10 Cool Things about MapGuide Open Source

August 17, 2006; 04:22 AM

Andy Morsell, President of Spatial Integrators, Inc. and active participant in the OSGeo project offers up his take and suggests 10 Cool Things about MapGuide Open Source (http://mapguide.osgeo.org/). Recall, MapGuide Open Source is a web-based platform that enables users to quickly develop and deploy web mapping applications and geospatial web services.

10 Cool Things about MapGuide Open Source
 
1.  It's Open Source.

2. There is already a large user base with an active community as part of the Open Geospatial Foundation (www.OSGeo.org).

3. It has a very robust and thorough API making it very easy for programmers to customize with PHP, .NET or Java.  This makes it a great platform to deliver data to and integrate with other client software, such as Google Earth and Google Maps.

4. It uses Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) technology for the client-side viewer meaning that there are no downloads required for any browser platform.  Authors can take advantage of this by defining map tiles which are pre-rendered on the server.

5. There is a new Open Source Web Studio interface allowing authors to create maps with a light weight authoring tool.

6. It can be deployed on Linux or Windows servers.

7. It uses Open Source Feature Data Objects (https://fdo.osgeo.org/) for supporting a variety of geospatial data sources including SDF, SHP, ArcSDE, MySQL, ODBC, OGR, GDAL, WMS and WFS.

8. It provides outstanding cartographic output including true color, TrueType fonts, scale-dependent detail and dynamic labeling with automatic resizing and path following.

9. Server administration can be performed remotely through the slick web interface.

10. Did we mention that it's Open Source?
 

Andrew Morsell (amorsell) is a MapGuide user and part of the Autodesk developer network. Andrew is not just an ordinary fellow, he owns Spatial Integrators, Inc., a GIS consulting company located in Spokane, Washington.

Andy was recently interviewed by OSGeo. You can read the full interview here: https://www.osgeo.org/content/spotlights/developer/Andrew_Morsell.html