-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Re: Free, open source map publishing tool - gdal2tiles
Date:   Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:37:51 -0000
From:   Nicholas Verge <[log in to unmask]>
To:     Maps, Air Photo & Geospatial Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>





Matt wrote


>
> KML is quickly becoming a primary standard for distribution of geographic
> content on the internet.

May be for mashers. But hardly any professional in the GI and remote
sensing industry uses KML for this purpose. It is simply not suitable, it
has no data attribute or metadata carrying capabiities.

Instead,you would use a file format suited to the data type being
disseminated, perhaps netCDF for arrayed data and imagery. Shape files for
drawings. Geotiffs, or .img for uncompressed imagery, or .ecw or jp2 (but
not .sid!) for compressed imagery.



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.

Exactly. Google Earth is gee-whiz but otherwise rather limited piece of
technology that is a means to attract people to a place where Google
displays advertising. Google Earth is a like a museum (perhaps art gallery
is a better anology) where you can go and look, but you cannot do much
more than look. The general public like it for this reason, but for most
in the GI industry this is not what is wanted. They want to be able to
query, manipulate, take out of context, and combine with other
information, the information displayed on GE.



>
> 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.

Map libraries should be providing their scanned maps in standard image
file formats.


> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Nicholas J. Verge BSc. FGS
> Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, UK
>
> Geologist
>



--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nicholas J. Verge BSc. FGS
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, UK

Geologist, amateur meteorologist & stormchaser
Member of European Storm Forecast Experiment (ESTOFEX)
http://www.estofex.org/