Build your own Mapping, Geocoding, and Routing service with SQL Server

Back in 2010, I was lucky enough to present a session at the SQLBits V conference, on “Creating High Performance Spatial Databases“. I say “lucky” not because I enjoy presenting at conferences (because I don’t particularly), but because SQL Bits is a fantastic conference, organised by a highly-dedicated, bloody-hardworking, talented, and generally nice bunch of people, and it was an honour to be associated with them and to learn from them.

The next SQL Bits conference, SQL Bits 8, is happening in Brighton between 7th – 9th April 2011, and I’ve just submitted a new session for it, titled (as is this post) “Who needs Google Maps? Build your own Mapping, Geocoding, and Routing service”. If my session gets accepted, I’m planning demonstrating practical uses of the spatial datatypes in SQL Server to perform, well, mapping, geocoding, and routing.

Following feedback from Simon Sabin (a SQL Server MVP with much more presenting experience than me) I got after my last presentation , I’m going to be ditching the Powerpoint slides and the theory and, if my session is selected, I’ll be presenting a lot more eye-candy like this instead:

Routefinding

Mapping Features

Cheers!

Natural Earth Free Map – Updated Data

Natural Earth is a free, public domain map dataset available at 1:10, 1:50, and 1:110- million scales and includes new vector and updated raster themes. The goal is to give cartographers and GIS users an off-the-shelf solution for creating small scale world, regional, and country maps.

To celebrate the 1 year-anniversary of the Natural Earth project by introducing a new “quick start kit” (150 mb ZIP) that includes a sampling of Natural Earth vector and raster data and an ArcMap document that compiles the themes into an easy to browse, styled map. The map comes in two flavors and scales: the world (zoom to all) and at a regional scale (zoom in to U.S. states and countries world wide) with cultural and physical data frames to switch between.

You can download individual themes (or the whole set) from naturalearthdata.com, where you’ll find raster imagery of Natural Earth I and II in perfect registration with the vector linework. Both political and physical features are included in Natural Earth data.

Natural Earth solves a problem that many map makers face: finding vector data to make publication-quality small scale maps. At a time when the web is awash in interactive maps and free, downloadable vector data, such as the Digital Chart of the World and VMAP, map makers are forced to spend time sifting through a confusing tangle of poorly attributed data. Many map makers working under tight project deadlines must use manually digitalized bases instead.

natural earth screenshot

Small scale map datasets of the world do exist, but they have their problems. For example, most are crudely generalized—Chile’s fjords are a noisy mess, the Svalbard archipelago is a coalesced blob, and Hawaii has disappeared into the Pacific two million years ahead of schedule. They contain few data layers, usually only a coast and country polygons, which may not be in register.

The lack of good small scale map data is not surprising. Large mapping organizations that release public domain data, such as the U.S. Geological Survey, are not mandated to create small scale map data for a smaller user community that includes map making shops, publishers, Web mappers, academics, and students—in other words, typical cartographers.

Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso, The Washington Post

Tom Patterson, U.S. National Park Service

Originally Posted by ESRI Mapping Center http://blogs.esri.com/Support/blogs/mappingcenter/archive/2011/02/08/natural-earth-the-free-world-base-map.aspx