Ploting courses on Maps please advise.

[gus121]

Hi I have a number of nautical maps about (50). Which I currently have set-up as image maps with hotspots allowing customers to drilldown and select the appropriate map.

I have been asked to change this system so that the customer could plot a course on a map. For example clicking on two or more points on a map and using the coordinates to select the most appropriate maps between those coordinates that the customer may need for his journey.

Could anyone advise as to the best method to this? I currently have ASP, SQL, SQL2000 and HTML knowledge.

Should I use Flash and/or ASP.net as the best technology to achieve this? Or are there plugins/ server side components I can use?



-Gus

 

[ChrisHunt]

I suspect Flash would be the best way to do it from the user's point of view (assuming they all have the relevant plug-in of course) as you could code a pretty rich environment for interaction, allowing them to zoom in/out, drag their waypoints around, etc. However, you've got to have the skills to write it!

Alternatively you could use some kind of server-side solution, where the user could build up their course by clicking on the map, with each click causing the page to refresh a dynamic image. There's library packages like gd and imagemagick that allow you to build up images dynamically - ie, start with the chart as a background and plot the course line across it. I used gd & perl to plot the points on this map:

http://www.yhagroup.org.uk/map.shtml

. I know these libraries work with Perl, I don't know if they (or something similar) can be called from ASP. The process of entering a course this way may be pretty ponderous though, especially if you're on a dial-up.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk