Have spent this past two weeks attending conferences, first the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington D.C., and then this week GIS in the Rockies in Loveland, Colorado. I made a couple of interesting observations from these shows.
First, there are still public sector agencies that are going about mapping the hard way: creating maps from scratch. Sometimes this means capturing the basemap imagery themselves, sometimes it means creating the mapping applications from the ground up rather than using a mapping platform like, oh let's say ... Bing Maps, and sometimes it means both. So I want to go on record and suggest that I think this is time and resources not well spent in many cases. I base this opinon on the commercial availabilty of mapping platforms like, oh let's say ... Bing Maps, from companies like, oh let's say ... Microsoft. (Okay, I'll stop.)
If you're not already on board with Bing Maps, here's the short story: Bing Maps serves as a mapping platform for agencies to layer operational data--such as GIS data or whatever data is most relevant to their user base, whether that is an internal or external audience or both--on top of detailed and accurate basemap imagery. The imagery begins with satellite views, but goes further to include extensive high-resolution aerial views to bring context to the layered data in 2D and 3D view modes that can be toggled on the fly. (If you have been using antiquated mapping tools for too long, we also include flat road map views for the less daring.) So while the platform allows you to integrate your own raster imagery, in many instances we will already have 6" aerial views you can leverage in your applications. Bing Maps also features a highly accurate geocoder (for associating addresses with lat/long coordinates) that, for the most part, places pushpins over parcel centroids rather than off in the street nearby. Along with this, Microsoft includes gazeteer services and routing and a lot more (see the Bing Maps for Enterprise web site).
What is key is that developing on Bing Maps is fast and easy because along with all the content and functionality, Microsoft provides well-documented application program interfaces and an online, interactive software development kit to help developers get started buliding Bing Maps mapping applications quickly. Getting started on a Bing Maps application can begin simply through a little cut and paste.
The second observation I made at these events is that there is a lot of buzz in public sector circles these days around open source tools which now include open source mapping tools. I attended a couple of sessions at GIS in the Rockies this week to see these in action. I wasn't able to form much of an opinon because in both sessions there were problems getting the programs to run as the presenters expected which underscores one of my reservation about open soruce tools. (Even one of the presenters made the observation that the data is only as reliable as the source.) While I understand the appeal of open source and free development tools to small organizations that lack resources to buy tools, commercial mapping platforms like Bing Maps are well-supported, well-documented and PREDICTIBLE and in the long run--for a serious mapping application--Bing Maps will save agencies money by allowing developers to code more quickly.
This is why I tell customers at these events that if you want to build mapping applications the easy way, use Bing Maps. If you want do do it the hard way, follow the lead of Senator Al Franken in the video below.
Happy Mapping.
-= Virtual Jerry
