I am new to the geotools and fairly new to the GIS world in general - and would appreciate some advice and direction.
The software project I am currently working on will include functionality that allows users to plan neighborhood walking plans. The application is a web-based, Java application that operates as an ASP model. The general feature can be broken down as follows: 1) User selects a geographical area in which part of it will be walked (counties, precincts, census blocks, etc.), the number of groups that will walk the area, and the number of houses that each group will walk. 2) The user either chooses a starting point or one is chosen automatically. 3) Based on our database of geocoded addresses, the system will divide up addresses amongst the chosen number of groups in a logical manner. 4) For each group, the system will generate a list of the addresses in a logical order, along with a map and (maybe) walking directions. 5) The result described in #4 will be viewable over the web and can be printed out via a PDF. There are many systems available that can help with the map and directions, but #3 seems to be the most challenging problem to solve. We are not concerned about finding a perfectly optimal solution, but would probably be happy with a simple algorithm such as the following: 1) The current group is group one. 2) From the starting location, pick the first street and assign all addresses on that street to the current group. 3) If the current group has reached the max. addresses per group, move on to the next group. 4) Pick one of the cross streets within a certain distance and assign all addresses from that cross street to the current group. Repeat at step three until all groups are full. So, that isn't a perfect description - but the basic idea is to traverse the streets in the given area and assign addresses to groups automatically. We are looking at Navteq and Tele Atlas data. We are also considering ESRI, MapInfo, and geotools as possible software solutions to help implement this functionality. I have had some difficulty in figuring out how to best implement the above algorithm using these solutions. So my questions are, 1) Is geotools a good solution for our problems, or should I focus more on one of the commercial solutions? (MapInfo actually provides a walking directions feature now with their Envinsa product) 2) If commercial, any recommendations either way (MapInfo vs ESRI vs other)? MapInfo seems a bit more Java-friendly than ESRI. 3) If geotools, where would be a good place to look for how to find street intersections, cross-streets, etc.? I've had a hard time learning to use geotools since it seems like many of the tutorials are out-of-date and do not correspond to the current API. In particular, I've had a hard time determining what streets intersect another street. 4) Any recommendations on Navteq vs. Tele Atlas vs. some other data provider? In particular, would one of these data source make it easier for us to implement the described algorithm/functionality (esp related to street intersections or map traversals)? 5) Since no one in my organization is a "GIS expert" - any recommendations on resources to get us started - or professional support/consulting services that could help jumpstart our development effort? I will greatly appreciate any advice or direction the people in this list can provide! Diving into the GIS domain and these tools has proved a fairly daunting effort so far on a project with very tight timelines! Thanks! Jeremy Haile _______________________________________________ Geotools-gt2-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geotools-gt2-users
