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Ask Slashdot: Easiest To Use Multi-User Map Editing?

Posted by timothy on from the just-need-enough-highlighters dept.

Lordfly writes "I'm part of an online group of local hobbyist, semi-pro, and professional photographers. I want to start an editable map that showcases interesting places to shoot photos — parks, old buildings, interesting infrastructure, etc. Ideally I'd like to be able to tag/organize the markers (public/private property), as well as add example photos for each location to give people an idea of what the place looks like.

I've used the Google Maps 'Create a Map' feature, but have found that sharing for other users to see/edit is a bit ... off. Also, given Google's propensity for dropping features without much pretext, it makes me wary to sink time and effort into a possibly ephemeral map. It does most of what I'm looking for it to do, but are there more robust alternatives out there I'm not finding?"

4 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Ask the OSM community. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is a problem that OSM (open street map) has solved. Either use their service, our even create your own clone - their software is likely to be all open source, and their mapping data certainly is.

  2. Google.. by sotweed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "why perpetuate the myth that Google "drops products without warning/reason"?

    Well, you're right... that's a bit unfair. There's usually some warning, and occasionally even a reason.
    But relying on their stuff is indeed somewhat risky.

    1. Re:Google.. by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 4, Informative

      There's usually some warning, and occasionally even a reason. But relying on their stuff is indeed somewhat risky.

      Why, how on earth can you say that?
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products#Discontinued_products_and_services

      Oh, Right. Now I remember...

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
  3. Well to start.... by ssufficool · · Score: 5, Funny

    You will need a spatial database (I prefer PostgreSQL + PostGIS), but you might want to try SQL Azure with their supreme Geography types. Then I would create a WFS (web feature server) on top of that from scratch using a compiled c++ CGI backend running on NGINX. Then I would create some JSON web services to handle the back and forth in PHP5 on a separate server running Apache2, because you need that multi-tiered scaleability eventually, so start now. Then I would hobble together a javascript mapping API to interact with the WFS and JSON web services. After I reach a performance impact from the CGI doing on-demand rendering, I would create a server process in Python to generate and cache tiles to a web tile server, then rework the JSON and WFS server to serve those up in addition to the overlay of the more dynamic layers. Then I would flush that all down the toilet and do what the other guy said.