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Posted to community@apache.org by Philip Mark Donaghy <ph...@gmail.com> on 2005/12/24 13:40:39 UTC
Internet mapping server and geographic projects at the ASF
Inspired by the ApacheCon and a discussion during the closing talks on
maintaining a virtual map of the world using devices carried by humans, I
wish to propose a project at Apache that does that and more. I would like to
seek out interested people who would like to work on mapping software at the
ASF.
The projects that interest me are,
1. A map server that shows the location of people at the Apache conference.
This is for people who wish to remain accessible to others. This idea
bothers some people. But as with any ASF project security and privacy are
very important.
2. I wrote a portlet application for Jetspeed 2 which uses the MapServer
project. This could be separated out as a generic portlet map server.
3. I would like to do a community driven social experiment as a way of
gathering global data.
4. A generic Java map server project. I would like to build some better
tools for authoring and publishing online maps.
5. Torsten Curdt spoke to me about his ideas of blogging by geographic
location. Essentially all blogs are tagged with a location based on IP
address.
6. I discussed a mapping project with Chris Schaefer. There is some live
data being published by the california highway authority about traffic. It
is text and html and lacks a mapping server so it is rather difficult to
visualize the information.
7. Google is obviously leading the way in mapping technology. I would like
to see an apache project that provides similar quality services. I am
learning where my web traffic comes from using Google analytics. But they
don't provide interactive maps.
Please contact me if anyone is interested. Obviously the incubator is where
this project will start but building the community is the first step. Happy
holidays everyone!
Sincerely,
Philip
--
Philip Donaghy
donaghy.blogspot.com del.icio.us/donaghy/philip
Skype: philipmarkdonaghy
Office: +33 5 56 60 88 02
Mobile: +33 6 20 83 22 62
Re: Internet mapping server and geographic projects at the ASF
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
Philip Mark Donaghy wrote:
> On 12/25/05, Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org> wrote:
>> Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
>>
>>> You might want to take a look at what we (my group at MIT) did the
>>> international semantic web conference:
>>>
>>> http://simile.mit.edu/conferences/iswc2005/
>> Sorry, this was meant to be
>>
>> http://simile.mit.edu/conference/iswc2005/
>
> That is cool, I just added my name. Is it only the base map and the
> mapping api that is using Google. Is there an external data format or
> database storing the data?
All the data is in RDF and it's stored in a triple store (we use Sesame,
Warning: LGPL) and presented with Velocity templates and full text
search powered by Lucene. The code is available at
http://simile.mit.edu/repository/semantic-bank/branches/conference/
and it's BSD-licensed.
I find it the most powerful to use a special view with faceted browsing
functionality, for example
http://tinyurl.com/889w4
the application is fully RESTful, no cookie or session is used (which is
why the URLs are so big) but makes it very handy for bookmarking or for
exporting. For example, the (undocumented) way to get the data out is to
change the command=browse into command=export as in
http://tinyurl.com/ahwek
which will give you the RDF formatted as RDF/XML.
If you want to know more, I'll be very happy to follow up privately or
you are welcome to subscribe to the general@simile.mit.edu mailing list
and ask your questions there.
--
Stefano.
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Re: Internet mapping server and geographic projects at the ASF
Posted by Philip Mark Donaghy <ph...@gmail.com>.
On 12/25/05, Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org> wrote:
> Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
>
> > You might want to take a look at what we (my group at MIT) did the
> > international semantic web conference:
> >
> > http://simile.mit.edu/conferences/iswc2005/
>
> Sorry, this was meant to be
>
> http://simile.mit.edu/conference/iswc2005/
That is cool, I just added my name. Is it only the base map and the
mapping api that is using Google. Is there an external data format or
database storing the data?
>
> --
> Stefano.
>
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: community-unsubscribe@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: community-help@apache.org
>
>
--
Philip Donaghy
donaghy.blogspot.com del.icio.us/donaghy/philip
Skype: philipmarkdonaghy
Office: +33 5 56 60 88 02
Mobile: +33 6 20 83 22 62
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Re: Internet mapping server and geographic projects at the ASF
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
> You might want to take a look at what we (my group at MIT) did the
> international semantic web conference:
>
> http://simile.mit.edu/conferences/iswc2005/
Sorry, this was meant to be
http://simile.mit.edu/conference/iswc2005/
--
Stefano.
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Re: Internet mapping server and geographic projects at the ASF
Posted by Philip Mark Donaghy <ph...@gmail.com>.
On 12/24/05, Colm MacCarthaigh <co...@stdlib.net> wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 24, 2005 at 11:33:24AM -0800, Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
> > and note: we already have scripts that transform some of the ASF data
> > into RDF already.
> >
> > As for an 'apache mapping' project, I think you *seriously*
> > underestimate the amount of resources required to run such a service.
>
I realize that the putting this sort of a thing in production would be
a tremendous effort. We can build the infrastructure software and let
others try to deploy it, which is more of a long term goal. There are
many oss projects out there that have mapping software ready to
distribute under an Apache license. Most notably the MapServer project
which is a simplified BSD license. And if the GPL 3 becomes compatible
with the Apache there is much more out there. So this would be more of
an integration project with Apache filling in the gaps and producing a
data storage solution with authoring clients, mobile clients that
connect to GPS and cell phone devices. I would compare this project
with Geronimo, which is roughly 50 percent external projects.
MapTools.org is doing a javascript api like googles. Check out ka-map
demo.
> +1!
>
> > There are two "tile servers" available to the public: one is run my
> > Microsoft (part of terraserver, *not* virtualearth), one is run by NASA
> > (as part of the infrastructure that powers WorldWind).
>
> As it happens, I run the server than handles an awful lot (I'm not sure
> what proportion) of the NASA imagery and have many many terabytes of it,
> in many many millions of files. So if anyone wants good access to this
> material, it's not entirely outside the bounds of possibility, we could
> make it happen.
Super.
>
> > I would personally very much like apache to host the software that
> > clones the javascript part of google maps in an open source way, but
> > running the tile server is going to require massive amount of technical
> > infrastructure.
> >
> > A much better idea is to partner with NASA and Coral
> >
> > http://coralcdn.org/
>
> I don't think Coral is quite up to it, just yet, but the network of
> mirrors might be. That's the approach that WorldWind is using already.
> The sizes of the datasets are somewhat onerous though, and a very large
> proportion of the work is non-software, which kind of calls into
> question whether a Software Foundation is the right place to do such
> a thing.
>
> --
> Colm MacCárthaigh Public Key: colm+pgp@stdlib.net
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: community-unsubscribe@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: community-help@apache.org
>
>
--
Philip Donaghy
donaghy.blogspot.com del.icio.us/donaghy/philip
Skype: philipmarkdonaghy
Office: +33 5 56 60 88 02
Mobile: +33 6 20 83 22 62
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Re: Internet mapping server and geographic projects at the ASF
Posted by Colm MacCarthaigh <co...@stdlib.net>.
On Sat, Dec 24, 2005 at 11:33:24AM -0800, Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
> and note: we already have scripts that transform some of the ASF data
> into RDF already.
>
> As for an 'apache mapping' project, I think you *seriously*
> underestimate the amount of resources required to run such a service.
+1!
> There are two "tile servers" available to the public: one is run my
> Microsoft (part of terraserver, *not* virtualearth), one is run by NASA
> (as part of the infrastructure that powers WorldWind).
As it happens, I run the server than handles an awful lot (I'm not sure
what proportion) of the NASA imagery and have many many terabytes of it,
in many many millions of files. So if anyone wants good access to this
material, it's not entirely outside the bounds of possibility, we could
make it happen.
> I would personally very much like apache to host the software that
> clones the javascript part of google maps in an open source way, but
> running the tile server is going to require massive amount of technical
> infrastructure.
>
> A much better idea is to partner with NASA and Coral
>
> http://coralcdn.org/
I don't think Coral is quite up to it, just yet, but the network of
mirrors might be. That's the approach that WorldWind is using already.
The sizes of the datasets are somewhat onerous though, and a very large
proportion of the work is non-software, which kind of calls into
question whether a Software Foundation is the right place to do such
a thing.
--
Colm MacCárthaigh Public Key: colm+pgp@stdlib.net
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Re: Internet mapping server and geographic projects at the ASF
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
Philip Mark Donaghy wrote:
> Inspired by the ApacheCon and a discussion during the closing talks on
> maintaining a virtual map of the world using devices carried by humans,
> I wish to propose a project at Apache that does that and more. I would
> like to seek out interested people who would like to work on mapping
> software at the ASF.
>
> The projects that interest me are,
>
> 1. A map server that shows the location of people at the Apache
> conference. This is for people who wish to remain accessible to others.
> This idea bothers some people. But as with any ASF project security and
> privacy are very important.
>
> 2. I wrote a portlet application for Jetspeed 2 which uses the MapServer
> project. This could be separated out as a generic portlet map server.
>
> 3. I would like to do a community driven social experiment as a way of
> gathering global data.
>
> 4. A generic Java map server project. I would like to build some better
> tools for authoring and publishing online maps.
>
> 5. Torsten Curdt spoke to me about his ideas of blogging by geographic
> location. Essentially all blogs are tagged with a location based on IP
> address.
>
> 6. I discussed a mapping project with Chris Schaefer. There is some live
> data being published by the california highway authority about traffic.
> It is text and html and lacks a mapping server so it is rather difficult
> to visualize the information.
>
> 7. Google is obviously leading the way in mapping technology. I would
> like to see an apache project that provides similar quality services. I
> am learning where my web traffic comes from using Google analytics. But
> they don't provide interactive maps.
>
> Please contact me if anyone is interested. Obviously the incubator is
> where this project will start but building the community is the first
> step. Happy holidays everyone!
You might want to take a look at what we (my group at MIT) did the
international semantic web conference:
http://simile.mit.edu/conferences/iswc2005/
and note: we already have scripts that transform some of the ASF data
into RDF already.
As for an 'apache mapping' project, I think you *seriously*
underestimate the amount of resources required to run such a service.
Landsat 7 data is available as public domain, for a really nice little
program that uses you can check out WW2D
http://ww2d.csoft.net/index.php?title=Introduction
which is a NASA WorldWind java+opengl clone (and amazingly fast! at
least on my mac).
There are two "tile servers" available to the public: one is run my
Microsoft (part of terraserver, *not* virtualearth), one is run by NASA
(as part of the infrastructure that powers WorldWind).
Landsat 7 has a resolution of 15m per pixel, while GoogleMaps is using
images from QuickBird (operated by DigitalGlobe) which has 0.6m per
pixel (but it's clearly not public domain ;-)
I would personally very much like apache to host the software that
clones the javascript part of google maps in an open source way, but
running the tile server is going to require massive amount of technical
infrastructure.
A much better idea is to partner with NASA and Coral
http://coralcdn.org/
--
Stefano.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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