[okfn-discuss] Re: Rendering of geo locations using **open data**

[Jo Walsh]

On Mon, Aug 21, 2006 at 12:52:06PM +0100, Rufus Pollock wrote:
> >### Rendering of geo locations using **open data** ###
> >
> >Would like a simple software package to allow one to render location
> >on a map with link to text. Essential that underlying map data be
> >open. Would also like this to be deployable locally in addition to on
> >a server. Preference would be for python or javascript type
> >implementation.
> 
> I wondered whether you -- or anyone else or anyone else on list -- know 
> of already existent tools/projects which already do this?

I'd recommend OpenLayers as a client/UI toolkit. cf http://openlayers.org/gallery/  
This is pure javascript. It uses Web Map Service to connect to
different (open) geodata sources - one could use something as general
as the VMap0 vector map of the world dataset - http://gutenkarte.org/
illustrates this approach - OpenStreetmap also have a WMS for close-up views. 
To get this running locally you would have to be running a WMS server
(e.g. mapserver, http://ms.gis.umn.edu/ ) on your local machine or
network. For python implmentations you might want to look at Sean
Gillies' Python Cartographic Library. There is potentially a lot of
data involved. You might want these maps to be relatively 'static'
after they are made?  This approach might be way processing power 
overkill for what you need... :)


jo