--- Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
You probably know more about this than I do, so this is quite possibly a naive question. Is it possible to leverage any of the existing internet-based GIS stuff for our purposes?
I don't see why not (and you gave some good free examples). At its most basic level it is a matter of requests going to a spatial server and the spatial server sending vector or raster data to the client (using vector data requies JavaScript while using raster data only requires a web browser; but vector is more bandwidth-friendly).
Lat/long could be fed to such a spatial server along with some default values for extent and projection to obtain a basic map. There are a *great* many similar websites that do this on the Internet. If you have used MapQuest, then you have used such a system.
The real issue are data; Only the U.S. has very comprehensive public domin spatial data. A separate WikiGIS/WikiMaps project (we own the .com and .org for both names) would probably be needed to improve those data and create data for the rest of the world (also serve the result to all Wikimedia projects as a part of Wikimedia Commons). *That* would be fairly unique and difficult to do, since I'm not aware of any such similar project based on the Internet.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
PS - the whole idea of copyrights on spatial data seem to be absurd to me; how could anybody claim to *own* any exact digital reproduction of the street network for Paris or the exact location and shape of the Zaire River? And yet this type of thing is *very* common in the GIS world (but I also think it is absurd for people to copyright *natural* DNA sequences and patent their *natural* products ; I guess I'm weird that way). Argh!
_______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com