[[PageOutline]] = How can I add an interactive map to my web site? = == Overview == Mapping involves a lot of concepts that are hard to put together by yourself. This page provides a survey of the different opensource tools available to do this work. == The pieces == === The Map Server === The Map Server's job is to read mapping data files and create maps from them (explain more...) MFPL offers mapserver for all members. Please post a [/newticket ticket] to request access to the map server. To get started with our mapserver, you will need to ... Other map servers include: geoserver[1], suas mapserver[2], openstreetmap[3], mapnik[4]. === Data === FIXME: I don't understand what this data is or what you do with it. Is it data that you need to give to the map server? I think I'm missing a conceptual piece here. [http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/geo/shapefiles/national-files Census] folks have recently released updated data. [http://nationalatlas.gov/atlasftp.html National atlas] is another gov site. This one has great categories: transportation, water, people, history, etc. === Addresses and Geo coding === If you want to plot points on a map, you will need to provide the addresses. In addition, you will need to add geo-coding information to the addresses in order for the points on the map to be plotted. Geo-coding data is.... http://geocoder.us/ - Geocoding site that lets you look up one address at a time. Their sourcecode is available, if one was interested in offering this service. http://www.batchgeocode.com/ Geocode multiple addresses on one site. Uses the Yahoo geocoding API[9] === RSS === You will need to publish your geo-coded data in a way that your map front end can access it. RSS is one way to do that. [http://georss.org/ GeoRSS] is simple proposal for RSS feeds to also be described by location[10] === The front end === Finally, you will need a front-end that reads your address/geo-coded points, requests the map from the map server, and displays the result to the end-user. This is software for creating layers of data, zooming in or out of a map, etc. MFPL recommends openlayers. To use openlayers... Other software includes: ka-map[5], worldkit[7], geomoose[8] == Notes and discussion == Mapserver seems to be the best choice for serving maps. It's been around the longest and can do it all. Geoserver uses Tomcat, which is why I did not use it. SUAS I was not able to get installed. I was very intrigued but could not find some key components as I was trying to install. Openstreetmap is an opensource project to map the world. Mapnik is the latest and greatest software. It makes very pretty maps! Ka-boom seemed to be the best choice for a front end, mainly because it has a tiling mechanism that allows for smooth scrolling inside a map. I ended up choosing openlayers because it allowed me to plot points on a map using GeoRSS feeds. Worldkit is an easy to use flash-based mapping program. Nice, but I do not like flash. Geomoose is intriguing, with their focus on separating the layers of info from the map itself. I found it late in the game, so it needs more looking at. [0]http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/ [1]http://geoserver.org/ [2]http://www.easywms.com/easywms/?q=en/suas [3]http://www.openstreetmap.org/ [4]http://mapnik.org [5]http://ka-map.maptools.org/ [6]http://www.openlayers.org/ [7]http://worldkit.org/ [8]http://www.geomoose.org/moose/ [9]http://developer.yahoo.com/maps/rest/V1/geocode.html [10]http://www.georss.org/overview.html