Mapping for One-Place Studies - a forum

Mapping Solutions for One-Place Studies => Recommended Mapping Solutions => Topic started by: PeterC on 26 February 2016, 08:14:44

Title: Pros and Cons of different systems
Post by: PeterC on 26 February 2016, 08:14:44

Note that what follows has been somewhat superseded by work on our prototype mapping system (http://mapping4ops.org/index.php?action=forum&catogid=5).

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This is the beginnings of a broad-brush analysis of what we one-placers need and to what degree various possible options for a unified system currently meet those needs, concentrating on the differentiators.

Please comment or add your own analysis.

The systems we are considering are:

• OHM (http://mapping4ops.org/openhistoricalmap-(ohm)/) (Open Historical Map) - this is in its infancy, but seems dormant
• OSGEO (http://mapping4ops.org/qgisgeoserver/osgeo-basic-information/) (Open Source Geospatial Foundation) - the QGIS/GeoServer combination (very similar to OpenGeo Suite) is flexible, but we will need to make it how we want
• OpenGeo Suite (http://mapping4ops.org/opengeo-suite/) (from Boundless) - this is also flexible but already integrated to some extent (and there is commercial support for it)
• Mapbox (http://mapping4ops.org/mapbox/) - this commercial system is free for up to 50,000 map views per month
• Geonode (http://mapping4ops.org/geonode/) - this is very flexible and we would need someone to design and implement it

?	OHM	OSGEO	OpenGeo	Mapbox	Geonode
Dated features	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes3	We want each aspect of the map to be able to have dates (like GEDCOM?)
Historic maps	No	Yes4	Yes4	Yes5	Yes	We want to be able to include all the georeferenced historic maps we can find
Map comparisons	No	?3	?3	No	Yes	We want to be able to compare or fade between all the maps
Hot spots	No	Yes	Yes	Yes5	Yes3	We want to be able to make each aspect of the map a hotpot to show linked images, text, etc
Public and private	No1	Yes	Yes	No5	Yes	We want to be able to specify for each map, feature, image etc as to whether it is public or private, and so have freedom to add what we want
Easy to use	Fairly	No?3	No?4	Yes5	No	We are not computer experts and so want to be able to add, edit, publish etc what we do easily
Inexpensive	Yes	No3,7	No7	Yes6	No3,7	We want to be able to do mapping with only little expenditure (but note that the Society has a little grant money for development or hosting)
Assured future	No2	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	We want whatever we do to be available for a long time

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Further notes
1) There are tailored developments of OSM which may provide help towards making OHM better fit our requirements
2) There does not seem to be much activity on the OHM mailing list (https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/historic/), although several people seem committed to it
3) We would have to have a system designed and implemented, hopefully this would then meet our needs, but have a large initial cost
4) Some aspects are quite easy, once you understand the system, but others remain difficult
5) A few aspects are quite easy but others, while possible, require programming
6) For up to 50,000 map views per month
7) We would need to find a hosting service, which could be free or >$200 pa, and this would need to be guaranteed for ever

Tentative Conclusions

• I wish that OHM (http://mapping4ops.org/openhistoricalmap-(ohm)/) would be the best way to go - but we would need to be assured about its future, and to get people to develop it to meet our needs
• The OpenGeo Suite from Boundless (http://mapping4ops.org/opengeo-suite/) seems to meet most of our requirements, although like the others it can be complex to use
• The tailored (OSGEO) (http://mapping4ops.org/qgisgeoserver/osgeo-basic-information/) Open Source QGIS/GeoServer solution is very similar to OpenGeo Suite, and the most likely to meet our needs (I still need to try it out for real, and see how it can be tailored)
• The Geo node (http://mapping4ops.org/geonode/) Open Source solution is likely to be even more expensive to have tailored
• Mapbox (http://mapping4ops.org/mapbox/) is a modern, powerful, easy to use mapping system, but it is geared more to mobiles and current mapping than to history