Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 07:52:24 +0000 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>, Nik Clayton <nik@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: Stephen Hilton <nospam@hiltonbsd.com>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, julian@elischer.org Subject: Re: Hi!Dear FreeBSD! Message-ID: <200302190752.24565.wes@softweyr.com> In-Reply-To: <3E532487.CF23A1C0@mindspring.com> References: <3E3BEC87.80600@gmx.net> <20030219001535.GB6403@clan.nothing-going-on.org> <3E532487.CF23A1C0@mindspring.com>
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On Wednesday 19 February 2003 06:30, Terry Lambert wrote: > Nik Clayton wrote: > > On Sun, Feb 02, 2003 at 10:37:21AM -0600, Stephen Hilton wrote: > > > Why not base it on latitude and longitude, along with an > > > email address and text fields to allow for some self > > > expression of areas of interest etc...? > > > > > > A clickable map would be a nice interface for the database > > > lookups with a max radius factor, but really is just icing > > > on the cake. > > > > Please, no wheel reinvention. > > > > http://www.pm.org/groups/index.html > > None of those maps are clickable. They're actually just *tiny* > PNGs of maps-with-pins-in-them, with no obvious correlation to > real location data associated with PERL (e.g. number of pins is > not equal to number of page entries, in most cases, and the pins > for Columbs, Dayton, and other Ohio locations all pops up at the > same pixel location, etc.). > > It's really unfortunate that no one seems to be willing to put > out the server resources to do real GIS mapping, e.g. using the > data specifications at: > > http://www.opengis.org/ > > Given that it looks like it's membership restricted to people who > can pay, and that there are no decent Open Source rendering products: > > http://www.opengis.org/testing/product/index.php > > and that it's in the best interests of the commercial vendors to > keep it this way, so as to not have to compete on the basis of > innovation, people are unlikely to find that this is going to > change very soon, unless someone who cares enough about maps to > keep suggesting that people implement this actually sit down and > build the map rendering software to do the job (hint: Stephen) The US DoD Defense Mapping Agency has transferred their database of the North American continent to a technology transfer company that allows you to download it in chunks, or order it on CD-ROM. The specifications for the data are publically available and quite easy to use, the basic data unit is a terrain elevation from the center of the earth at 1 meter intervals over a 1 degree by 1 degree square. (This is DTED, Digital Terrain Elevation Data; also available are features like rivers & lakes, roads and buildings, in the Digital Feature Analysis Data or DFAD datasets.) The CIA has maps for most of the world available in the same format in their World DataBank, but so far doesn't seem interested in releasing theirs. -- Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket? Wes Peters wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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