During my second
year of college, I came across this technology where maps could be
rendered online (web mapping) and users could interact with the maps
for visualization and analysis. I found this technology interesting
and decided to give it a shot. I encountered the “usual” barriers
experienced by any beginner in coding. Then, I came across these
interesting and well explained platforms for web mapping (Open Source
platforms).
After a couple
months of research, I settled for ExtJS, OpenLayers, GeoExt,
GeoServer, PHP, QGIS, PostgreSQL /PostGIS and HTML/CSS as my
development platforms for my web maps. I knew this was a huge project
for me to undertake but always motivated by the capabilities the
platforms offered me. Spending days and nights on-line trying to come
up with something meaningful was my day-to-day job.
One year down the
line, web mapping has been one of my successful courses in college
with the ability to develop great web mapping applications. I saw
meaningful to share my story about this topic to encourage anyone
interested in leveraging the Open Source Platforms for their
developments as there numerous benefits of this technology.
Below is a
screenshot of one of my web maps that I have managed to develop.
