2011 GIS in Action ESRI and Open Source

GIS In Action March 30, 2011. PSU. 1:30pm-3:00pm.

Catalog Description
Moderator: Eric Bohard

Web Mapping using Open Source and generally free to use tools (ie. Google Maps) Presenter: TJ Maciak. The Community Research Institute at the Johnson Center for Philanthropy from Grand Rapids, MI has been exploring the use of common open source and free to use services for web based GIS applications to help our partners (non-profits, foundations and various community organizations) display some of their data in a visual way. This session will briefly explore the technical essentials of what a small organization needs to implement in order to get a web mapping application out for public consumption as well as briefly go over our first foray into the mobile application world on an Android device and the inner workings of the "cloud" based GIS service behind that application.

ESRI and Open Source Presenter: John Sharrard, GIS Solutions Engineer, Esri. This presentation will discuss how Esri is involved in the open source community including: Particular attention will be given to open source geospatial projects, including Esri Geoportal Server, ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap, and the Esri ArcGIS Silverlight Toolkit.
 * Development and management of open source geospatial projects
 * Integration of open source tools, languages, libraries, integrated development environments (IDE), and Web server technologies
 * Participation in open source events and organizations
 * Contributors to open source geospatial projects
 * Adherence to interoperability within the managed open source geospatial projects
 * Implementation of the GeoServices REST API.

Audience Notes
Maciak demonstrated how he was able to publish information on the web using open source mapping. His projects included showing chrolopeth maps shown on top of google, bing, or open streets maps.

General Processes (needs editing): 1. Have data. 2. Get software such as qGIS and save the map as an xml file 3. Have a web server. 4. Use a map engine such as mapnik or mapserver. 5. Configure the xml file 6. Set up a basic interface and connect Open Layers to your mapping engine.

He commented on some more advanced operations:
 * move away from shapefiles
 * set up postgres
 * set up PostGIS
 * set up a tile cache repository

Other notes:
 * Open Layers allows connections to multiple servers for all the various layers, which in turn loads faster.
 * Maciak likes open source software because even if the developers for the open source software leave, you still have the code to keep running as is and are not forced to look for other alternatives.

Maciak also gave a demonstration of his android application for GPS, which he built using an android emulator, Eclipse 3. There are additional plug-ins required to run the emulator.

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