Open Source Computing and GIS in the UK

Archaeogeek is now back in the saddle/desk-chair after a few weeks break- firstly entertaining visiting parents and most recently scuba-diving in the Sound of Mull (Scotland)

In the mean time I have a few projects coming to fruition, and have been catching up on a few things that I wanted to learn more about (hello google maps and database integration). Firstly, we at Oxford Archaeology have been fortunate to have the services of a very skilled and enthusiastic work-placement student called Matt Jones from the University of Southampton for the last few weeks and he has been helping up get our basic web-based mapping sorted. This collaboration was the first to be arranged via the Antiquist Skills Exchange, where people can post about work they have available, or skills they can offer. It’s still a work in progress to some extent but Matt has done sterling work getting it looking good. Thanks also to Bill Woodall from the OpenLayers mailing list who helped immensely with the ajax code for getting the popups to work nicely.

Secondly, I have been fortunate to have some communication with the MapGuide Open Source development team in terms of getting MGOS working on Ubuntu. This is a long process, made slightly more difficult because of the difference in time zones, but we are making progress, and I am just amazed at them for assigning someone to spend time working with me to get the programme working. I can’t honestly imagine many large companies doing this, and it’s a great credit to the new open mindset at Autodesk. We are currently working through the compilation errors as they occur in the code, and I am taking copious notes so I’ll keep people posted.

Thirdly, Oxford Archaeology’s decision to release our data via wms/wfs is still a matter of debate. Unfortunately for every post or comment that approves of our decision, there is another that tries to figure out what we are gaining financially from the decision. I find this sad, as it’s indicative of a mindset in British Archaeology that we are trying to change. I’m not being naive- we might make some fuzzy and indirect gains from this, and certainly our internal efficiency will improve, but it’s really not the main point- we are making a commitment to the free exchange of data.

Well, at last it’s OK for me to tell people that Oxford Archaeology now has a WFS server that is accessible from the outside world. The address is:

http://mapdata.thehumanjourney.net/cgi-bin/mapservwfs.cgi

It’s a standard MapServer setup, and at the moment contains static data about the sites we have worked on over the last thirty years. This is still a work in progress and there are a whole bunch of things I would like to improve (but at least it’s up and out there):

1: As I said, it’s static data. The aim is to get our main databases into PostgreSQL (I’ve talked about this before, and it’s not an easy process to convert messy, historic, access databases into PostgreSQL). In some circles there is a question as to whether we should actually use live data. There are sometimes issues with people looting archaeological excavations, and we don’t want to make that any easier…
2: You may have noticed that I said databaseS (plural rather than singular). Oxford Archaeology only took over the Lancaster Office a few years ago and we are still working towards merging our core systems (along with upgrading them all to sensible, robust OpenSource platforms where possible). The problem with having two databases is that in many cases the fields are not directly compatible, so to get the data out in the shortest possible time I simply included the elements that were common to both, and I will work towards getting more information out.

3: At the moment, there is no fancy front-end to this. I have two candidates in mind for frontends, and I’ve talked about them both a fair bit. They will serve two different purposes, in other words for internal and external use. Externally I’m working towards using OpenLayers, although this might mean that I have to convert or re-project all of our data that is in British National Grid format into WGS84 so I can use something like Google Maps as a backend. Not a problem, I just haven’t done it yet. OpenLayers will give me a fairly basic, but nice looking interface that works in a way that people are familiar with from Google Maps and other sites. It is easy to install and can be built into any web page, so it can be embedded in our corporate site and not look out of place. Internally I want to use MapGuide OpenSource, as it has advanced functionality and a fairly slick style built in (I could use Mapserver and build a front-end myself but this seems like the best approach). However, as my last few posts have explained, I am having quite a lot of trouble compiling this on our platform of choice, so we’ll see.

4: There is only one layer so far. We’ll work on this, but often have licensing issues with our data, so we’ll have to check that out first.

Anyhow, enjoy.

Well, my first attempt at getting Mapguide Opensource working on Ubuntu screeched to a massive halt last week with some version conflicts that even the mighty mailing list couldn’t solve. I’m kinda hopeful that if I start from scratch and install only the absoloute basics, then I might avoid the same problem. Unfortunately I can’t get anyone on the list to admit that they’ve successfully managed to install it on Ubuntu, otherwise I could pick their brains mercilessly!

If anyone reading this blog has had success installing Mapguide on Ubuntu, then please let me know in the comments. I promise not to hassle you too much…

On a happier note, Oxford Archaeology now have their first publically available WFS server. I can’t post the address yet until I get permission, but in the first instance it will be serving details about where in the UK we’ve done work. We hope to include more layers soon, but that depends on clearance from other organisations.

The next step will be a nice web interface for the data. I’ve been playing with OpenLayers a lot recently, and that would be the easiest option, but I would like to get Mapguide Opensource up and running because I think the ajax interface for that is about the slickest I’ve seen.

Well, I’m three days in to trying to compile and install the latest version of MapGuide OpenSource on Ubuntu Dapper Drake and it’s quite hard going. Maybe it’s just naivety on my part, but I’m constantly amazed at how many other packages are required, that are not in the documentation, before the various components will install. It’s not the first time I’ve done this either, as I tried it on Suse 9 and Fedora 4 last year and I had the same problem then. I wonder if sometimes the developers forget that relative n00bs like me might have clean systems, without all the extra libraries installed.

Anyhow, once I finally get through it (if it’s even possible…) I’ll post some updated instructions and pointers to try and make the process a little easier in future, both for me and others. At the moment it has failed again, so I’ve had to admit defeat and ask on the mailing list. Hopefully I’ll make some progress tomorrow…