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OKMaps - Oklahoma's Geographic Mapping Application
In September 2008, Coordinate Solutions began work with the Oklahoma Department of Homeland
Security (OHDHS) and the Oklahoma Office of Geographic Information (OGI) to develop a new
statewide GIS clearinghouse that incorporated the following functionality:
- Point, line, polygon, and raster data storage and download
- Download capabilities by user specified geographic extent and in multiple data
formats and projections
- Output for Google Earth visualization
- Support for frequently updated layers
- Support software and hardware scalability
- Support secure layers for authorized users only
- Standards based for data interoperability so that the clearinghouse was not bound to any specific piece
of software.
- Low or no ongoing maintenance costs
With the guidance of ODHS, OGI, and a workgroup of GIS experts Coordinate Solutions developed the
new OKMaps clearinghouse using a combination of cutting edge open source GIS technologies including
PostGIS, GeoNetwork, GeoServer, and OpenLayers. PostGIS is an extension to the PostgreSQL database
that "spatially enables" the server. OKMaps utilizes PostGIS to store and serve all of OGI's vector
geographic objects. In order to facilitate searching of the data repository, Coordinate Solutions
used GeoNetwork, an open source, standards-based cataloging application for spatially referenced
resources. GeoServer, a java-based WMS / WFS server was used to serve geospatial data from the
PostGIS database and OGI's raster servers. Finally, Coordinate Solutions, using Microsoft's .NET
framework, developed two custom data viewers, one based on OpenLayers and the other on Silverlight,
for searching, viewing, and downloading the OKMaps geospatial resources.
Phase 1 of the project was finalized in September 2009 and the data warehouse is now
publicly available here.
Phase 2 aims to move OKMaps from a proof-of-concept into a production system. The project includes
adding an additional tier of production servers for increased availability, updating the site to use
current verions of all software packages, optimizing various processes, and adding new functionality
to the site.
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