[OSGeo-Discuss] Symbology/styles exchange

[Moskovitz, Bob]

It would be great if geological symbols that can be found in http://pubs.usgs.gov/tm/2006/11A02 can be considered.

Robert Moskovitz
California Geological Survey/Seismic Hazard Mapping Project
http://gmw.conservation.ca.gov/shmp


-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org on behalf of Andrea Aime
Sent: Fri 12/26/2008 2:17 AM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Symbology/styles exchange
 
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

-- 
Andrea Aime
OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org
Expert service straight from the developers.
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