[udig-devel] using uDig to view oblique photos

["Rueben Schulz" <rschulz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello.

I am currently evaluating a few (mostly java) open source GISs for use in an
upcoming project I am working on  (unfortunately proprietary). The project
involves displaying oblique photos and is based on an existing extension I
wrote  for ArcMap. The existing application allows a user to choose an area
on a map, and oblique photos that cover that area are  displayed in separate
windows (one for each cardinal direction). The windows showing oblique
photos are synchronized, so zooming or panning in one window updates the
extent of the other windows. This allows a user to see, for example, an
oblique view of all 4 sides of a house.

I spent some time last week going over the uDig tutorials and reading email
list postings. Udig looks to be quite suitable for what I am doing, since it
was designed to be used as a base for this type of application.

However, I do have a few questions:

1) What is the ETA on 1.2.0 (I know the exact date is subject to resource
availability). I assume 1.2 is the best code  base to work off of right now.

2) What would a rough architecture for my use case be? Based on my
(incomplete) understanding of eclipse I think I need:
    - A tool to choose areas of interest on the map (to display oblique
photos for) as described in the plugin tutorial. This tool will communicate
with the views where photos are displayed.
    - One or more views to display the oblique photos (jpg/tif). I think
this can use the same renderer that the uDig map uses, and pan/zoom tools
can be placed at the top of the view. Ideally road data can be overlayed
onto these photos (if I implement the proper transform in geotools)
    - A default perspective to arrange everything.

3) What is the best way to deploy a plugin? Should I make a custom app with
everything bundled (including a JRE), or can the plugin be bundled
separately and added to a default uDig version (treating uDig as a GIS
application)? Or can both approaches be taken?

Thank you for any pointers.
Rueben Schulz