GeoRSS
GeoRSS is nothing more than regular RSS with x and y coordinates. It is also integrated into OpenLayers, and creating a layer directly from the RSS feed is easy, and toggling on and off these layers is also fast and easy. Another thing OpenLayers does with GeoRSS is that it creates popups on click automatically, using the description and title elements in the feed. Another thing we are doing with GeoRSS is allowing other departments on campus access our data, while not giving them direct access to our database. We have set up different query parameters that dictate what information is returned. Specific building info, search results based on descriptions and tags, and even complete point layers. Using this they can create their own maps using the IT map server to serve up the base map tiles, and their own interface using OpenLayers, and GeoRSS to quickly and easily make their own web maps.
Another nifty thing we are using GeoRSS for is the ‘You are here’ layer. When folks are on campus we are able to use their IP address to make an educated guess as to what building they are in and then create a GeoRSS layer by getting a feed that has the x and y for that specific building. If we are unable to determine what building they are in the layer doesn’t show up at all.
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GML
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GML is an excellent way to produce interactive features that can be overlayed on ones map. We stumbled upon GML early in our quest for an interactive map, we got most of our concepts from the open layers examples, and by looking at other folks’ maps and trying to duplicate and sometimes improving upon others functionality. We wanted a map that would be really interactive and would let users be able click on any feature and get information about it, and we wanted that information to be valuable and updated by the staff on campus that managed that information, for example we have accessibility information for the buildings around campus, and we want to allow the folks in Disability Services to be able to easily update the info.
GML is a XML standard for geographic data, it supports points, lines and polygon. OpenLayers, the javascript framework that renders the map in the browser, is unbelievably smart and can take the geometry of the feature, turn it into a Scalable Vector Graphic, and then overlay it on the map in the right place. Our GML file is created dynamically from the database. The query i use to gather the shape data is: SELECT astext(the_geom) as the_geom,gid FROM tble. there is also some text manipulation of the string produced by astext(the_geom) that is being done by php, but it is pretty minimal. you can directly access the values of the elements for each feature using javascript. So you could, and we did initially, store attribute data in the GML and then access it directly using javascript. We now decided to have as little information as possible in the GML, and then make an AJAX call to get the attributes from the database. This makes the GML smaller, and then in theory faster for OpenLayers to process, and it also makes the database query faster.