Hello,

I love the idea of this but am completly lost about how to use it. I have been trying to follow all the documentation and must be missing the fundamentals of how this works as it is not making sense to me at all. Please bear with me as a newbie to mapping as a concept.

I have a client that is looking to put the GIS maps they create on the web and I was hoping this would do it.

They are using Arcview to create their GIS maps and the files created are.dbf .shp and .shx

Can I use this module to put these maps on the web?

If so can you explain a little where to start.

I have not understood how to use openlayers.

Thanks in advance and apologies if this is not the right place to ask.

Comments

j0k3z’s picture

+1

I am very lost as well

spydmobile’s picture

Hi J0k3z and fibie,

I am not an expert but I know my way around drupal and GIS.

This module is NOT a simple solution to ESRI centric GIS.

This module in its current state (it is still in its infantcy) will let you easily:

Geolocate a node (Peice of drupal content) by moving a marker around on a map resulting in a lat long for your node.
Implement OpenLayers in drupal
Overlay your Nodes via georss feed overtop commercial mapping backgrounds like google, yahoo and microsoft as well as WMS data

This module cannot realize its full potential unless you use with with UMN mapserver and PostgreSQL database (with PostGIS)

My setup is as follows. I run drupal on PostGresql DB with Postgis
I run the mapping kit module and enable these submodules:
map client, map context, mapping kit, open layers map client,

I use the configuration option of map context to generate 2 demo contexts.
I then use the examples on http://aardbodem.nl/node/8
to make my maps do what I want.

Mapping kit can do much more already than this, and in the future a whole lot more. but it is in mid development, so its not a direct solution to your challenge.
In the future I hope to use mapping kit to connect my drupal CMS maps with my Geoserver data. If you have not seen geoserver, I suggest you give it a try, it can read .shp files and Arc SDE and display on OpenLayers maps and even provide KML and GeoRSS feeds of same.

Hope this helps you somewhat.
Franco

fibie’s picture

Thanks I will give this a go. I also came across mapserver which I have yet to investigate but looks worth a look as a solution for my particular project.

grobe’s picture

The trick is to set up a geo-server, which will store and serve your gis-data. Drupal can connect to this server than, set up and integrate maps and serve them to your clients included in nice web pages. And if you want to give direct access to your gis-data to some clients of yours, you can let them still access the geo-server.