-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: Free, open source map publishing tool - gdal2tiles
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 09:58:18 -0800
From: Matt Fox <[log in to unmask]>
To: 'Maps, Air Photo & Geospatial Systems Forum' <[log in to unmask]>
If you are just looking to create tiles for Google Earth, Superoverlay by
Valery Hronusov is a very easy application to use, and pretty cheap (as
little as $20). http://xbbster.googlepages.com/superoverlay Simply open a
map (or group of maps) that have already been converted to Geographic
Projection. Click a couple settings, and it does the rest of the work for
you. Gdal and FWTools requires quite a bit of technical knowledge to set
up. Manifold can be slow and cumbersome when trying to process a lot of
maps.
To give you an idea how easy it is to create tiled overlays for Google
Earth, this weekend I converted over 1,000 satellite images from NASAs MODIS
Image of the Day Gallery to Google Earth tiled overlays. Here is the KML
file if you'd like to try it.
http://www.gelib.com/maps/MODIS/MODIS_nl.kml
KML is quickly becoming a primary standard for distribution of geographic
content on the internet. Google has even submitted KML to the Open
Geospatial Consortium. Google Earth is simply a KML viewer and is certainly
not the only program capable of displaying KML files. NASA's World Wind
(public domain) is just one example of another program that can view KML
(although limited right now). Even Microsoft Virtual Earth is starting to
add KML viewing to its list of features. In the next few years, we will see
many other 3rd party applications (web browser plugins, etc.) that can view
KML. Also, don't forget that Google generates advertising revenue simply by
listing a link to a website in its database.
Another advantage of KML is that data created and hosted by many different
institutions can all be integrated together seemlessly. Try doing that with
all the proprietary web-browser plugins that most map libraries are now
using.
Here are a couple other examples of content that I've created for Google
Earth.
2007 California Wildfires data -
http://www.gelib.com/maps/Fires/CAFires_nl.kml
Historic USGS topographic maps and aerial photos -
http://www.fox-fam.com/topos2/GELIB2_nl.kml
Matt Fox
-----Original Message-----
From: Maps, Air Photo & Geospatial Systems Forum
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Maps-L
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2007 7:44 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Free, open source map publishing tool - gdal2tiles
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Free, open source map publishing tool - gdal2tiles
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:40:36 -0000
From: Nicholas Verge <[log in to unmask]>
To: Maps, Air Photo & Geospatial Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Chris and others.
You might also want to consider Manifold System GIS to do the same and it
being a GIS, very much more, including providing a
customisable/programmable internet map server.
Manifold System GIS 8.x ( www.manifold.net ) is commercial off-the-shelf
product that equals to or surpasses competitor GIS software, eg ESRI
products, but at a fraction of their cost.
Manifold can publish images and vector drawings to Google Earth, it also
allows working with spatial databases (Oracle, SQL, DB2, even ArcSDS),
enormous image libaries, imagery in .ecw and .JP2 compressed formats.
Manifold System 8.x online manual: http://www.manifold.net/doc/manifold.htm
The latest versions are available for 64-bit and 32-bit Windows operating
systems. Manifold System also levarages nVidia CUDA(TM) grphics card
technology enabling massively parallel processing using the GPUs of latest
high-end nVidia graphic cards (up to four cards can harnessed together
providing a total of up to 512 parallel processors). This allows rapid
handling of enormous uncompressed images (i have seen a 90000x90000 24bit
image load in less than ten seconds).
Since the US dollar has gone through the floor, the cheapest version of
Manifold System is now about 70.00 GBP. You would need to spend countless
thousands of pounds to assemble the equivalent ESRI products to get the
same capabilities.
A short rant about use of Google Earth by public institutions:
I do not think that it is right that publicly funded institutions should
be building mash-ups and adding content to Google Earth, which lest we
forget, is a commercial product that is a vehicle for generating
advertising revenues for Google. By all means lets put mapping and other
information online and make it accessable, but do it using technology that
is owned and controlled by the content provider.
On Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:30:47 -0000, Maps-L <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Free, open source map publishing tool - gdal2tiles
> Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 12:53:40 -0000
> From: Fleet, Christopher <[log in to unmask]>
> To: Maps, Air Photo & Geospatial Systems Forum
> <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
>
> Earlier this year there have been some useful exchanges on ways of
> tiling geo-referenced map images for quicker online presentation in
> Google Earth (as KML SuperOverlays), Google maps, and other software.
>
> On behalf of a colleague, I wanted to share with the list a recently
> created program, gdal2tiles, that allows a quick, simple and free way of
> doing this. As this is free, non-commercial software, I hope the list
> will forgive this marketing plug!
>
> The program uses the FWTools ( http://fwtools.maptools.org/ ) set of
> open source GIS software to create a tile map pyramid structure of
> raster images. World files and embedded geo-referencing is used during
> tile generation, but it is possible to publish an image without proper
> geo-referencing too. gdal2tiles is at:
> http://www.klokan.cz/projects/gdal2tiles/
>
> Just to illustrate this, these applications below use Openlayers for
> some seamed, geo-referenced series maps of Scotland, all created using
> gdal2tiles:
>
> Ordnance Survey Quarter-inch to the mile, 1921-23 -
> http://geo.nls.uk/quarter/
> Bartholomew half-inch to the mile, 1926-35 - http://geo.nls.uk/bart/
> Ordnance Survey One Inch to the mile, Popular ed, 1921-30 -
> http://geo.nls.uk/popular/
> Roy Military Survey, 1747-55 - Highlands -
> http://geo.nls.uk/roy-highlands/
> Roy Military Survey, 1747-55 - Lowlands -
> http://geo.nls.uk/roy-lowlands/
>
> Each of these applications contains several Gb of imagery each - the OS
> Popular is about 34Gb in total - but it displays quite swiftly due to
> the tiled structure and display.
>
> The OS Quarter-Inch mapping in Google Earth (
> http://geo.nls.uk/OS/Quarter/Quarter.kml ) is about 5 Gb of imagery, but
> gives relatively fast displays through the TMS tiling.
>
> Klokan Petr Pridal ([log in to unmask]), who wrote the gdal2tiles program,
> has several ideas for further development, including:
>
> - support for Google Maps compatible tiles, so its possible to overlay
> your map on top of Google maps
> - one collection of tiles for Google Maps, Google Earth, OpenLayers,
> whatever, possible with Global Mercator projection.
> - Zoomify-based viewer supporting tiles from gdal2tiles.
>
> and various ways of incorporating gdal2tiles with geo-referencing tools,
> like the Metacarta rectifier: http://labs.metacarta.com/rectifier/
> (although this involves writing a different program, as Metacarta is not
> open-source)
>
> Klokan Petr Pridal is very keen for this software to be used in the map
> community, and for further information or advice about similar software
> and projects. He also would be keen for any support for further work,
> and co-operation in developing these free tools!
>
> Chris Fleet
> Deputy Map Curator
> National Library of Scotland
> 33 Salisbury Place
> EDINBURGH
> EH9 1SL
> United Kingdom.
>
> Tel. 0131 623 3973
> Fax. 0131 623 3971
>
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> View maps website: http://www.nls.uk/maps
>
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--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nicholas J. Verge BSc. FGS
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, UK
Geologist
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