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21 November 2004 New adventures in webmappingHere's the outcome of a weekend spent alternately consulting the Macromedia ActionScript dictionary; puzzling over how best to cope with bitmap, line and point data; and trying to stop Stowford (the cat) treading on the keyboard.
The raster mapping is stored as JPEGs, pre-shrunk from the 300dpi originals using ImageMagick (I'm not silly enough to try that in real time). On top of that, you can see point data - there's a clickable though rather unhelpful icon near the top right - and line data, in this case the Grand Union Canal. All brought together with the magic of Ming and ActionScript. It zooms (only two scales yet) and pans just as you'd expect. And no, you can't play with it yet, my webspace doesn't have Ming installed. Why roll your own webmapping server? Here's why. Launched four days ago, Nottingham City Council's NOMAD site presents the finest web maps money can buy, built using industry-standard ESRI software, glowingly plugged by trade publications hither and thither... and it takes five seconds to render each map. Applause, please. Incidentally, the cat has started trying to swat the mouse pointer. Comments | |
