[udig-devel] [Fwd: Hi]

[Adrian Custer <acuster@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I'm forwarding your mail to Geotools-users list and to uDig list to give
it more exposure. 

        WARNING! From what I can tell, your needs are right at the edge
        of what geotools/udig can do 'off the shelf'. This will impact
        how quickly and cheaply you can develop the applications
        required for your users. Depending on your budget, it would be
        smart to contact the few companies who are working on the
        geospatial applications and see if you could hire them for the
        parts of this work that is beyond your reach. That
        recommendation is merely to save you time and money but you can
        decide.
        
>From a quick overview, it sounds like you will need several pieces to
pull together the system you have in mind. It does sound like a central
database would be warranted. If your users are only going to do simple
analyses, you could provide them with a browser interface although if
they are going to do more complex things, you should look into providing
uDig. The uDig client has the basics you mention but printing and even
export to an image is currently less than robust.

I would suggest you first work on your design documents to get a list of
objectives and the time frame in which the different pieces are needed.

I would encourage you to get a good handle on PostGIS (the GIS enhanced
version of PostgreSQL), on Web Mapping Server, and Web Feature Server to
understand which of that back end technology you will need.

Then I would encourage you to assess the browser vs. desktop client to
see how much power your clients need. Note that your remote users can
either work directly against the database over the network or can work
through a web server---both are possible it's merely a question of
update convenience versus power of the client.

Finally, once you have a good handle on the functionality you want to
provide and on the technology package you want, then you can assess what
can be used off the shelf, what work you will need to do to configure
and install the technology and what technology you will need to develop.
If you need to develop new functionality, I would really encourage you
to assess if your budget allows you to hire some of the companies
involved in developing the database, server, web client or desktop
client software---because the knowledge required to get going is fairly
large, they will probably be much more efficient than newcomers like
yourselves. That said, if you plan on using this technology often over
then next decade, then by all means teach yourself how to use it and
develop the pieces you need. 

In short, my recommendation is to spend a bunch of time now on the
design both making a clean and detailed explanation of what you want to
be able to do and then assessing the technological options, development
and operating costs, and long term benefits of open systems. While you
might want to compile and develop right away, learning to compile
geotools will come down the road if and when you really need to do that.

all the best,

--adrian

-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Rina Bhatt <rinavbhatt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: acuster@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Hi
Date: 29 Mar 2007 09:29:19 -0000

Hi,

Thank you so much!

You are absolutely right. I have clear idea but am unable to pen it
down.

Well thnks for the idea. So here i am starting from the scratch.:

Ours is a marketing company (GCMMF (AMUL)). Now we have Depots and
 Retailer outlets at various places all over India.
Information about WD/Area of WD/ Zone of WD / Retailer/Retailer sales
 is captured in our own EIAS system.
Based on this information we want analysis such as "Retailers periodic
sales", "Grid wise no of retailers", "WD wise sales" etc. (hope u got
it).

Now as i mentioned, i have develop GIS application in VB using
Mapobjects. we have maps in ESRI Shape format.

For retailers we are allowing plotting and saving on maps. User has to
select particular retailer from the list (populated from the EIAS
information) and plot it to make it Geo-coded.

Now this was about my existing application.

With the new application, we want to have advance analysis such as
"Network analysis" ,"Thematic Analysis", "Conditional Analysis based on
system data" (and some other but uncertain to specify them as depends
on company's requirements)

Now we can have two options, either we can have central repository of
maps so no need to copy it on every machine where GIS is suppose to be
install or we can make application browser based to allow multiple user
accessing application for viewing and authenticated users can perform
editing too.

With basic requirements i meant these following features:
1. zoom in./ out
2. pan
3. find
4. infor
5. tool tip
6. distance measurement
7. feature selection on map
8. switch on /off layers on users choice
9. on line creation of any layer with the same projection system
10.define image or icon as symbol to display landmarks
11. identifying a feature by point or selecting it on map
12. defining scale of map displayed on various levels of zoom
13. export of maps to image format or to printers
14.user authentication

Hope this time u gets clear idea.

Thank you in advance

Reena





 






On Thu, 29 Mar 2007 09:43:51 +0200 Adrian Custer wrote Hello, Okay, this
is good. Let's start at the beginning. You want a map in a browser? If
so, geotools is *not* for you! While geotools started as a project for
applets, geotools is now focused elsewhere. There are several other
projects that do browser widgets: consider perhaps OpenLayers.org. If
you want to serve maps from a central location, look at the geoserver
and mapbuilder projects. If you want to look at maps and analyze them,
then geotools/udig or grass are good choices. While it sounds like you
now have a clear idea in your head what you want to do, this is not
clear in your mail: what's a basic feature? what kind of analysis,
spatial analysis? (We are not there yet.) Maps on the central repository
--- that's a server project. Serving to web pages---that's an openlayers
or other project So it sounds like geotools is not for you. You could
put your maps on geoserver somewhere and setup a web server with
openlayers support. Geotools is a library which means it's basically
useless to anyone who is not ready to program new computer code
seriously. If you want more help, please flesh out your design
requirement into a good paragraph. Don't start with the technology but
with what you want the end product to *do* "We are a small company with
geographic data we hope to provide our users. Millie is a typical user,
she lives at home and wants to see which of our collaborators has the
store closest to her house. She opens her browser, selects her town and
sees a bunch of big points where the stores are." (Or something like
that). Sorry not to have the magic bullet for you; GIS is hard, figuring
out what one wants is tough, finding the technology that can do it is a
struggle, and putting it all together requires perseverance! --adrian On
Thu, 2007-03-29 at 04:50 +0000, Rina Bhatt wrote: > hi, > > sorry for
bothering u again but its getting hard to understand as i am > just a
beginner to java and ofcourse with geotools. > > let me once again pen
down my requirements clearly- > > 1. all basic features. > > 2. business
analysis > > 3. web based / browser supportive > > 4. maps can be
accessed from the central repository > > as i already mentioned, being
beginner to java , can u please detail > the steps and also which
version i should download of geotools. > > thank you in advance, > >
reena > > > clouds 
Silver strike