Geo-location

A preliminary working group on geo-location met during DrupalCon 2005 during OSCON 2005 in Portland, Oregon. The group plans to meet again either face-to-face in Portland and/or via chat online.

Discussion revolved around the following topics:

* Geo-location related to CRM (places meet people) is a killer app for many organizations using/looking to use Drupal.
* Use case 1: Map an address: Given a street address (probably related to a person or organization), map that street address to an interactive map (like Google Maps) that may also show other data layers (eg, political precincts, bike routes, etc).
* Use case 2: Resolve a street address to a boundary: Given a street address (eg, probably related to a person or organization), resolve what geographical area the address falls within (eg, a user enters their street address and Drupal should be able to tell them what political precinct they live in, and from that, who their representatives are, etc). This use case can be abstracted to account for other uses beyond the political boundaries.
* Use case 3: Map best route between two points: Given a starting and ending street addresses, Drupal should return a map showing best route, based on different criteria (eg, best bike route).
* Use case 4: Find closest X: Given a street address, return map showing closest X (eg, coffee shop, bike store, etc) to that address.
* Use case 5: Find all X near Y: Given a street address Y, find all X (eg, coffee shops, bike repairs shops, etc) within given (user configurable) proximity (eg, 1 mile, 5 miles, 10 kilometers).
* Google Map hacks vs. local map/GIS data stores: which is a better long-term solution?
* Availability of geodata (eg, US political precinct boundaries in usable formats).

Attending were:
Nate Angell, Webmaster, Portland State University,
Chris Bassett, Vice-Chair, Clark County Democrats
Jeff Chochon,
Katharine Wolfe
Eric Preston
Dries Buytaert