• You can use full html to input a map straight from Google
  • Geo, Geocode, OpenLayers modules
  • Standards compliance
  • Example functions: within, touches, crosses - also, distance, area, perimeter, and others!
  • PostGIS is a common way of doing it, but you can also "do it in Drupal"
  • User friendliness: you shouldn't have to be a cartographer!
  • "Geo-spacial data sets", shape files, projections, coordinates - this stuff can get messy fast

Collecting data

  • Run everything through CCK
  • Geo Field
  • Geocode

Lines

  • Can import a line (big mess of points)
  • OpenLayers - takes your data and turns it into awesome, pretty, rendered maps

Data

  • Stuff you can geocode: image fields (exif), file fields (gpx track logs)
  • Demo site: http://geoblog.geojune.org/
  • Collecting tracks: dedicated GPS, gaiagps.com (iPhone), emacberry.com/gpslogger.html (Blackberry)
  • Data sources: data.gov, zillow.com, DataFinder, etc.

Questions

  • Compatibility with other modules? - A lot of work is monolithic, people don't work together; there may be a CCK thing for Mapstraction
  • GMapEasy module? No idea...
  • Before, people were doing Location, but that was overwhelming; then people did a simple lat/lon field; the views code was starting to get messy
  • You shouldn't write a module that has to hunt around and look for things - try to get all the people who work on geo stuff to express their data in a consistent way (rather than making a module check all the possible ways to store data)
  • How many ways can you pull in data? - Geocode module is open, just tell it what kind of data you want to give it ("I'm going to give you an IP address"); no support for adding Geo stuff to users, but it's an easy API change
  • In Drupal 7, when you can add CCK fields to users, the geo field becomes available
  • Any way to define/create your own graphics? Mapping Middle Earth? - No technical limitation, Geo module doesn't care what you put in there; Geo just stores points/lines/polygons/3D, etc.
  • OpenLayers - finding graphical tile sets for your map of Middle Earth, that's a whole secondary technical problem, even if you've got the right coordinates in there; there's pieces on the display side that need to be there
  • There's a filter for "less than/equal to X miles of this point" in Views - this saves you from math

Modules

  • Geo - storing your data
  • Gathering your data - geocode, postal
  • Showing it - OpenLayers