Re: GIS Tools/modeling
Chris, I did as you said - except I loaded GeoServer, not MapServer, as a webapp - GeoServer is Java-based and more modern. But did you see that I also created the WfsEventHandler and WfsViewHandler? I think that GeoServer should be used to paint backgrounds - streets, terrain, etc. and have OFBiz handle the points of interest thru the WftEvent/ViewHandler. I think this will be the case with most OFBiz apps - there will be entities that have physical locations and most of what you will want to do is plot them over the GeoServer base layers. This is consistent with how GIS is done these days - mashups in which data is drawn from multiple servers. Sometimes I could imagine that the queries that you want to do on the ofbiz-managed points of interest could get more involved than the typical boundary rectangle search and that would be the place that the database specific objects could come in handy. Actually that may be mostly related to completing the WFS query operations. Right now, it only does a simple property query - it does not even find the points within a boundary rectangle - that would be the next task to complete. The main place in which database specific object routines would be handy would be when you want to store something more than simple point locations - perhaps paths to get from one place to another, or property boundaries. You may want to get all properties that impinge on an area. Everything could be done via the WFS queries on the GeoServer server, but I think things could be much difficult in some instances. There may be occasion when you want to display points of interest that are very much dependent on ofbiz entities - perhaps many more than you want GeoServer to have to know about. in those cases it would be much simpler to not require that a developer know much about Geoserver and query languages like wfs and ofc. In fact, it would not be necessary to use the WfsEventHandler to find points of interest; one could just do an OFBiz native search and return the points thru the WfsViewHandler so that they could be plotted via a client tool like Community MapBuilder. Don't forget the availability of GeoRSS for making OFBiz entities available to utilities like Google Maps. That is another area in which it would be important for OFBiz to be able to handle spatial queries. So I think the bottom line is that it will be very beneficial for OFBiz to do some, but not the full range of GIS functions - with those functions being specifed by WFS and GeoRSS. I think the answer to the two questions below is that if it were simply single points, then there would be no need to build out the entity engine database specific objects, but if there is ever a need for polyline objects, such as property borders, then those objects would be required. Once that is done, you could look into tying in the GeoTools toolkit - using GeoServer as a model. But that would probably be going to far - no need for another GIS server. I think the dividing line is the handling of simple polyline objects. -Al On 12/23/07, Chris Howe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've dug a bit deeper into this (slowly but surely) and have a few more questions. 1) Is there any interest in having the entity engine handle database specific objects? 2) Is there any benefit in having the entity engine handle database specific objects? I'm seeing the easiest way to handle GIS in the same manner that Al Byers did. That is, have ofbiz load MapServer as a webapp and let that be the only communication with the geo-spatial database. Any thoughts?
Re: GIS Tools/modeling
Thanks Al, I had skipped over three important pieces of information for my current project. 1) Google Maps can handle KML and GML directly 2) Postgis has a function St_AsKML and ST_AsGml 3) The SQLProcessor in OFbiz lets me pass queries that use functions (like ST_AsKML) through it Mixed with the widgets, I think this may end up being sufficient for my current needs. And I don't have to worry about manipulating a GPL'd project :-) On a side note, If I could get the view-entity to handled the complex-alias function of ST_AsKML(the_geom), I would be completely satisfied. But it wants to evaluate the_geom as an unsupported type first... - Original Message From: Al Byers [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: dev@ofbiz.apache.org Sent: Monday, December 24, 2007 9:48:50 AM Subject: Re: GIS Tools/modeling Chris, I did as you said - except I loaded GeoServer, not MapServer, as a webapp - GeoServer is Java-based and more modern. But did you see that I also created the WfsEventHandler and WfsViewHandler? I think that GeoServer should be used to paint backgrounds - streets, terrain, etc. and have OFBiz handle the points of interest thru the WftEvent/ViewHandler. I think this will be the case with most OFBiz apps - there will be entities that have physical locations and most of what you will want to do is plot them over the GeoServer base layers. This is consistent with how GIS is done these days - mashups in which data is drawn from multiple servers. Sometimes I could imagine that the queries that you want to do on the ofbiz-managed points of interest could get more involved than the typical boundary rectangle search and that would be the place that the database specific objects could come in handy. Actually that may be mostly related to completing the WFS query operations. Right now, it only does a simple property query - it does not even find the points within a boundary rectangle - that would be the next task to complete. The main place in which database specific object routines would be handy would be when you want to store something more than simple point locations - perhaps paths to get from one place to another, or property boundaries. You may want to get all properties that impinge on an area. Everything could be done via the WFS queries on the GeoServer server, but I think things could be much difficult in some instances. There may be occasion when you want to display points of interest that are very much dependent on ofbiz entities - perhaps many more than you want GeoServer to have to know about. in those cases it would be much simpler to not require that a developer know much about Geoserver and query languages like wfs and ofc. In fact, it would not be necessary to use the WfsEventHandler to find points of interest; one could just do an OFBiz native search and return the points thru the WfsViewHandler so that they could be plotted via a client tool like Community MapBuilder. Don't forget the availability of GeoRSS for making OFBiz entities available to utilities like Google Maps. That is another area in which it would be important for OFBiz to be able to handle spatial queries. So I think the bottom line is that it will be very beneficial for OFBiz to do some, but not the full range of GIS functions - with those functions being specifed by WFS and GeoRSS. I think the answer to the two questions below is that if it were simply single points, then there would be no need to build out the entity engine database specific objects, but if there is ever a need for polyline objects, such as property borders, then those objects would be required. Once that is done, you could look into tying in the GeoTools toolkit - using GeoServer as a model. But that would probably be going to far - no need for another GIS server. I think the dividing line is the handling of simple polyline objects. -Al On 12/23/07, Chris Howe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've dug a bit deeper into this (slowly but surely) and have a few more questions. 1) Is there any interest in having the entity engine handle database specific objects? 2) Is there any benefit in having the entity engine handle database specific objects? I'm seeing the easiest way to handle GIS in the same manner that Al Byers did. That is, have ofbiz load MapServer as a webapp and let that be the only communication with the geo-spatial database. Any thoughts?
Re: GIS Tools/modeling
I've dug a bit deeper into this (slowly but surely) and have a few more questions. 1) Is there any interest in having the entity engine handle database specific objects? 2) Is there any benefit in having the entity engine handle database specific objects? I'm seeing the easiest way to handle GIS in the same manner that Al Byers did. That is, have ofbiz load MapServer as a webapp and let that be the only communication with the geo-spatial database. Any thoughts?
Re: GIS Tools/modeling
There is a lot of crazy stuff going on to make/utilize a spatial database. Before I go digging around for an answer to this, maybe someone can critique this approach and how it works against the OFBiz entity engine. In order to access anything useful from a geospatial database (in my case PostgreSQL using PostGis) you have to be able to call functions. So, first question: Are there tools that exist already in OFBiz to call functions that exist in the database or do you _have to use the SQLProcessor to run a query with a function? Second question: The data is stored as a geometry data type in the database. Most everything that is going to be consumed by OFBiz (Google Maps, etc) AFAICT, wants coordinate pairs and not geometry object. Is it better performance/development wise to create those functions in the database or to process the data in OFBiz? For a little background, this is the kind of query necessary to get a coordinate pair from a polygon geometry: select gid, ( ((select st_x(astext(transform(st_pointn(st_exteriorring(ST_GeometryN(the_geom, 1)),1),4030))) from precinct where gid=1), (select st_y(astext(transform(st_pointn(st_exteriorring(ST_GeometryN(the_geom, 1)),1),4030))) from precinct where gid=1)), ((select st_x(astext(transform(st_pointn(st_exteriorring(ST_GeometryN(the_geom, 1)),2),4030))) from precinct where gid=1), (select st_y(astext(transform(st_pointn(st_exteriorring(ST_GeometryN(the_geom, 1)),2),4030))) from precinct where gid=1)), ((select st_x(astext(transform(st_pointn(st_exteriorring(ST_GeometryN(the_geom, 1)),3),4030))) from precinct where gid=1), (select st_y(astext(transform(st_pointn(st_exteriorring(ST_GeometryN(the_geom, 1)),3),4030))) from precinct where gid=1)) ...n-number of points in polygon ) from precinct where gid =1; - Original Message From: Al Byers [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: dev@ofbiz.apache.org Sent: Friday, December 7, 2007 12:47:37 AM Subject: Re: GIS Tools/modeling Chris, Sorry, I did not get around to implementing os geocoders. Here are some links I came across, however: http://www.ontok.com/geocode/compare http://www.ontok.com/api http://geocoder.us/ One possible alternative is to find the code for a geocoder and use some of the free data that is available for it to operate on. I did not look into that route, but it seems there should be plenty of examples out there and tons of TIGER data. -Al
Re: GIS Tools/modeling
Al, others
I've been studying this a bit further and I'm running into a couple of
limitations and I'm not sure if they're avoidable without purchasing
subscriptions. When geocoding the only free services I'm finding are
webservices that don't allow batch processing so each request/response cycle
takes about 2 seconds. Have you come across anything that can batch the
requests and response to retrieve the coordinates of the address? And even
better, one that doesn't limit the number of addresses. I would simply do an
overlay, but I'm needing to run calculations to test whether the coordinate
pair is inside a polygon.
- Original Message
From: Al Byers [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: dev@ofbiz.apache.org
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 2:22:17 PM
Subject: Re: GIS Tools/modeling
Here is an interesting blog talking about some of the issues:
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/05/where_20_standards_1.html
This was written in 2006 and it could be that GeoRSS has come on
stronger
since then.
You may well want to implement your app using GeoRSS. I forgot that I
added
the RomeEventHandler. I see that JIRA issue OFBIZ-721 deals with RSS
and my
issue is https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-1208. Maybe we
should
use 1208 to capture discussion.
My controller.xml file has these:
!--handler name=wfs type=view class=
org.ofbiz.webapp.view.WfsViewHandler/--
handler name=rome type=request class=
org.ofbiz.webapp.event.RomeEventHandler/
...
request-map uri=ViewCustomRssFeed
security https=false auth=false/
event type=rome invoke=generateCustomRssFeed/
response name=success type=none/
response name=error type=view value=error/
/request-map
Here is the code for generateCustomRssFeed:
public static Map generateCustomRssFeed(DispatchContext dctx,
Map
context) {
Debug.logInfo(generateCustomCustomRssFeed(0) context: +
context, module);
GenericValue userLogin = (GenericValue)
context.get(userLogin);
String entryLink = (String) context.get(entryLink);
String feedType = (String) context.get(feedType);
Locale locale = (Locale) context.get(locale);
// create the main link
String mainLink = (String) context.get(mainLink);
LocalDispatcher dispatcher = dctx.getDispatcher();
GenericDelegator delegator = dctx.getDelegator();
// get the main blog content
GenericValue content = null;
// create the feed
SyndFeed feed = new SyndFeedImpl();
feed.setFeedType(feedType);
feed.setLink(mainLink);
feed.setTitle(Custom RSS Feed);
feed.setDescription(Custom RSS Feed);
Debug.logInfo(generateCustomRssFeed(1) feed: + feed,
module);
feed.setEntries(generateEntryList(dispatcher, delegator,
entryLink, locale, userLogin));
Map resp = ServiceUtil.returnSuccess();
resp.put(wireFeed, feed.createWireFeed());
return resp;
}
public static List generateEntryList(LocalDispatcher dispatcher,
GenericDelegator delegator, String entryLink, Locale locale,
GenericValue
userLogin) {
List entries = FastList.newInstance();
List customList = null;
Map nullMap = null;
try {
customList = delegator.findByAnd(CustomEntity,
nullMap);
} catch (GenericEntityException e) {
Debug.logError(e, module);
}
if (UtilValidate.isEmpty(customList)) {
return entries;
}
Iterator i = customList.iterator();
while (i.hasNext()) {
GenericValue v = (GenericValue) i.next();
Debug.logInfo(generateEntryList(1) v: + v, module);
String sub = v.getString(customName);
if (sub != null) {
String thisLink = entryLink + ?customId= +
v.getString(customId);
SyndContent desc = new SyndContentImpl();
desc.setType(text/plain);
desc.setValue(sub);
SyndEntry entry = new SyndEntryImpl();
entry.setTitle(v.getString(customName));
entry.setPublishedDate(v.getTimestamp
(createdStamp));
entry.setDescription(desc);
entry.setLink(thisLink);
//entry.setAuthor((v.getString(createdByUserLogin)));
GeoRSSModule geoRSSModule = new
W3CGeoModuleImpl();
Double lon = v.getDouble(longitude);
Double lat = v.getDouble(latitude);
//GeoRSSModule geoRSSModule = new
SimpleModuleImpl();
if (lon != null lat != null) {
Position pos = new Position(
lat.doubleValue(),
lon.doubleValue
Re: GIS Tools/modeling
since there is only one set for an address, once in ofbiz you don't have
to ask for it again.
Chris Howe sent the following on 12/6/2007 8:53 PM:
Al, others
I've been studying this a bit further and I'm running into a couple of
limitations and I'm not sure if they're avoidable without purchasing
subscriptions. When geocoding the only free services I'm finding are
webservices that don't allow batch processing so each request/response cycle
takes about 2 seconds. Have you come across anything that can batch the
requests and response to retrieve the coordinates of the address? And even
better, one that doesn't limit the number of addresses. I would simply do an
overlay, but I'm needing to run calculations to test whether the coordinate
pair is inside a polygon.
- Original Message
From: Al Byers [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: dev@ofbiz.apache.org
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 2:22:17 PM
Subject: Re: GIS Tools/modeling
Here is an interesting blog talking about some of the issues:
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/05/where_20_standards_1.html
This was written in 2006 and it could be that GeoRSS has come on
stronger
since then.
You may well want to implement your app using GeoRSS. I forgot that I
added
the RomeEventHandler. I see that JIRA issue OFBIZ-721 deals with RSS
and my
issue is https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-1208. Maybe we
should
use 1208 to capture discussion.
My controller.xml file has these:
!--handler name=wfs type=view class=
org.ofbiz.webapp.view.WfsViewHandler/--
handler name=rome type=request class=
org.ofbiz.webapp.event.RomeEventHandler/
...
request-map uri=ViewCustomRssFeed
security https=false auth=false/
event type=rome invoke=generateCustomRssFeed/
response name=success type=none/
response name=error type=view value=error/
/request-map
Here is the code for generateCustomRssFeed:
public static Map generateCustomRssFeed(DispatchContext dctx,
Map
context) {
Debug.logInfo(generateCustomCustomRssFeed(0) context: +
context, module);
GenericValue userLogin = (GenericValue)
context.get(userLogin);
String entryLink = (String) context.get(entryLink);
String feedType = (String) context.get(feedType);
Locale locale = (Locale) context.get(locale);
// create the main link
String mainLink = (String) context.get(mainLink);
LocalDispatcher dispatcher = dctx.getDispatcher();
GenericDelegator delegator = dctx.getDelegator();
// get the main blog content
GenericValue content = null;
// create the feed
SyndFeed feed = new SyndFeedImpl();
feed.setFeedType(feedType);
feed.setLink(mainLink);
feed.setTitle(Custom RSS Feed);
feed.setDescription(Custom RSS Feed);
Debug.logInfo(generateCustomRssFeed(1) feed: + feed,
module);
feed.setEntries(generateEntryList(dispatcher, delegator,
entryLink, locale, userLogin));
Map resp = ServiceUtil.returnSuccess();
resp.put(wireFeed, feed.createWireFeed());
return resp;
}
public static List generateEntryList(LocalDispatcher dispatcher,
GenericDelegator delegator, String entryLink, Locale locale,
GenericValue
userLogin) {
List entries = FastList.newInstance();
List customList = null;
Map nullMap = null;
try {
customList = delegator.findByAnd(CustomEntity,
nullMap);
} catch (GenericEntityException e) {
Debug.logError(e, module);
}
if (UtilValidate.isEmpty(customList)) {
return entries;
}
Iterator i = customList.iterator();
while (i.hasNext()) {
GenericValue v = (GenericValue) i.next();
Debug.logInfo(generateEntryList(1) v: + v, module);
String sub = v.getString(customName);
if (sub != null) {
String thisLink = entryLink + ?customId= +
v.getString(customId);
SyndContent desc = new SyndContentImpl();
desc.setType(text/plain);
desc.setValue(sub);
SyndEntry entry = new SyndEntryImpl();
entry.setTitle(v.getString(customName));
entry.setPublishedDate(v.getTimestamp
(createdStamp));
entry.setDescription(desc);
entry.setLink(thisLink);
//entry.setAuthor((v.getString(createdByUserLogin)));
GeoRSSModule geoRSSModule = new
W3CGeoModuleImpl();
Double lon = v.getDouble(longitude);
Double lat
Re: GIS Tools/modeling
Chris, Sorry, I did not get around to implementing os geocoders. Here are some links I came across, however: http://www.ontok.com/geocode/compare http://www.ontok.com/api http://geocoder.us/ One possible alternative is to find the code for a geocoder and use some of the free data that is available for it to operate on. I did not look into that route, but it seems there should be plenty of examples out there and tons of TIGER data. -Al
Re: GIS Tools/modeling
Hey Chris, Yes, I did some GIS work a few months ago. What I did was add a WFS interface to OFBiz. It is WfsEventHandler class in webapp.event. I did a lot of work with GeoServer (http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Home) and MapBuilder (http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAP/Home) for the client side. I used MySQL for a geo spatial DB. I think GeoServer is definitely the way to go for the server since it is Java based and I had no trouble including it in my ofbiz tomcat setup. There is an effort to consolidate many of the various client packages (such as OpenLayers) and MapBuilder seems to be at the forefront of that effort (it uses OpenLayers to render, but adds an XML syntax for implementing client frontends. It is a very exciting time for the GIS community as they are working together to create products and mashups that are the same sort of Goliath-killers in the GIS world that OFBiz is becoming in the ERP world. I also did a GeoRSS interface so that I could add markers to Google Maps, but I did not see how to add that to the ofbiz base code. I would be willing to share that code if we can see where to add it. See http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOSDOC/GeoRSS. I think the WFS interface is the critical part, as it lets you use other servers like GeoServer to server up the base GIS layers, but lets you use OFBiz to store and server the points of interest. I only modeled points with my WfsEventHandler class. It needs to be extended to do a rectangular find. One of the key things that I did was implement the ogc:filter using FreeMarker templates. That is the part that needs to be extended to implement the rectangular find. If you are not familiar with the WFS, WMS and WCS standards, you need to be. They are what make all the synergy possible. It has been a few months since I have had a chance to work on it (which might as well be a few years at my age) so you might want to google gis and ofbiz to see what else I had to say about it. I would be glad to discuss and work on something more substantial for ofbiz, but I am not actively working on GIS at the moment, so my time will be limited. -Al On 11/26/07, Chris Howe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I just completed a rather remedial GIS implementation (very poorly designed, but works for it's purpose). Anyone have any interest/experience/intelligent thought with this?
Re: GIS Tools/modeling
Very interesting. My implementation is extremely crude in comparison. I was only outputting KML and KMZ for Google Earth. It seems I have quite a bit of homework to do before being able to add very much to the discussion. - Original Message From: Al Byers [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: dev@ofbiz.apache.org Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 10:46:31 AM Subject: Re: GIS Tools/modeling Hey Chris, Yes, I did some GIS work a few months ago. What I did was add a WFS interface to OFBiz. It is WfsEventHandler class in webapp.event. I did a lot of work with GeoServer (http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Home) and MapBuilder (http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAInterstinP/Home) for the client side. I used MySQL for a geo spatial DB. I think GeoServer is definitely the way to go for the server since it is Java based and I had no trouble including it in my ofbiz tomcat setup. There is an effort to consolidate many of the various client packages (such as OpenLayers) and MapBuilder seems to be at the forefront of that effort (it uses OpenLayers to render, but adds an XML syntax for implementing client frontends. It is a very exciting time for the GIS community as they are working together to create products and mashups that are the same sort of Goliath-killers in the GIS world that OFBiz is becoming in the ERP world. I also did a GeoRSS interface so that I could add markers to Google Maps, but I did not see how to add that to the ofbiz base code. I would be willing to share that code if we can see where to add it. See http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOSDOC/GeoRSS. I think the WFS interface is the critical part, as it lets you use other servers like GeoServer to server up the base GIS layers, but lets you use OFBiz to store and server the points of interest. I only modeled points with my WfsEventHandler class. It needs to be extended to do a rectangular find. One of the key things that I did was implement the ogc:filter using FreeMarker templates. That is the part that needs to be extended to implement the rectangular find. If you are not familiar with the WFS, WMS and WCS standards, you need to be. They are what make all the synergy possible. It has been a few months since I have had a chance to work on it (which might as well be a few years at my age) so you might want to google gis and ofbiz to see what else I had to say about it. I would be glad to discuss and work on something more substantial for ofbiz, but I am not actively working on GIS at the moment, so my time will be limited. -Al On 11/26/07, Chris Howe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I just completed a rather remedial GIS implementation (very poorly designed, but works for it's purpose). Anyone have any interest/experience/intelligent thought with this?
Re: GIS Tools/modeling
Chris, I am not sure that KML and KMZ are not better ways to go. I went the community route because it just seems to fit in with OFBiz's philosophy and even Google should be (and I think is) using open source standards in their work. I should be able to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the Google vs. the Geoserver/MapBuilder approaches, but I would have to research the KML/Z tech more, first. The question to me answered is whether or not KML/Z are as good at accessing Geoserver servers as the MapBuilder product. If they don't do as good a job, then I think that developers may sometimes wish to access data that is not served up by Google Maps and won't be able to. The other test for KML/Z is if you can do custom rollover popups with KML/Z. It is easy to do simple ones, but sometimes you may wish to do more complicated ones and I am not sure about the suitability of KML/Z for that - though I would guess it does fine. Please don't hesitate to discuss your issues here. Adding GIS to OFBiz would be a really cool add-on and the more people we can involve, the better. -Al On 11/26/07, Chris Howe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Very interesting. My implementation is extremely crude in comparison. I was only outputting KML and KMZ for Google Earth. It seems I have quite a bit of homework to do before being able to add very much to the discussion. - Original Message From: Al Byers [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: dev@ofbiz.apache.org Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 10:46:31 AM Subject: Re: GIS Tools/modeling Hey Chris, Yes, I did some GIS work a few months ago. What I did was add a WFS interface to OFBiz. It is WfsEventHandler class in webapp.event. I did a lot of work with GeoServer (http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Home) and MapBuilder (http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAInterstinP/Home) for the client side. I used MySQL for a geo spatial DB. I think GeoServer is definitely the way to go for the server since it is Java based and I had no trouble including it in my ofbiz tomcat setup. There is an effort to consolidate many of the various client packages (such as OpenLayers) and MapBuilder seems to be at the forefront of that effort (it uses OpenLayers to render, but adds an XML syntax for implementing client frontends. It is a very exciting time for the GIS community as they are working together to create products and mashups that are the same sort of Goliath-killers in the GIS world that OFBiz is becoming in the ERP world. I also did a GeoRSS interface so that I could add markers to Google Maps, but I did not see how to add that to the ofbiz base code. I would be willing to share that code if we can see where to add it. See http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOSDOC/GeoRSS. I think the WFS interface is the critical part, as it lets you use other servers like GeoServer to server up the base GIS layers, but lets you use OFBiz to store and server the points of interest. I only modeled points with my WfsEventHandler class. It needs to be extended to do a rectangular find. One of the key things that I did was implement the ogc:filter using FreeMarker templates. That is the part that needs to be extended to implement the rectangular find. If you are not familiar with the WFS, WMS and WCS standards, you need to be. They are what make all the synergy possible. It has been a few months since I have had a chance to work on it (which might as well be a few years at my age) so you might want to google gis and ofbiz to see what else I had to say about it. I would be glad to discuss and work on something more substantial for ofbiz, but I am not actively working on GIS at the moment, so my time will be limited. -Al On 11/26/07, Chris Howe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I just completed a rather remedial GIS implementation (very poorly designed, but works for it's purpose). Anyone have any interest/experience/intelligent thought with this?
Re: GIS Tools/modeling
might want to look at http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/services.html#Geocoding_Direct Al Byers sent the following on 11/26/2007 8:46 AM: Hey Chris, Yes, I did some GIS work a few months ago. What I did was add a WFS interface to OFBiz. It is WfsEventHandler class in webapp.event. I did a lot of work with GeoServer (http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Home) and MapBuilder (http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAP/Home) for the client side. I used MySQL for a geo spatial DB. I think GeoServer is definitely the way to go for the server since it is Java based and I had no trouble including it in my ofbiz tomcat setup. There is an effort to consolidate many of the various client packages (such as OpenLayers) and MapBuilder seems to be at the forefront of that effort (it uses OpenLayers to render, but adds an XML syntax for implementing client frontends. It is a very exciting time for the GIS community as they are working together to create products and mashups that are the same sort of Goliath-killers in the GIS world that OFBiz is becoming in the ERP world. I also did a GeoRSS interface so that I could add markers to Google Maps, but I did not see how to add that to the ofbiz base code. I would be willing to share that code if we can see where to add it. See http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOSDOC/GeoRSS. I think the WFS interface is the critical part, as it lets you use other servers like GeoServer to server up the base GIS layers, but lets you use OFBiz to store and server the points of interest. I only modeled points with my WfsEventHandler class. It needs to be extended to do a rectangular find. One of the key things that I did was implement the ogc:filter using FreeMarker templates. That is the part that needs to be extended to implement the rectangular find. If you are not familiar with the WFS, WMS and WCS standards, you need to be. They are what make all the synergy possible. It has been a few months since I have had a chance to work on it (which might as well be a few years at my age) so you might want to google gis and ofbiz to see what else I had to say about it. I would be glad to discuss and work on something more substantial for ofbiz, but I am not actively working on GIS at the moment, so my time will be limited. -Al On 11/26/07, Chris Howe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I just completed a rather remedial GIS implementation (very poorly designed, but works for it's purpose). Anyone have any interest/experience/intelligent thought with this?
Re: GIS Tools/modeling
From an OFBiz community perspective KML/Z would just be an output manner (simply done through freemarker templates) as there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in storing data in XML (I floated the Xindice integration earlier in the year and while it works there doesn't seem to be much interest). The storage seems to be better through adding geospatial tables or a secondary database and then linking it to a contentId. I need to do quite a bit of homework on the issue as a whole before I bloviate on the issue. The topics that need to be decide on would be: 1) storage format 2) retrieval/output format(s) 3) miscellaneous tools (centroid, area, perimeter, etc calculations) 4) possibly rendering tools (if online map overlays are too limiting) Let me know if I'm missing areas while I get my reading list in order :-) - Original Message From: Al Byers [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: dev@ofbiz.apache.org Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 12:18:02 PM Subject: Re: GIS Tools/modeling Chris, I am not sure that KML and KMZ are not better ways to go. I went the community route because it just seems to fit in with OFBiz's philosophy and even Google should be (and I think is) using open source standards in their work. I should be able to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the Google vs. the Geoserver/MapBuilder approaches, but I would have to research the KML/Z tech more, first. The question to me answered is whether or not KML/Z are as good at accessing Geoserver servers as the MapBuilder product. If they don't do as good a job, then I think that developers may sometimes wish to access data that is not served up by Google Maps and won't be able to. The other test for KML/Z is if you can do custom rollover popups with KML/Z. It is easy to do simple ones, but sometimes you may wish to do more complicated ones and I am not sure about the suitability of KML/Z for that - though I would guess it does fine. Please don't hesitate to discuss your issues here. Adding GIS to OFBiz would be a really cool add-on and the more people we can involve, the better. -Al On 11/26/07, Chris Howe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Very interesting. My implementation is extremely crude in comparison. I was only outputting KML and KMZ for Google Earth. It seems I have quite a bit of homework to do before being able to add very much to the discussion. - Original Message From: Al Byers [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: dev@ofbiz.apache.org Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 10:46:31 AM Subject: Re: GIS Tools/modeling Hey Chris, Yes, I did some GIS work a few months ago. What I did was add a WFS interface to OFBiz. It is WfsEventHandler class in webapp.event. I did a lot of work with GeoServer (http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Home) and MapBuilder (http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAInterstinP/Home) for the client side. I used MySQL for a geo spatial DB. I think GeoServer is definitely the way to go for the server since it is Java based and I had no trouble including it in my ofbiz tomcat setup. There is an effort to consolidate many of the various client packages (such as OpenLayers) and MapBuilder seems to be at the forefront of that effort (it uses OpenLayers to render, but adds an XML syntax for implementing client frontends. It is a very exciting time for the GIS community as they are working together to create products and mashups that are the same sort of Goliath-killers in the GIS world that OFBiz is becoming in the ERP world. I also did a GeoRSS interface so that I could add markers to Google Maps, but I did not see how to add that to the ofbiz base code. I would be willing to share that code if we can see where to add it. See http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOSDOC/GeoRSS. I think the WFS interface is the critical part, as it lets you use other servers like GeoServer to server up the base GIS layers, but lets you use OFBiz to store and server the points of interest. I only modeled points with my WfsEventHandler class. It needs to be extended to do a rectangular find. One of the key things that I did was implement the ogc:filter using FreeMarker templates. That is the part that needs to be extended to implement the rectangular find. If you are not familiar with the WFS, WMS and WCS standards, you need to be. They are what make all the synergy possible. It has been a few months since I have had a chance to work on it (which might as well be a few years at my age) so you might want to google gis and ofbiz to see what else I had to say about it. I would be glad to discuss and work on something more substantial for ofbiz, but I am not actively working on GIS at the moment, so my time will be limited. -Al On 11/26/07, Chris Howe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I just completed a rather remedial GIS implementation (very poorly designed, but works for it's purpose). Anyone have any interest/experience/intelligent thought with this?
