API to publish data from shapefile - gis

GIS is not really my expertise and need advice from experts here. Pardon me for my incorrect terms. I have a client asking to develop a system which provides API to consume data from their POI, PA and MPA datasets (in shapefile). Question is, what are my options to do this? Should I develop the system from scratch by maybe converting the shapefile to GeoJSON, or us there any opensource/paid solution already made for this use case? Any help/tip/advice would be much appreciated! Thank you!

You can try Geoserver. I know people without GIS or technical knowledge who managed to publish geodata with it on the web. The vector data / JSON API is an implementation of the OGC WFS standard - which might come handy if later your client decides to plug the data in something like Leaflet or OpenLayers (or most other GIS frameworks for that matter).
Note that GeoServer is a great standalone solution. But I'm not so sure it is your best option if what you are describing is just one part of a more complex system.

Related

best api for develop with maps web application google-maps vs bing-maps

i'm need to develop and web application that uses maps, and i have two option in my to reach the goal. Google maps or bing maps, my concern it's witch it's better about
Documentation it's very important
Implementation with a Web application develop in .net
Fast learning curve
i need recommendations because for my point of view both are a completed tools for solve my problem. Thanks
I strongly recommend Google Maps.
Fabulous documentation
Code Playground
Very fast learning curve
With the new v3 api you don't need a api key
Cheers
take a look at our series of articles comparing aspects of both, and Ill admit up front I like bing more but have tried to be as impartial as possible:
http://www.earthware.co.uk/blog/index.php/2011/02/ajax-mapping-apis-google-maps-vs-bing-maps-update-pushpin-display-performance/
http://www.earthware.co.uk/blog/index.php/2010/12/mapping-apis-google-maps-vs-bing-maps-update-api-download-sizes/
and the original posts:
http://www.earthware.co.uk/blog/index.php/2009/12/mapping-apis-google-maps-vs-bing-maps-part-1-introduction/
http://www.earthware.co.uk/blog/index.php/2009/12/mapping-apis-google-maps-vs-bing-maps-part-2-licensing/
http://www.earthware.co.uk/blog/index.php/2010/01/mapping-apis-google-maps-vs-bing-maps-part-4-developer-support-community/

using DAFIF data in ESRI products

Does anyone have any experience of plotting DAFIF data in ESRI products? are there any DAFIF to shapefile conversion utelities or libraries out there?
This appears to be possible in ArcGIS 10 using the Defense Mapping extension, as shown here.

Framework for Mapserver GIS APP

I'm trying to display on the web (read as create a GIS Web app) topo data layers stored in a POSTGIS/POSTGRES spatial database using mapserver. My problem is, although i happened to come across different gis frameworks that I could use, my lack of experience on using mapserver in the first place makes me indecisive of which framework to use. So what is the easiest framework out there to use? I'm using a MS4W pre-packaged mapserver binaries, and i've installed almost all of the additional packages (frameworks) from their site.
Thanks for the help!:) I
Mapfish (I think python and C based and ideal with mapserver)
GeoServer (java based)
Featureserver (RESTful, light and effective)
Other interesting links:
GEOEXT provides an excellent extension for openlayers
Boston GIS provides excellent tutorials so does Paul Ramsey and Chris Schmidt
The mother GIS - Free Open Source Software OSGEO
FreeGIS - Continually updated list of free and related GIS software
I've used Geoserver and Feature server on multiple occasions, and never got deep into mapserver. I know that Mapserver has a big community and they love helping out, check them out on IRC and their mailing list.
We have developed an interface called OWGIS for displaying GIS data.
Website: http://www.owgis.org
Description:
The OWGIS (Open WebGIS) is an OpenSource Java Servlets web application that creates WebGIS sites by automatically writing HTML and JavaScript code. The WebGIS sites are configured by XML files that define which layers will be displayed on the maps as well as the texts to be used on the interface. OWGIS's most notable features include animations, veritcal profiles and vertical transects, various color palettes, dynamic maps, downloadable data, and multilingual interfaces. All these features are created automatically without any additional web programming.
Since you already got MS4W installed. The easiest way to publish a map service from Postgres is from MapServer which is component of the ms4w.
To start publish wms from MapServer,
1) Read thru the documentation of Mapfile which is the service definition file of how the WMS configured.
2) Read the ogr postgis connection documentation. You would be able to write the database connection follow the instruction pretty easily.
3) Once you got the valid Mapfile with correct postgis connection string info, you are able to publish the WMS for your topos.
MapServer is very powerful and easy to use. The file based service provide a lot of flexibility which is critical when you need publish something dynamically.
GeoServer is very popular too and has a gui which is extremely easy to use, by several click and your services are ready to go.
Other solutions are also available as well. But consider the community user base and tech support. I would recommend using MapServer or Geoserver for your case. We had our Mapserver holding USGS topo services as well, which is very stable,flexible and salable so just some FYI.
Hope it is helpful.

Idea Wanted: Raster Online Map (Possibly with ESRI API and some geoprocess model)

(I hope this is a valid question)
As I stated in my title, I'm looking for a fairly easy to moderately easy idea for some sort of online raster analysis map. I'm familiar with ESRI and their really awesome API, as I'm hoping to tackle something on that front. I'm also open to using the mapstraction lib.
Does anyone have any ideas for me?
Thanks!!
I'm not sure you mean image rasters or data rasters. This uses open source packages: MapServer and an AJAX client MsCross. It generates data rasters on the server and displays them in the browser. The rasters are contour plots for a plume of contamination in groundwater.
If you are already familiar with ESRI, then you should look at the ESRI Flex API ESRI Javascript API. You can use both of them to fire up Server side Geoprocessing services.
There are so many ways to skin the cat...
You may want to check the Publishing a GeoProcessing Service section of ESRI help
The basic idea is this... you use ArcMap/ArcCatalog to author a Geoprocessing Model (I am assuming you are familiar with this), which you later expose in an ArcGIS Server as a Geoprocessing Service. Publishing a model as a service is pretty easy provided you already have an ArcGIS Server configured - see the links I provided you above.
Then you can either use the free ArcGIS Explorer application to consume that GeoProcessing Service or write a webapp using Flex, or Javascript or DotNet or even python to consume that webservice.
And yeah, don't consume the webservice synchronously - stick with async.
You do unfortunately not write, what exactly you need. Do you want to display maps on a web page or in a application?
In the latter case i would recommend using http://www.openstreetmap.org/ it seems to be a little tricky in the beginning, buts data base gets better and better. A number of renderes exist, which you can integrate into your application.

Does anyone know of any good open source Geodjango apps to dig through?

I'm looking to build a small GIS in my spare time and have been digging into Geodjango.
I've been trying to find examples of open source Geodjango projects to look through, but I have had little luck, so here I am. I've been through most of the tutorials I could find, but they all seem to stop at the same point and I'm curious to look into some more complicated real-world code.
Anyone know if/where I can find some? Anything will suffice, but stuff using the Google Earth API as opposed to Open Layers would be ideal.
everyblock.com recently released their source code for their GeoDjango-based site. I've been digging through it - it's an interesting case study. It includes the public-facing site, a JSON API and some back-end data aggregation and map-generating code. Links and more info can be found at: http://www.everyblock.com/code/
I would recommend reading about what a GIS mapping stack is all about first. Once you understand where GeoDjango fits within this stack, there is a geodjango-basic-apps Google repository that gives some GeoDjango examples. The examples that you find online will swap certain portions of the stack (e.g. Open Layers for Google Maps API or MapServer for GeoServer) but the the design patterns and ideas are very similar if not the same in numerous cases.
MarineMap is a web-based tool for open and participatory spatial planning in the marine environment. For more information about MarineMap, visit http://marinemap.org
Code: https://code.google.com/p/marinemap/
Demo: http://southcoast.marinemap.org/marinemap/