[OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Open Geo Database

Wed Jan 23 15:26:58 PST 2008

Dear all 

Regarding the FOSS Geodatabase discussion, I would like to bring a different issue to the discussion.

It concerns whether we should be concerned with broadening the number of FOSS databases that offer support for spatial data, or whether we should focus on deepening and increasing the support for different types of spatio-temporal data on PostGIS. 

Consider a situation where PostGIS would demonstrably handle more spatial data types than Oracle and would do so efficiently. This would provide a tremendous leverage for all FOSS4G applications and developers. 

To me, PostGIS is to FOSS4G what Linux is for FOSS as a whole. It's the enabling platform for succesfull FOSS4G enterprise applications. By concentrating on PostGIS and associated tools, we will build a reliable and consistent set of tools. 

Best regards,
Gilberto 
-- 
===========================================
Dr.Gilberto Camara
Director General
National Institute for Space Research (INPE)
Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil 

-----Original Message-----
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Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:15:27 
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Subject: Discuss Digest, Vol 13, Issue 25

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: FOSS GIS Podcasts (andrea giacomelli)
   2. RE: Open Geo Database (Sampson, David)
   3. Finding Data Sets (Erik Uzureau)
   4. Re: Finding Data Sets (jo at frot.org)
   5. Re: Finding Data Sets (Chris Holmes)
   6. Re: Finding Data Sets (jo at frot.org)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 19:23:52 +0100
From: "andrea giacomelli" <pibinko at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS GIS Podcasts
To: "OSGeo Discussions" <discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
Message-ID:
	<d50899c30801231023y1fc5a524j2ddb227ed9889621 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

...Hi Landon,

a)  It's not a podcast (but still a ...cast, and it's
fresh...subcribers of the Italian mailing lists, my apologies for
re-posting):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZOQSn5tyqQ

This is a sort of "teaser" video on GIS and the role that awareness
raising organizations may play in promoting FOSS GIS (eventually
talking about GFOSS.it for Italy).

The message is directed to people who are not typical OSGeo discussion
readers ;) , but I'd still appreciate feedback from the list.

Maybe you can find some ideas of use for an introduction...

b) I'd like to have more "episodes" gradually delving into more
substantial topics, such as applications etc...time and resources
allowing....
I'll be keeping an eye on material you may develop -and other links
which are being flagged out- as they may be a starting point for new
stuff.

Regards!

andrea, aka pibinko
http://pibinko.altervista.org
http://www.gfoss.it

2008/1/22, Nick Black <nickblack1 at gmail.com>:
> http://www.opengeodata.org/?cat=13  - have some interesting podcasts,......
> > >
> > > Are there other existing FOSS GIS podcasts?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Landon
> > >
....

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:12:14 -0500
From: "Sampson, David" <dsampson at NRCan.gc.ca>
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Geo Database
To: "OSGeo Discussions" <discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
Message-ID:
	<9EB90EE18D92644C96C5D268D79AE8CA0101E5F7 at S0-OTT-X2.nrn.nrcan.gc.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

just as another note, as of GRASS 7 it looks like they will be moving their default DB format to SQLITE instead of the traditional DBF format

http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/GRASS_7_ideas_collection#Database

it might make sense to have a community effort contribute to this as a whole. The positive side is that there is already adoption of an OSGEO product as GRASS is moving in this direction. Determine a comon schema that can be shared around between projects and voila.

Or we could ignore this and then revist this same issue again in the future with no movement forward.

just thought I'd share.

Cheers

________________________________

From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Bob Basques
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 09:40
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Geo Database

All,

Don't know the specifics about the engine being used, but we discussed using the Plone storage mechanism, a few times, for spatial data.  Just didn't seem like a quick enough payoff to try anything out.  At least not on the surface.

There was a thought that there might be something to start with though.

bobb

Miguel Montesinos wrote: 

	Hi,

	¿Does anyone know about similar projects using object oriented databases, such as db4objects[1], which is a GPL product with native engines for Java, Java ME, Mono, .NET, ...?

	Cheers

	[1] http://www.db4o.com/

	---------------------------------
	Miguel Montesinos
	Director Técnico
	PRODEVELOP
	C/ Conde Salvatierra, 34 - 10
	46004 Valencia. Spain
	e-mail: mmontesinos at prodevelop.es
	http://www.prodevelop.es
	Tlf: +34 963510612

		-----Original Message-----
		From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org 
		[mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Frank Hardisty
		Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 4:08 PM
		To: OSGeo Discussions
		Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Geo Database

		David and All,

		A nice up-and-coming open Java geodatabase format is H2 + 
		spatial extensions.

		The H2 database is by the same guy that wrote that HSQL db. H2 
		has some good properties, most importantly, it's small (1 Mb), 
		works well in embedded mode, and is fast. Adding in spatial 
		data in JTS format, and providing a spatial index, is the 
		basic concept.

		Two implementations that I know of are

		1. The French research group IRSTV, lead programmer seems to 
		be Erwan Bocher.
		http://geosysin.iict.ch/irstv-trac/wiki/H2spatial/Download

		2. GeoTools has a H2 spatial module, written by Justin Deoliveira.
		Here's a link to the compiled jars:
		http://maven.geotools.fr/repository/org/geotools/gt2-h2/2.5-SNAPSHOT/

		Both are under active development.

		regards,
		-Frank

		On Jan 14, 2008 3:14 PM, Sampson, David <dsampson at nrcan.gc.ca> <mailto:dsampson at nrcan.gc.ca>  wrote:

			Hey Folks,

			Just wondering if there is still thought out there from the previous 
			thread about a portable and open geodatabase.  I came across the 
			nemesis project "an experimental finite element code. 

		Utilizes SQLite 

			to store, handle and retrieve geometry and analysis data. "

			http://www.nemesis-project.org/index.php/Main_Page

			Thought that might be a good place to start that is already using 
			geometry in sqlite.

			As for software adoptions it looks like GRASS already has an 

		SQLITE driver.

			QGIS looks hopeful. Here is a GRASS/QGIS-SQLITE tutorial 

		http://whatnick.blogspot.com/2007/12/using-sqlite-with-qgis-grass-tool

			box.html

			GDAL has some SQLITE http://www.gdal.org/ogr/drv_sqlite.html

			Just some more info for the fire.

			Cheers
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		--
		~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
		Frank Hardisty
		hardisty at psu.edu

		GeoVISTA Center
		210 Walker Building

		Dutton e-Education Institute
		415 Earth and Engineering Sciences Building

		814-867-1471
		http://www.geovista.psu.edu/grants/cdcesda/software/
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Message: 3
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:22:38 -0600
From: "Erik Uzureau" <euzuro at gmail.com>
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Finding Data Sets
To: "OSGeo Discussions" <discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
Message-ID:
	<6ae3fb590801231322m542c7bf5j79fb9c13e08f0a14 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

A friend of mine is building a website and wants to add a map of
India. He asked me today where he could find some good map data on
India and I had to reply that I have no clue.

I know that this list is not the appropriate venue for this sort of
question, but I am hoping that maybe someone on this list would know
and could point me in the right direction? Cholmes sort of
unconvincingly suggested geodata at lists.osgeo.org. Does anyone else
have a thought?

Thanks,
Erik

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:36:35 -0800
From: jo at frot.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Finding Data Sets
To: OSGeo Discussions <discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
Message-ID: <20080123213635.GH9230 at vishnu.tridity.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Wed, Jan 23, 2008 at 03:22:38PM -0600, Erik Uzureau wrote:
> A friend of mine is building a website and wants to add a map of
> India. He asked me today where he could find some good map data on
> India and I had to reply that I have no clue.

You could try the freemap.in list -
http://lists.freemap.in/mailman/listinfo/freemap - this is more a
source of high-resolution data for particular cities than an
india-wide effort. e.g. http://mumbai.freemap.in/
There's also an OSGeo-India local chapter, and i bet some overlap
between these lists. 

http://mappinghacks.com/2005/08/22/open-geodata-policy-shift-in-india/
is an old blog entry with a bunch of India-policy links, but not data ;P
I'm sure others will have more concrete suggestions.

> and could point me in the right direction? Cholmes sort of
> unconvincingly suggested geodata at lists.osgeo.org. Does anyone else
> have a thought?

Well, it's interesting to hear about use cases there. And the
committee has a remit to run a public geodata registry / repository;
so we ideally *should* be able to offer this kind of answer. 

cheers,

jo

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:41:53 -0500
From: Chris Holmes <cholmes at openplans.org>
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Finding Data Sets
To: OSGeo Discussions <discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
Message-ID: <4797B4A1.2090107 at openplans.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

>> and could point me in the right direction? Cholmes sort of
>> unconvincingly suggested geodata at lists.osgeo.org. Does anyone else
>> have a thought?
> 
> Well, it's interesting to hear about use cases there. And the
> committee has a remit to run a public geodata registry / repository;
> so we ideally *should* be able to offer this kind of answer. 
> 
Yeah, my thought was that ideally that list would have a bunch of people 
who are really good at finding GIS data, and when someone asks a 
question like that if it's not already in the repository they would have 
good leads on how to hunt it down, and then be able to easily add it to 
the repository.  But I realize that's not how it's set up now, which was 
why my answer was unconvincing.

C

> cheers,
> 
> 
> jo
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
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> 
> !DSPAM:4005,4797b36b254038362916074!
> 
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Message: 6
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:15:24 -0800
From: jo at frot.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Finding Data Sets
To: OSGeo Discussions <discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
Message-ID: <20080123221524.GJ9230 at vishnu.tridity.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Wed, Jan 23, 2008 at 04:41:53PM -0500, Chris Holmes wrote:
> >committee has a remit to run a public geodata registry / repository;
> >so we ideally *should* be able to offer this kind of answer. 
> >
> Yeah, my thought was that ideally that list would have a bunch of people 
> who are really good at finding GIS data, and when someone asks a 
> question like that if it's not already in the repository they would have 
> good leads on how to hunt it down, and then be able to easily add it to 
> the repository.  But I realize that's not how it's set up now, which was 
> why my answer was unconvincing.

Recently when i run across unusual sets of particularly boundary and
other vector data, I've been noting them down in the CKAN index - 
http:/www.ckan.net/ - at least this provides a way of publically
noting name, url, keywords, that is guaranteed to stay around awhile. 
It has no spatial properties or query but is a place to start. 
http://www.ckan.net/tag/read/geodata

I *have* been working on a CKAN-inspired spatial metadata/search
project for a little while and would love to test out an open source
release on OSGeo's systems but i don't want to talk about it too much yet

Of course there's GeoNetwork, OSGeo's own "metadata catalog" system, I see
they have a new release candidate due out very soon. It raises the bar
somewhat, offering support for OGC and ISO standards which may be
overkill for simple web mapping use cases. The more the merrier
though, and there are plenty of systems resources to run all this stuff
on, what's missing is peoples' time to setup and contribute to a
repository effort that'll make future questions easier to answer
without repeating ourselves :)

cheers,

jo

------------------------------

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