May 16, 2008
Must it always be Google Maps?
To visual geographic content most of the people I know use Google Maps. But must if always e Google Maps? in my opinion NO! Currently there are great alternatives out there, where you can do a lot more than with Google Maps. Interesting projects comming from the open source community. I think the main problem (at least in my country) is that people simple don’t know much about these possibilities, therefore I’d like to provide some links:
On the Example page of OpenLayers a lot of differnt maps are shown, where you can get an idea what is possible and how it works.
Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.
I think we’re looking at two solutions to two problems here.
Problem one > I have no GIS background or data, and I want to publish a map of how to get to my house. Answer one = google maps, yahoo maps, http://zoomin.co.nz/map/nz/
Problem two > I have just done some GIS analysis and I now want to publish the results online. Answer two = OpenLayers, Tilecache, GeoServer, Ka-Map etc
I bet there are thousands of web developers out there who know how to implement the google maps API, but have no idea what a TAB / SHP / WFS etc is.
Sorry about this but it’s Saturday, so I’m trying to be funny -> Must it always be google ads?