[OpenLayers-Users] OpenLayers + GeoServer + Geonames

[Greg Pendlebury]

Hi All,

*tl;dr version: *
Is OpenLayers + GeoServer + Geonames a good/sensible combination for a
local data source? Am I missing an easier source of similar data or
re-combining a setup that is already available/documented under GPL?


*The boring stuff:*
I'm about to start coding on expanded geospatial support in our application
and wanted to ask if anyone had advice/feedback on the setup we are
currently thinking about. The codebase is GPL v2 compliant (
http://sites.google.com/site/redboxmint/) and I'd ideally like to avoid
using any data that has licensing/terms of service issues
(acknowledgements, credit etc. are always ok).

The usage context is for data entry staff to provide geospatial metadata
about a digital object they are curating (eg. A research study that covers
a polygonal area drawn on the map, fairly typical example.) At present we
offer basic textual input of this data, and have a Solr index of the
Geonames dataset (http://code.google.com/p/solr-geonames/) that lets them
do searches against place names to get basic lat/long information, but plan
on using OpenLayers to enhance this in the next version with a Map GUI for
polygons.

My current thinking (based on just a weekend of web searching/surfing) is
to prototype using OpenLayers against public URLs for maps and feature
information (such as geoJson:
http://www.mail-archive.com/geoserver-users@lists.sourceforge.net/msg07110.html).
The UI stuff I'm not too concerned about, since I have a colleague with
some great examples of doing this stuff against OpenLayers. My main concern
is how to go from the prototype to a production server with unencumbered
data that could be deployed (potentially) without Internet access.

I'm thinking of deploying a copy of GeoServer and ingesting layered map
data:

   - like Blue Marble:
   http://ian01.geog.psu.edu/geoserver_docs/data/bluemarble/bluemarble.html
   - and OpenStreetMap:
   http://blog.geoserver.org/2009/01/30/geoserver-and-openstreetmap/
   - Not sure on a good source of 'eco' feature data like rainforests, land
   and marine reserves etc.

Then ingesting Geonames for searchable place names to make lookups faster.
I'm guessing I can ingest this into GeoServer somehow, replacing our
existing Solr setup... or if not I can just search our Solr index and get
OpenLayers to pan my map to the required lat/long.

I think this is all workable, but before I started I wanted to check if I
missed something obvious, or if there is already an existing body of work
compatible with GPL distribution I can use to shortcut my efforts?

Thanks for your time, if you bothered reading this far.

Ta,
Greg
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