Slashgeo Log In
Export your QGIS project to OpenLayers HTML
posted by gignacnic
on Monday October 20, @12:23PM
Permalink
Trackback URI
Slashdotthis
Diggthis
Del.icio.us
from the OSGeo-cheerleader dept.
Permalink
Trackback URI
Slashdotthis
Diggthis
Del.icio.us
from the OSGeo-cheerleader dept.
OGR2Layers Plugin detects any OGR supported data layer loaded into Quantum GIS, convert it to KML and write an OpenLayers HTML map including the KML overlay. The OpenLayers parameters like WMS base layer, default map extent and layerswitcher control can be configured from the plugin. Outputs KML can also be direcly loaded in Google Earth. See this web page for more information: http://ogr2layers.org/
Related Stories
[old geonews] QGIS 0.11.0 & GeoJSON 1.0 Released and GeoTools Graduates
[+]
A short note on old summer geonews (while I was away) which were not yet featured on the site. First the release of QGIS 0.11.0, GeoJSON 1.0 and the graduation of GeoTools as full fledge OSGeo project. See also related stories. Not directly related, FOSS4G 2008 is going on this week. We'll share the best summaries we'll find.
Technology: OpenLayers 2.7 Released
[+]
It seems OpenLayers 2.7 has been released. Here are the release notes.
From the announcement: "As of this final release, the OpenLayers 2.7 release closes 201 outstanding tickets. [...] This release features a number of major developments, including:
* Vector-Behavior: Strategies, Protocols, Filters
* Improved Vector rendering for better performance
* Canvas rendering class
* Z-Ordering and Y-Ordering for Vector layers
* New Basic Measurement Control
* New OpenLayers.Request interface for AJAX
* Smarter Popups ... and tons of other new features and bug fixes that you can see detailed here.
Furthermore, we are proud to announce two new additions to the AddIns directory! Yes, it is an exciting day for everyone in the OpenLayers Community. Please take the time to check out:
* Bookmark Control -- Allows user a simple way to 'bookmark' locations on the map and navigate to them. * Loading Panel -- Provides a convenient and sexy animated status monitor so users know their layers are loading. We even have a nice new UML Diagram to help people out with understanding the new classes in 2.7 and their relationships." See also previous OpenLayers stories below.
Furthermore, we are proud to announce two new additions to the AddIns directory! Yes, it is an exciting day for everyone in the OpenLayers Community. Please take the time to check out:
* Bookmark Control -- Allows user a simple way to 'bookmark' locations on the map and navigate to them. * Loading Panel -- Provides a convenient and sexy animated status monitor so users know their layers are loading. We even have a nice new UML Diagram to help people out with understanding the new classes in 2.7 and their relationships." See also previous OpenLayers stories below.
Technology: Release of MapFish 1.0 1 comment
[+]
Camptocamp writes "Today, Camptocamp announced the release of MapFish-1.0.
MapFish, an Open Source framework, was created by Camptocamp and developed thanks to the inputs of the OpenLayers and Ext communities, especially in the area of graphical user interface.
MapFish runs a JavaScript Web 2.0 library so as to offer users a clear and ergonomic interface. Besides, MapFish can be deployed on Php, Java or Python web servers, widening the compatibility of users development environments. MapFish-1.0 being based on OpenLayers 2.7, this release will thus inevitably benefit future developments of OpenLayers 2.7."
Read the rest of the press release below. MapFish was mentioned before, see related stories.
OpenLayers add-on
[+]
LiziLayers allows you to create and test your OpenLayers scripts in an HTML page or a XUL window. LiziLayers is based on the add-on MozMapLayers which is an OpenLayers adaption to the XUL environment. See this web page for more information: http://3liz.org/lizilayers/co/01_homepage.html
OpenLayers Article and History 1 comment
[+]
The OpenLayers blog mentions a generic article on OpenLayers from the GeoConnexion Magazine. From the blog entry: "The article talks a bit about the history of OpenLayers, and how it came to be developed the way it did:
OpenLayers was the first mapping framework to make an explicit statement that it was not an application at all, but a toolkit for building mapping applications. This different approach resulted in a somewhat long curve to acceptance. In its infancy, the project was used only by developers: people who had a strong knowledge of what they wanted to do, and needed to have more control over their tools in order to do it. This early audience helped to build a rapid development environment where many of the users of the code were also able to contribute fixes and improvements based on their needs. This developer-friendly environment may be one of the key differences that has allowed OpenLayers development to continue to grow.
More is included in the full article, available as a PDF from the GeoConnexion website." Previous OpenLayers stories below.
Quantum GIS 1.0 Released! 1 comment
[+]
After years of development, the open source GIS Quantum GIS, aka QGIS, just released its version 1.0. Slashgeo regularly covered QGIS news for a while, since it has already been a usable alternative for many (obviously depending on what your needs are). See related stories below.
Here's the message from the Project Steering Committee Chair: "Welcome to Quantum GIS version 1.0. and version 1.0 of the QGIS Users Guide. This release is the culmination of literally hundreds of hours of work by a team of developers, translators, documentation writers, and graphics designers.
QGIS began life in February of 2002, with the first release in June of the same year. The initial goal was to create a viewer for PostGIS data that ran on Linux. From those humble beginnings, QGIS has become a true cross-platform application that runs on all major versions of unix, Linux, as well as Mac and Windows. It supports editing and map composition as well as integration with GRASS to provide powerful GIS capability.
At 1.0 we provide a stable API from which you can develop custom solutions in Python or C++. Even though 1.0 is fresh, there are a number of exciting developments underway in both the core application and plugins. Although it took nearly 7 years to get to version 1.0, I think you'll find that this version is the best yet. Thanks for using QGIS---you, the users, have played a large part in its success." A part of what's changed: "QGIS 1.0 brings with it a wealth of improvements, over 265 bug fixes and many new features. This is also a landmark release in that it is our first API stable release and contains a core set of features needed to make QGIS into a very capable and user friendly GIS data browser. There are some things that didn't make it into this release, most notably support for advanced labelling - which we will incorporate into our next point release."
White House Website Using OpenLayers 1 comment
[+]
Christopher Schmidt of MetaCarta who is one of, if not the chief developer of OpenLayers just made the following announcement on the OpenLayers Mailing list :
"http://www.whitehouse.gov/change/
A map put together by the white house using OpenLayers, including stories of people who are "delivering on change"."
I am a big fan of OpenLayers and am happy to see them getting this kind of penetration. I think it's also worth noting that OpenStreetMap data is used as the basemap, which is also a great accomplishment for them.
"http://www.whitehouse.gov/change/
A map put together by the white house using OpenLayers, including stories of people who are "delivering on change"."
I am a big fan of OpenLayers and am happy to see them getting this kind of penetration. I think it's also worth noting that OpenStreetMap data is used as the basemap, which is also a great accomplishment for them.
Technology: QGIS 1.0.2 (stable) and 1.1.0 (unstable) Released
[+]
The QGIS team announced the availability of the open source GIS 'Quantum GIS' version 1.0.2 (stable) and 1.1.0 (unstable).
From the announcement: "Our 1.0.x 'stable' release series are part of our effort to provide a stable, unchanging, long term supported environment. Each minor release in our stable series contains only bug fixes and no new features. [...] Our 'unstable' release series are provided to offer users a chance to try out new features as they make their way into the code base. We will not support these releases over a long term and they are aimed more for those who value new features over stability."
See the previous QGIS stories below.
On the User Friendliness of Open Source Geospatial Software 2 comments
[+]
This is an extract from a personal email. It's obviously very incomplete and you are welcomed to share additions and corrections in comments below. The context is a discussion about the user-friendliness of today's open source geospatial software. Here below you'll find direct links to screenshots of popular OSS software, all previously mentioned on the site (see related stories below).
"You are absolutely right with saying that documentation and user-friendliness has not been a strength of geospatial open source software in the past, but that has significantly changed in recent years and is still evolving very rapidly. Before I give a list of examples of the top of my head (experts could provide even more insights), I'd like to focus on this: sharing information and knowledge is the key here. Even if the benefits of open source geospatial software can surpasses its inconveniences for many applications, stakeholders must be aware of all the opportunities available to make the best technology choice possible otherwise people just stick with what they know, even if it's not the best solution.
Examples of some open source geospatial software that are now "user friendly":
** GIS:
* Quantum GIS can be considered quite user-friendly. It is far from being as full featured as ArcGIS, but can do surprisingly a lot, especially with the GRASS GIS plugin that unleashes serious geoprocessing power within the QGIS graphical user interface.
* There are plenty of other open source GIS that have good graphical user interfaces: uDig, OpenJump, gvSIG and several others.
** Web mapping:
* Autodesk's MapGuide Open Source also have map authoring tools such as Maestro and Fusion.
* OpenLayers.org while one can simply copy existing examples, there's OpenLayers Architect and LiziLayers that offers enhanced WYSIWYG capabilities.
* The MapFish.org framework also a Studio too now.
* You can even generate web maps directly from within the Quantum GIS interface.
** Other:
* Several other open source geospatial software can be considered quite user-friendly for what they do (e.g. GeoServer). Others, such as PostGIS (GUI tool), are probably as 'user-friendly' as other spatial RDBMS are. Even OpenStreetMap has a feature-rich GUI for editing maps.
This list is obviously incomplete (I'm still no expert! ;-), but I hope it does convince you that open source geospatial has come a long way in the recent years and is continuing to improve at a crazy rate. That said, yes, advanced proprietary software is still very appropriate (even required!) for some applications, it really depends on what you want to do! But one must also be aware of all the options at hand."
"You are absolutely right with saying that documentation and user-friendliness has not been a strength of geospatial open source software in the past, but that has significantly changed in recent years and is still evolving very rapidly. Before I give a list of examples of the top of my head (experts could provide even more insights), I'd like to focus on this: sharing information and knowledge is the key here. Even if the benefits of open source geospatial software can surpasses its inconveniences for many applications, stakeholders must be aware of all the opportunities available to make the best technology choice possible otherwise people just stick with what they know, even if it's not the best solution.
Examples of some open source geospatial software that are now "user friendly":
** GIS:
* Quantum GIS can be considered quite user-friendly. It is far from being as full featured as ArcGIS, but can do surprisingly a lot, especially with the GRASS GIS plugin that unleashes serious geoprocessing power within the QGIS graphical user interface.
* There are plenty of other open source GIS that have good graphical user interfaces: uDig, OpenJump, gvSIG and several others.
** Web mapping:
* Autodesk's MapGuide Open Source also have map authoring tools such as Maestro and Fusion.
* OpenLayers.org while one can simply copy existing examples, there's OpenLayers Architect and LiziLayers that offers enhanced WYSIWYG capabilities.
* The MapFish.org framework also a Studio too now.
* You can even generate web maps directly from within the Quantum GIS interface.
** Other:
* Several other open source geospatial software can be considered quite user-friendly for what they do (e.g. GeoServer). Others, such as PostGIS (GUI tool), are probably as 'user-friendly' as other spatial RDBMS are. Even OpenStreetMap has a feature-rich GUI for editing maps.
This list is obviously incomplete (I'm still no expert! ;-), but I hope it does convince you that open source geospatial has come a long way in the recent years and is continuing to improve at a crazy rate. That said, yes, advanced proprietary software is still very appropriate (even required!) for some applications, it really depends on what you want to do! But one must also be aware of all the options at hand."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
