[OpenLayers-Dev] "floating map overlay"? (possible contract work)

[Michael P. Gerlek]

OpenLayers folks:

I'm not an OpenLayers or JavaScript guy, and I don't have any such on
staff here, so I'm looking for some help -- and crschmidt kindly pointed
me here..

I'm wondering if OpenLayers supports a "floating map overlay" feature,
in which the area around the mouse pointer shows a different/additional
map layer overlaid on top of the current layer.

Not easy to explain, perhaps, so for an example you can go to
http://www.icc.es/vissir/#, click on the "Ortofotoimatge 1:5000" link on
the left, then click the "+" button below the map 9 times (yes, nine) to
zoom in to a scale of 200m or better.  At this point you'll see the
rectangle around the cursor display a layer corresponding to vector data
for the area.  Note too the nice opacity slider below the map
controlling this feature -- a nice touch, that.

I have a customer who may need to set up a simple site like this one,
but with this specific floaty map feature in it.  Does OpenLayers
support such a trick?  If not, would anyone be willing to implement such
a feature, as contract work for LizardTech?  It may make sense to add
the feature integrally into OpenLayers itself, if the Powers That Be are
so inclined, or it could be done as an extension on top -- either way is
fine with me.

If you have any thoughts on this or are interested in the project,
please drop me a line.

Thanks -

-mpg