Browser Based Mapping

LISAsoft used robust open source libraries to build a familiar, intuitive, and yet powerful web mapping application, which was delivered inside a virtual machine for easy deployment.

The Challenge

To deliver an intuitive mapping website for non-spatial users which also provides advanced functionality such as measuring, redlining and printing. 

Our Solution

Resource & Exploration Mapping (REM) wished to provide an innovative website to help people from offices around the world communicate about the geographic areas they manage. The website needed to provide the powerful functionality they were used to using in desktop applications, and yet still be easy to understand for non-spatially trained users.

LISAsoft worked closely with REM to gather requirements and then developed a web based map visualisation application. To assist non-spatially trained users tools were incorporated which provided constant user feedback – such as mouse over tips. The application was built upon open source libraries which provide robust cross-browser functionality. GeoExt was used which includes Openlayers mapping tools and ExtJS for clean web interfaces.

During the project LISAsoft extended the underlying open source software by improving the PDF printing functionality. Being  an active contributor and user of Open Source projects LISAsoft was able to quickly create a patch and have it applied to the project source code.

The design followed the layout of popular mapping applications with a main, centralised map and tools at the top and readouts at the bottom. A layer tree provided multiple map layer and download operations. The underlying map services were provided by GeoServer on top of a Postgres/PostGIS spatial database. The system was delivered inside a virtual machine, ready for easy deployment.