Hi everyone. I just wanted to let you know that, through CTC and the help of bdragon and becw, the CiviMap Module has been released in very initial development stages.
Its simply a module that will help integrate the GMap Module and CiviCRM. CiviCRM already has some mapping features, but it is not as extensive as GMap. So one direction we are going in is to try to bring CiviCRM data towards the Drupal side and integrate it into GMap. Right now, the main feature is that this module builds KML feeds that can easily be an overlay on a GMap Macro (with the help of GMap Addons).
You can download and try it out, but it could change drastically at any moment at this point in its life, so I make no promises. What I need form you is some feedback on what you might want this module to do, and how it would most benefit the community as a whole. Thanks.
Comments
kml module enhancements
I recently needed to add node information to KML feeds that would be built by a separate module (trackfield in this case - http://drupal.org/project/trackfield).
Instead of re-inventing the wheel I have committed a number of updates to the KML module (http://drupal.org/project/kml). Specifically, the node
kml itemhook can now return geometry and even separate placemark information. There is also a newkml_feed_extrashook that allows other modules to add any information they like to the KML output built by the default module.Take a look at the development snapshot to see if these hooks can help with your features.
Hi BIll - I am interested in
Hi BIll - I am interested in what you may be cooking up here. I have raised various questions about gis on civicrm forum. Stumbled on this post by accident.
Caution: I am not a developer/coder, just a user/project manager.
My interest is in the ability to put a layer on map showing a set of contiguous polygons (eg postcode areas, census areas, local government areas) such that the user could click and select one or several of these polygons, then deliver the geoco-ordinates of the resulting area and use that to find contacts in those areas in civiCRM and then add them to a Group.
pete davis : fuzion : advocacy + strategy + communication
pete davis : fuzion : connect + campaign + communicate
..is in getting all the
..is in getting all the lat/lng coordinates for your regions. Once you have that dataset, it should be fairly easy to create a new node type -- perhaps "region" or "area" or somesuch -- and somehow tie the set of coordinates to each area.
Once that part is done, you hook into gmap.module or something, and use Google's polygon drawing API, to which you pass the lat/lng pairs defining the region.
...and no, there isn't a module that does this magically for you, alas.. but I bet my technique is sound.
The trick..
[deleted by author as redundant]
Geo can store the polygons for you
At this point, you're still on your own with getting the polygon data onto the map, but in D6, the geo module can store and query this data for you. That covers the "somehow tie the set of coordinates to each area".
I'd welcome some technical review and assistance on Geo, and I'm sure that the GMap folks would appreciate having the rendering efforts contributed into that module.
searching civi contacts by polygon
@peted
Allie is right -- the solution to the "linking a polygon to a node" is Geo. You can load a shapefile (what is a shapefile?) in to Geo, and then use it as the 'options' for a cck field.
It seems like the functionality that you're actually interested in here is geographic search! Geo also provides some geographic search features, though you'd have to talk to Allie to get the specifics since it's largely her work so far. I'm not sure what complications there would be in trying to do geographic search across CiviCRM data, since that geodata is stored outside of the Geo module. Also, as you mention, clickable polygons would be an interesting "exposed filter" widget for Views...
Basically, though, Civimap doesn't address geographic operations yet, just exporting... being able to select groups of Civi contacts based on polygons would be darn cool though--binary bill, let's keep this in mind!
key for me is the 'clicking' to select
thanks for all the discussion on this. i don't expect there to be any problems really in getting the polygons on as a layer - yes they are available as shapefiles - the key is being able to click on one or several and have that output a list of those polygons which in turn can output the coordinates of the perimeter - which can they be thrown at civiCRM to identify all contacts whose coordinates are within the perimeter. I have a working model here but it was not produced on open source but shows what is possible.
of course none of this is particulary 'hard' it is just about getting all the pieces to tie together.
pete davis : fuzion : advocacy + strategy + communication
pete davis : fuzion : connect + campaign + communicate
I'd be pleasantly surprised if CiviCRM was even close to this
... But using Geo and working out a formatter for exposed filters would give you this.
Clarifying re civiCRM
civiCRM has a built in 'custom search' which delivers a 'proximity search' ie you can enter a distance in kilometres and civiCRM will run a search that returns all those contacts who have been mapped and are within the area defined by the radius that is set. I realise that doing what I am outlining is a step up from that but ....
pete davis : fuzion : advocacy + strategy + communication
pete davis : fuzion : connect + campaign + communicate