Rails GIS Hacks Tutorial at RailsConf Europe

28 June 2007, 12:11pm

Tutorial: Rails GIS Hacks

at the RailsConf Europe, 17-19 September 2007, Berlin, Germany

Date: Monday 17 September 2007
Time: 13:30 - 17:00
Location: Saal Maritim B

Since the advent of Google Maps and a number of other free web APIs for mapping, there has been an exponential increase in the number of mapshups and geography-related web sites. In this tutorial we will introduce what's happening in the Ruby/Rails Geographic Information space. We will go from defining the key concepts behind the geospatial technology to developing a full-blown mapping application in Rails. In the process, we will make use of a number of cool Rails plug-ins that will let us integrate external geographic data sources as well us share our own data.

The topics covered will be:

* Storing location data in ActiveRecord (PostGIS/PostgreSQL and MySQL)
* Accessing location data in Controller
* How to use open geo-standards for sharing data: GeoRSS, WMS, WFS, WCS, Microformats, KML, GeoJASON
* How to use geocoders
* Geographic data formats (Vector and Raster)
* Using Ruby/Mapscript, Ruby/GDAL, Ruby/GEOS
* Where do I find free data?
* Talking to Mapserver (IvyGIS)
* Using Geonames Ruby API

We will cover a number of plugins:

* YM4R
* GeoRuby
* Spatial Adapter for ActiveRecord
* GeoKit
* acts_as_locatable
* acts_as_geocodable
* graticule

Presenters:
Shoaib Burq, Geospatial Developer, Nomad Labs
Kashif Rasul, Consultant, Nomad Labs

URL:
http://www.railsconfeurope.com/cs/railseurope2007/view/e_sess/14212

www.railsconfeurope.com

Geo: International