Mapserver grass
We're the pitchforks and torches for the smart mobs.
Each map has a purpose; each map tells a story. We need maps that tell the relevant stories.
We want to be able to tell stories about things that happen in a variety of different places. If you want your story to be heard, you have to tell it in the right way.
We're mapping the wireless revolution! One of the things we're trying to do is build a fixed-point wireless network out in the hills (and the trees) of 802.11b. It has line of sight requirement.
[the nocat explanation was awesome]
802.11b requires line of sight; who can see whom? If you can see it, you can shoot it.
Who can see whom? We'll plot links by hand, get elevation contours, etc. The numbers are insane, when you scale to 100 people. We're trying to bring people together, to promote self-reliance. Why do we need a multionational corporation to connect a community together? Communities gather around their stories.
We were trying to get Mapster to do its thing, and it just wasn't being easy. [What blue lines?] The big GIS map just isn't our map! It obscures what we want to see. [Can you see the blue lines?]
This is Rich's story, but it doesn't quite go far enough. [GPS route-maps].
We want systems for the management, acquisition, and presentation of geospatial information.
* Acquiring and exploring geospatial information * Creating a narrative
Key point: Maps are a narrative.
As the weblog phenomena demonstrates, everyone has something to say. We'd like to enable people to tell their story (and enable us to tell ours) using maps.
There's one similarity between them all: Stuff, attributes, locations.
Open source software; freely available data sources. We resisted going with the super-topo software because we couldn't just give them away.
We turned to GIS. [diversion: I have a tendency to reinvent the wheel from first principles]
Layers; data sources; coordinate systems; projections. We need to project a spherical surface onto a flat plane. The compromises you make change your maps; when you try and exchange data, you havce to mkake sure that you're coordinating the tradeofss properly. [note: suggest comparison to Photoshop, in addition to transparencies and hat suggestion you made? SimCity! demonstrate, with a running simcity instance]
Data sources.
* TIGER. Collected by the US census beaurus. Includes rivers, political boundaries, zip code boundaries, etc. Available on the website; often inaccurate, wildly incomplete.
* GNIS. Official repository of domestic geographic names information; contains 2 million physical/cultural features. Lat, long, elevation.
* Other USGS sources. DLG, DRG, Orthophoto Quads, BARD (Bay Area Regional Database). Geo-tiffs, with layers including the information. A lot of
* DEM - available from USGS, elevation at 10 or 30 meter resolution for the entire US; can be converted to contour vectors; we can calculate line of sight!
* Make your own! GPS; Netstumbler; Journals; RDF...? Emerging standards on XML style annotation of geographic information?
* TIGER Mapsurfer; URL. What's cool: Instant, attractive maps. They don't tell our story. They can't provide the source code. The test application was never completly documented. The software is missing large portions of source code, and is hardware specific.
* GRASS; Geographic Resource Analysis Support System; collection of UNIX programs with a Tcl/Tk front-end; Open Source! Does everything! Hard to use! By doctoral students, for doctoral students. Everyone who uses grass is either in the field getting paid to do this, or they're PhD's or candidates, or they're on the mailing list or developers.
* FreeGIS: cool. * OpenGIS: cool. Industry consortium devoted to open standards and freely available data. Open specs: Simple Features Specifications for SQL (geospatial database). Geography markup language. Werb Feature Services (retrieving features); Web Mapping Services (retrieving maps). * PostGIS: adds geographic objects to the PostgreSQL object-relational database. Useful as a backend spatial database for GIS applications, like Oracle's Spatial extension. Follows the OpenGIS simpl
* MapServer: it's a CGI. GIS browser. Capable of reading data from GRASS and PostGIS. Mapserver knows layers. Mapscript bindings for Perl, Python, Tcl, Guile, and Java.
WifiMaps: They appear to be based on MapServer, at www.wifimaps.com.
Personal Telco Project: Node maps via MapServer. Nodebot - an IRC resource. Reports nearest PTP node locations via IRC; uses XML-RPC to PHP MApScript. GeoWiki. Python MapScript plug-in for MoinMoin. Link to http://personaltelco.net/
NoCat Maps: Node database, geocoding, elevation profiles, http://maps.nocat.net/ -- all you need is a computer and an antenna. Demonstration: Possible links from Walter Greenwood.
Schuyler: My internet traffic travels six miles, five hops.
What it doesn't account for: Curvature of the earth, fresnel zones, ground clutter. The software can tell you when you can't, but it doesn't address buildings and trees.
Where we're at: Frustating, complex, confusing, weakly documented array of nitty gritty. Building databases is a black art. Visualization tools that allow us to play "what if" easily - the spreadsheet analogy. Web services that expose public databases and facilitate development and man-based applications.
Map supermarket prices on a geospatial map. We need public databases. Let a hundred map servers bloom! Give us ideas. What I'd like is for us to have people tell us what would be cool to do with maps.
Suggestion: GPS trace my own movement for the course of a month and see the size of the city i live in?
GPS Track your movements...absolutely, and then compare your daily travels from day to day...
This is the deal with stories!
Then, what the heck, correlate your maps with your checkbook program...where are you when you spend money?
Where do you spend more or less money?
Posted by: Rich Gibson | April 23, 2003 at 02:47 PM