Create Your Own Google-like Maps

Michael Baker
Intergraph Corporation,Huntsville, AL

Internet GIS
Monday March 5, 2012 - 1:30 to 2:45 pm

Google Maps have had a tremendous impact on the GIS industry. Google Maps is an impressive application and is commonly used here in Hawaii as a supplement to desktop GIS systems. It offers fast, responsive, and nicely rendered maps. It also offers the developer a well-documented and well-understood API. However, most GIS users have made a large investment in data themselves. Wouldn't it be nice to have the same Google Maps functionality but using individualized data instead of Google's? Creating individualized Google-like Maps is not difficult as long as the necessary components are understood. The key is to understand the map stack. There are four major components to the map stack - the browser UI, tile cache, WMS service, and GIS data. In this session, the speaker will begin by with a brief discussion of how Google Maps work and then will examine each component of the map stack.