Mapping Implementation Options

Hi everyone,

I'm creating a new website aimed at listing local advertising options for small business owners. Below, I'll give a synopsis of my intended site (mapping) features, the core drupal mapping functions that I believe I'll need, and my implementation options as I see them.

My 2 questions are:

1) Am I missing anything? (Are there any core mapping functions or implementation options that I haven't thought about or that I'm just plain wrong about?)

2) Based on your experiences and/or knowledge of these modules, what are the optimal solutions for me when it comes to short-term and long-term? (I'm differentiating between short-term and long-term because I'm assuming that Geo + Geocode + OpenLayers will be my best bet, but I'll need something like Location + Mapstraction until Geo and OpenLayers are more complete).

Synopsis of my intended site features

List (i.e. database) of advertising options in various regions of the U.S.

Examples of types of advertising options that will be included: billboards (no specific address), media companies (specific address), radio stations (coverage area is what matters, i.e. a geographic polygon)

Users will be able to filter the advertising options, articles, blog entries, and maps via taxonomy vocabularies in the sidebar

Desired Mapping Core Functions

1. Collect user input (options: ask for lat/lon coordinates directly, ask for address, have them click on the map, have them draw a polygon on the map)
2. (additionally necessary unless the module that does step #1 does this step also): Convert the user input into database-suitable data
3. Store/retrieve database data
4. Present the information in a useful way (options: show coordinates, show address, show point on map, show polygons on map, allow proximity or other methods of searching) (Note: although it could be convenient to have user customization/filtering built into the mapping functionality, this is also possible via Views so I’m not including it as a mapping core function).

My Implementation Options

1. (I believe this incorporates all of my desired mapping core functions)
   • Geo Module (storage/retrieval/mathematics of point or polygon coordinate data)
   • Geocode Module (translates additional things into Geo data such as text fields for addresses or county/state shape files)
   • One of…
     • (Preferred): OpenLayers Module (users point to a location or draw an area on a map and then it converts that to Geo data, output a map in numerous ways such as a Google Map or OpenStreetMap
     • Gmap Geo Module + Gmap Module (shows a Google Map that lets users point to a location or polygon and then gives that data to the Geo module for storage, and can output a map of Geo data)
2. (Temporary solution until OpenLayers and Geo are fine-tuned, because it doesn’t include functionality for polygon mapping or clicking on the map when there’s no billboard address)
   • Location Module
   • One of…
     • Gmap Module
     • Mapstraction Module
     • Nice Maps Module (plus Mapnik installation, or Mapserver installation)