Presented at Tokyo GeoGrid conference in January 2008

1. Geo Grid IT Special Session
Activities of
the FOSS4G
nd
Jan. 22 2008
Toru Mori
Orkney, Inc.

2. My profile
Toru Mori
●
President of Orkney, Inc.
–
FOSS4G advocate!
–
Representative of OSGeo Foundation Japan
–
Translator of “Web Mapping Illustrated” authored by
–
Tyler Mitchell (O'reilly Media, 2006)
A wife and 2 children
–
Enjoy the amateur radio communication
–
Love eating fish and sushi
–

3. Orkney, Inc.
About Orkney, Inc.
●
an open source business solution provider located
–
in Yokohama, Japan, specializing in GIS and LBS
technologies.
Established in 2002
–
19 employees
–
International team
–
German, Russian, French, Thai and Japanese
●
Supporting FOSS4G tools and OSGeo foundation
–
First internationalized MapServer and GRASS
●
Hosting OSGeo Foundation Japan office
●
Sponsor of the FOSS4G conference
●

4. What Orkney does...
Web mapping application development
&
Geographical information
systems development
Based on FOSS4G
technologies

5. What's going on
in the geospatial fields?

6. No.1
Integration with
the “Web Main Streem”

7. Geospatial goes to Web
Geospatial field has been integrated into the Web
●
Geospatial is now a part of the Internet
–
Geospatial is not “isolated island” any more
–
Internet Internet
Geo
Geo

8. What does this mean?
Geospatial follows the rules of the internet
●
Even ESRI, giant in the GIS industry, cannot control
–
it
Internet
●
Unified rule
–
Open standard and open Architecture
–
Therefore...
–
Everybody can enjoy, join and even provide
●
services as his/her wishes

9. Maps go to Web
Free mapping services
●
GoogleMaps
–
Opened Pandora's box
●
Map scrolls without plug-in
–
Map + Satellite photo
–
Free to use API
–
Mash Up boom
–
Made mapping services commodity in the overall web
●
search services and web itself
Any web developer can easily add mapping features
–

10. Many Followers
Potal sites
●
Yahoo!, MSN Live...
–
Local mapping service providers
●
MapQuest and others
–
Common trend
●
Free services
–
Free contents
–
Mash-up and blog parts are available
–
No more hurdles in adopting mapping services
●
More options for users
●

11. However,
It is just the tip of the
iceberg...

12. Actually,
There is a movement that
changes the current
geospatial world thoroughly

13. That is
Penetration of FOSS4G

14. No.2
Penetration of FOSS4G

15. FOSS4G
Free Open Source Software for Geospatial
●
Free open sourced software in the geospatial field
–
Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo)
–
supports the community
http://www.osgeo.org/

16. OSGeo
Open Source Geospatial Foundation
●
Global organization
–
Local chapters
–
China, French, India, Japan, Australia, Brazilian, German,
●
Greek, Taiwan....
Established in Feb. 2006
–
Community of community
–
5 web mapping, 4 desktop applications, 4 geospatial
●
libraries, 2 metadata catalog and 2 others
Supports and promotes FOSS4G tools
–
Holds annual conference called “FOSS4G”
–

17. Now FOSS4G means more
Open Source Software
●
Program Source codes which are opened to everybody
–
for free to use
Open Standard
●
Standardized protocols or formats opened to everybody
–
for free to use
Open Data Contents
●
Data contents which are opened to everybody for free
–
to use
For all about Geospatial!

18. Open Source Software
Grew up with the Internet penetration
●
Many of geospatial tools have been developed
–
since around 2001
Got widely used after around 2004
–
Rich features, stable and internationalization
●
Fast international development scheme by
●
taking advantages of the Internet
World wide contributors from company, university
–
and labs
Active discussions in the mailing lists
●
Development for 24×7×365
●

19. 24x7...

20. Open Source Software Examples
MapServer
●
Web mapping engine
–
Many features, high performance and stable
–
Most used in the world over 10,000 live sites
–
PostGIS
●
Powerful spatial data extension to PostgreSQL
–
Similar to Spatial extension to Oracle
–
PostLBS
●
Routing and Geocoding library runs on
–
PostGIS/PostgreSQL

21. Open Source Software Examples
GRASS
●
Powerful geographic analysis desktop tool
–
Varieties of image analysis features even more than
–
commercial tools
QGIS
●
Easy to use geographic data management desktop
–
tool

22. Open Source Software Examples
GDAL/OGR
●
Geographic data access library supports several
–
dozens of data formats
No need to develop data conversion tool
–
Google Earth and ArcGIS use this tool
●
OpenLayers
●
Web AJAX client
–
provides rich features more than Google Maps
–
Supports OGC web service specifications
●
Add your web service onto Google Maps
●

23. Open Source community
Small core team, but large community support
●
FOSS４G
Contributing developer,
tester
Contributing supporter, promoter

24. Commercial vendor
(non-open source)
Large commercial organization, spend huge
●
marketing budget to attract customers
Commercial
Vendor
In-house developer,
tester
In-house sales and marketing
resources

25. Open Standard
Standardized protocols or formats defined by
●
non-profit organizations and released to
everybody for free to use
As long as following open standards, you can
–
integrate your systems consists of different
software vendors
OGC（Open Geospatial Consortium) defines
●
Geospatial standards
i.e.
–
GeoWeb service (WMS,WFS,WCS,WPS etc)
●
Geo data format (GML,KML)
●

26. Open standards network FOSS4G tools
You can integrate your system without caring about
software vendor
PostGIS
GRASS GIS
MapServer
FOSS4G
MapGuide QGIS
Tool
Opensource
GeoServer
GDAL/OGR
OpenLayers

27. Commercial vendor...
A commercial vendor recommends its products, might supports
some other tools, but may not support other useful software
tools
Vendor X
Product A Vendor X
Vendor X
Product B
Product C
Vendor Z
Vendor Y
Vendor X Product
Product
Vendor W
FOSS4G tool Product
FOSS4G tool

28. GeoWeb services can be developed
by FOSS4G tools and Open standards
PDA
PC Cellphone
Client
FOSS4G
Open
Tools
Standards
MapServer Geocoder
JUMP/QGIS
Visualize Geocoding
Spatial Database Routing
Server
PostGIS PostLBS
PostgreSQL
Content
management
Map POI Other contents

29. Open data contents
Geospatial data contents which everybody can
●
use it for (almost) free
Two Types
●
(almost) free data released by government
–
TIGER( U.S.), GeoBase(Canada), Suchi-Chizu(Japan)
●
OpenStreetMap
–
Free data made by people
●
http://www.openstreetmap.org/
●
“Make map” project in collaborative way by people
–
Started from London U.K.
–

30. OpenStreetMap (London, U.K.)

31. OpenStreetMap(New York, U.S.)

32. OpenStreetMap
(Cape Town, South Africa)

33. OpenStreetMap(Beijing, China)

34. OpenStreetMap(Bangkok, Thai)

35. OpenStreetMap(Tokyo, Japan)

36. FOSS4G is an Eco-system
People make, share, use and update
●
Not only locally but globally via the Internet
–
Without any restrictions to use
–
Save marketing costs like commercial vendors
–
spend
Enjoy rich features, stable systems, fast
–
development, rich technological knowledge
Available local support groups and companies,
–
trainers
FOSS4G makes everybody happy, except for
●
Bill Gates...

37. Sample sites
using
FOSS4G tools

38. City information service
(Souka-city, Japan)
 Information service for
citizens and tourists
 FOSS4G tools
MapServer

PHP/MapScript

Ka-map

PostGIS/PostgreSQL

http://orkney.jp/soukacity/

39. Petroleum and Natural Gas Exploration and
Production Web-Database-GIS system by ICEP
For professional
●
FOSS4G tools
●
MapServer
–
PHP/MapScript
–
p-mapper
–
PostGIS/PostgreS
–
QL
https://icep11.icep.or.jp/pgdb/#

40. MapMobiliry (Canada)
Largest map publisher
●
in Canada
Mapping service
–
Geocoding service
–
Routing service
–
FOSS4G tools
●
MapServer
–
PostGIS/PostgreSQL
–
OpenLayers
– http://maps.mapmobility.com/
PostLBS
–
http://wrs.postlbs.org/geobase.html

41. Thank you very much!
moritoru@orkney.co.jp