[OSGeo-Discuss] Transition fromGMaps to Open Source

[Chris Puttick]

----- "strk" <strk at keybit.net> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 03:53:05PM -0500, Arnie Shore wrote:
> > Folks, hello, and I wonder if anyone can share experiences doing
> such
> > a transition.  (I've tried this question with the OpenLayers groups
> > without response but it was suggested that this group might help.)
> > 
> > Background:  I've written a free, Open Source Computer-Aided
> Dispatch
> > application targeted to the public safety community, notably ham
> radio
> > groups who kick into gear during emergency/crisis conditions.  It
> > relies on GMaps API and imagery currently.
> > 
> > But under emergency conditions which comprise the reasons for this
> > community's existence, internet connectivity to Google  may not
> exist
> > of course.  Accordingly, I'm planning a version of the app in which
> > the tile sets and API are resident at a local server.  Hence my
> strong
> > interest in open solutions.
> > 
> > I can't imagine I'm the only one here doing anything like that, so
> > I'll appreciate hearing re experiences doing this, plus,
> especially,
> > thoughts on the tile sets available.  Thanks, all.
> 
> Have you considered getting data from the Open Street Map [1] database
> ?
> Freedom for geographical data is unfortunately behind the one for
> geographical software, OSM is in my opinion the best attempt at
> making
> this more balanced. It won't provide photos though, only vectorial
> data.
> There are tools to import those data in a postgis database, for later
> processing/georeferencing. There are also a few specialized renderers
> which you could use to generate static tiles, if all you need is
> images.
> 
> [1] http://www.openstreetmap.org
> 

And if you need some imagery, Worldwind seems to have access to some, as well as some really neat tools:

http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/java/demos/

Chris


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