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<DIV>I apologize for the previous Email. We went to GroupWise here, and I just got converted. Danged if I can figure out how to do an Inline reply.</DIV>
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<DIV> . . . . Grumble, grumble . . . .</DIV>
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<DIV>Let me know if I need to make this prettier.</DIV>
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<DIV>bobb</DIV>
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<DIV><BR>**************** You can't be late until you show up. ***************<BR>************ You never learn anything by doing it right. ************<BR>*** War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left. ***<BR><BR><BR>>>> "Bob Basques" <Bob.Basques@ci.stpaul.mn.us> 2/28/2007 4:06 PM >>><BR></DIV>
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<DIV><BR>**************** You can't be late until you show up. ***************<BR>************ You never learn anything by doing it right. ************<BR>*** War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left. ***<BR><BR><BR>>>> Christopher Schmidt <crschmidt@crschmidt.net> 2/28/2007 2:45 PM >>><BR>On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 02:22:37PM -0600, Bob Basques wrote:<BR>> <BR>> Moose has more of the Desktop GIS functionality and more tightly<BR>> integrated with MapServer. For example: measure, data popups, graphic<BR>> design skins, move layers, legends, printing, more configuration<BR>> options, identify, and select. I don't think this type of<BR>> functionality<BR>> is the goal of OpenLayers, they strive more to make it easy to<BR>> integrate<BR>> multiple data sources.<BR><BR>Although this is not in the goal of the *core* of OpenLayers, building<BR>the application on *top* of OpenLayers (assuming that you're searching<BR>for a web interface)</DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr>We have our own Client (application) GUI already. The OpenLayers piece is related to the output form of WFS. We wanted to add in a WFS viewing capability and explore this process.</DIV>
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<DIV> is exactly what OpenLayers is targeted to. The<BR>examples directory of OpenLayers contains an example for how to do<BR>feature identification/query<BR>(http://openlayers.org/dev/examples/getfeatureinfo.html), and path <BR>measuring is one of the tools that the new vector integration will allow<BR>us to build.<BR><BR>Styling the OpenLayers UI and integrating it into a larger surrounding<BR>UI is also part of the design of the project:<BR><A href="http://www.warwide.com/images/wwscreen/wwss_01.jpg">http://www.warwide.com/images/wwscreen/wwss_01.jpg</A> shows, for example,<BR>an OpenLayers interface integrated into a war game.<BR><BR>Moving layers is something that there is no existing UI for, but<BR>something that I would love to see, either as an example or as an<BR>external control. However, at the moment it is true that we're<BR>concentrating on how to get data into the interface.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV dir=ltr>The Client we have uses a XML (MAPBOOK) format for organizing the layers in the Client View. This same file is used as a Catalog mechanism for choosing which layers to actually display.</DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><BR><BR>In general, OpenLayers seeks to create an API which can be used at the<BR>base level of any browser-based GIS application. MapBuilder has already<BR>begun to use the OpenLayers API to replace their existing map renderer,<BR>by building their tools around an OpenLayers Map created via that API.<BR><BR>ka-Map may do something similar in the future. <BR><BR>> OpenLayers strives to have easy support for numerous data sources like<BR>> Google, Yahoo, GeoRSS, and WMS. Then they work off of the concept of<BR>> placing point markers and soon vector (line and polygon) on top of<BR>> those<BR>> data sources. The also support tiled and untiled data sources in the<BR>> same interface. This works very nice if your don't have a lot of<BR>> layers<BR>> that are changing all the time and you can make use of caching. I<BR>> think<BR>> an interface like this would be pretty slow and hard to manage for a<BR>> organization like Douglas County, MN that is updating their parcels,<BR>> plats, E911 address points and roads every week.<BR><BR>I'm not sure how you're going to be able to improve that -- I'd be<BR>interested to learn more about what you feel the challenges are that<BR>OpenLayers doesn't help you meet. </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV dir=ltr>The biggest one was how to manage 100+ data layers for viewing by the client. There are user controls in place for this type of thing. Another aspect, was easy administration for a Site Admin. Using the MAPBOOK mechanism, it's very easy to set up a purpose built (Project based) Web service that uses the MOOSE interface to access these many layers (or at least whatever is in the MAPBOOK.</DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr>It's much easier to demonstrate this than describe it. We'll have a version showing off things available publicly in the very near future. In the mean time, a relatively new version is here:</DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><A href="http://demo.openmnnd.org/openmnnd.html">http://demo.openmnnd.org/openmnnd.html</A></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr>There is also a set of links that show the OpenMnnd folks using the Client here:</DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><A href="http://www.openmnnd.org/gallery.html">http://www.openmnnd.org/gallery.html</A></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><BR><BR>> A more discrete description might be that MOOSE is shooting for the<BR>> customers that need to publish data in all sort of formats (and legacy<BR>> Systems), in a near Realtime fashion. The intent is to make the process<BR>> as transparent to the Data publishers as it is to the Data users.<BR><BR>I'm slightly confused, now. You mention 'publish their data', which to<BR>me, sounds like a server, rather than a client. </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV dir=ltr>The Server aspect is purely Organizational at this point. While we've been concentrating on using MapServer. the images can really come from any Service. We also normalize the data on the server such that each owner has complete control over how their data is published and how frequently. </DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr>We don't advertise this aspect at this point. But it's an important piece of the Equation.</DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr>Clients consume<BR>published data. OpenLayers is a client. Mapserver, GeoServer, <BR>ka-Map, TileCache, WorldWind are servers. Which is MOOSE?</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV dir=ltr>MOOSE is a JAVASCRIPT based Client Data Discoverer/Organizer/Viewer., which when combined with the MAPBOOK (XML) data catalog (server Piece), provides a number of capabilities related to Mapping Web Page design.</DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr>I hope to have a WIKI up this week that will describe things more fully. It's already built internally, just need to get the Public Version out there.</DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr>bobb</DIV>
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