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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>So I'm new at most of this mapping stuff. I've
been playing around with a number of free GIS tools, and gone through a bit of
their documentation and tutorials (MapServer, GeoServer, MapBuilder, ka-map,
TimeMap, OpenMap...). With all of these I've gotten to the point
where I can put an interactive map on a webpage. But I haven't been able
to figure out the next step.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The goals of my team's project right now are:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>1) We need a webpage with a map of the world (for now, I
think we'll get the world map from some public WMS)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>2) It needs to be very interactive (thus my interest in
MapBuilder and ka-map)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>3) We need to take our own data (which could be in any
format) and put it on the map. Right now, this will be in the form of ellipses
drawn at certain coordinates. The ellipses will need to be to scale (eg. if it
has a major axis of 30 miles and a minor axis of 10 miles, we will need to draw
it that size on the map). Putting icons on the map will probably be important
later on.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>4) We will need to be able to filter what data is shown on
the map (or perhaps highlight certain objects). The filter could be "all
data in this bounding box" or "all objects that have property
X".<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>5) We need to be able to click on objects in the map and
have information about them show up in another part of the webpage, or even
have the selection registered on the server to affect other programs.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>As I said, I can put a map in a webpage. I think the next
step is to take our ellipse data and show it on the map. This is what
I've been searching and searching for, and I can't seem to find the
right documentation to get me started. I'm guessing that I'll need
to use something like MapServer, somehow tell it the coordinates of ellipses or
groups of line segments, and let it create images for my ellipse layer. Is that
right? Can anyone get me started and point me to some documentation that will
get me there?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>For number 4, filtering, I'm thinking that I would
have to apply the filter to some data set of ours (maybe set a
visible/highlighted flag for each entry in a database), then have my map server
rebuild the layer and refresh the client.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>For number 5, selection, my guess is that I need a WMS to
take the click and do something like a GetFeature request. From there,
I'm not sure how the data gets where it needs to go.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Again, any documentation you could point me to for these
types of things would be great. If there are any other map tools that you think
would fit, let me know. We would really like to use google's maps API,
but I think it's against their terms of use to put it in a proprietary
product or keep it on a private network.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I know that was a lot, but I appreciate any help you can
offer. Thanks.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Tim<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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