[mapserver-dev] RFC: GMaps API for mapserv

[Paul Ramsey]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 1:07 PM, Stephen Woodbridge
<woodbri at swoodbridge.com> wrote:
>  It seems that the meta-tiling and labeling issues will need to be addressed
> eventually, so I think some discussion of how they would be done from a
> design point of view should be undertaken. If these can not be easily solved
> in this architecture then that might indicate a problem.

Metatiling implies caching, since you'll necessarily be producing way
more tiles for each request than you need, you should store the spares
for the future. And I don't think we want to go there. At least, some
folks don't want to go there.

>  I think a nature question that OpenLayers users might ask is will this work
> with open layers? Yes I know it is more focused on the Google-API users, but
> will it work? would it provide any benefits that I don't already have with
> other layer providers in OL. So just a paragraph addressing this would be
> helpful regardless of the answers.

Chris has answered in the affirmative, which is nice.

>  Do you need a section to discuss other ways to achieve this? Other
> solutions that might be generally applicable or not that you looked at and
> through out for one reason or another.

I suppose. Like WMS, it's possible to achieve this just by proxying
the ordinary mapserver API behind a script to re-write the parameters.
 You can achieve the RFC effect with TileCache, and as a bonus you get
not only request re-writing but also a cache!

However, like WMS, also, the simplicity of saying "deploy mapserver,
press go" argues for a built-in capability.  I'm not sure Mapserver
has really articulated a policy around API proliferation.  There are
certainly many ways to achieve the same result.

We could do a slightly more elabourate API, like the Worldwind one,
which would allow us to support a few more clients out of the same end
point.  (Chris, note that with interface=map we get top-to-bottom
ordering of the tiles and interface=worldwind we get the cartesian
order, so we can serve both from the Worldwind API).

>  Great start on this Paul.

Thanks,

Paul

>  -Steve W
>