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Easy geodata utilities

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Babysteps into GIS

Thinking about learning GIS. IMO, it is the best interface available for information searches.

Yesterday, I started looking into GIS. My current needs are simple. I simply need to show some data on a map - map of US would do just fine. The data can be very diverse, and is mostly available as simple matrices. For example, here is a sample I can think of:

At the moment, I know nothing about GIS. But it is impressive, and intuitive.

Well, first stop was at DMOZ. Then I moved on to FreeGIS, OpenGIS. Took a look at ESRI too.

Got University of Minnesota MapServer installed. It is a free open-source server. Comes with a demo. Pretty neat. Has bindings for Perl, Python, PHP etc. A pretty good tutorial explaining the concepts for the previous version got me some insights. More tutorials about GIS with some broken links :-( GISDevelopment.net has a good intro.

Ideally, I would like to cook up something like the service explained in WMS Cookbook. With some help from USPS to convert Zipcodes to lat/longs, I should be able to provide a simple interface where people can upload a spreadsheet of data that gets converted to layers for superimposing on a map. May be this is just a pipe-dream? I don't know enought to judge :-) There might be some commercial product that does all this out of the box, but that probably wouldn't help me learn.

I think I get general idea about shape files and maps. Need to find more about how to create data files.

By the way, my employer has a very active GIS site open to public. Check it out, if you are interested in biodiversity and conservation data.

  1. "I should be able to provide a simple interface where people can upload a spreadsheet of data that gets converted to layers for superimposing on a map."

    I have worked a bit with a product called Dynamic Maps and it does what you have mentioned pretty well. Its not free, though the map viewer client is free. see http://www.skeinc.com
    (They have all their products available for trial downloads...)


    Posted by: Ashok on July 2, 2003 02:27 AM
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