[OAM-talk] The once and future OpenAerialMap

[Richard Fairhurst]

Christopher Schmidt wrote:

> Tiles are one way of thinking about it, but I think that everything else
> you say actually doesn't speak to 'tiles', but instead to 'data OpenLayers
> can read'. If a service can provide a WMS layer, why do you need tiles? You
> just need something that OpenLayers can read; preferably with no   
> user knowledge other than 'I want that one!'
>
> Tiles are fine for developers, but for users, they don't care about tiles.
> They just want a map. (This is just my experience/opinion, anyway.)

Tiles are great as the simplest thing possible. Potlatch, the OSM  
editor which I write, just speaks 900913 tiles - basically because it  
then doesn't have to worry about any projection other than spherical  
Mercator, and that's a huge code saving.

We're finding that whenever someone comes up with a cool small aerial  
imagery set, there's always a helpful OSMer around (actually, it's  
usually Andy Allan) who will reproject and slice into 900913 tiles.  
Similarly for out-of-copyright UK maps. About the only thing Potlatch  
is missing by not having WMS support is USGS topos.

So yeah, I see the rationale behind "something that OpenLayers can  
read", but "something that popular clients can read" is better  
phrasing; and clients like Potlatch and Modest Maps are coalescing  
around tiles as the lowest common denominator.

(All this is detail, anyway. +1 for reviving OAM.)

cheers
Richard