSGEO chapter
> site collecting some free SVG symbols.
> And some discussions as well, but sprinkled over
> various mailing list as part of a different main
> topic.
> The scenario is somewhat discouraging, and I was
> thinking of ways to improve the situation,
> have more users exchange, discuss and participate
> in a community of electonic map makers.
>
> What I have in mind is a platform like
> gnome-look.org allowing everyone to post and
> share their work, organize it in categories,
> have other people vote and comment/discuss
> Examples:
> - map symbols
> - map styles, be it SLD, mapfiles, mapnik config file,
>    ESRI projects  (why not?)
> - data itself, be it real downloadable data, or
>    pointers to sites where the data is available
>
> Here are some user stories I have in mind for such
> a site:
> - a user has made a map is proud of. He posts
>    on the site a screenshot of the map, the style
>    used to create it, and the license under which
>    the style is distributed. Other people can comment,
>    eventually show how the same map can be created
>    using a different GIS system
> - maybe the above map contains self made symbols
>    (SVG, TTF, MapServer symbols, ...) that can be
>    published in a map symbol sharing area of the
>    same site
> - the same map is done using some data, maybe the
>    data can be shared, or the map has been produced
>    over some well known free data set. This would
>    help others make the same map with another
>    system, or take the initial map and propose
>    variations/improvements on top of it
>
> Adding a forum where people can discuss about map
> making would be good as well.
> This would be in competition with the various support
> forums of the existing projects, so it has to provide
> something more than the existing ml do not provide.
> What that is, is comparisons between different
> products, approaches to make maps: that would break
> the user communities silos and stimulate some lively
> exchange on the merits of each platform
> (yeah that may degenerate sometimes,
> but I believe most of the times it would be healthy
> and very interesting for users and developers alike).
>
> How to pull something like this off? Well, it would
> be nice if gnome-look (as the site code) was open source,
> thought as of now I haven't found any indication of
> the code being available. The forum could be the
> usual php-bb or something like that.
> Maybe the above are not 100% suited to the task
> at hand, but it would be an easy start to see if
> the idea has merit and can pull togheter a community
> of users.
> Does anybody have suggestions on existing software
> platforms that could be used to put togheter such
> a site?
>
> Soo... wondering what other people think about this?
> I would be willing to put some of my time on this,
> but I'm already quite busy with other stuff
> in GeoServer/GeoTools land so I'm wondering if there
> is anybody else interested in such a thing?
>
> Cheers
> Andrea
>
>   


-- 
HEIG-VD, University Of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland
IICT, Institute for Information and Communication Technologies
Olivier ERTZ 
Avenue des Sports 20
CH-1401 Yverdon-les-Bains
olivier.ertz at heig-vd.ch
+41 24 55 77570
-> http://www.heig-vd.ch
-> http://geosysin.iict.ch

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