Functionality in a GUI: you probably want the same functionality in your browser. What he’s made/what he uses allows you to convert a GUI with just one click to a browser app.
And in addition you want to have your data with you all the time. Syncing and local storage so that you have your data, too, when you’re offline.
There’s a lot of power on the server side in data centers. One effect is that desktop, mobile and web are converging more and more.
A tip: focus on your own technical knowledge. Understand what’s happening. Understand what you have to make.
GWT allows a convergence of interfaces. Desktop and web.
On the web you have html, css, css3, javascript, asp, servlets and lots more. And there’s a knowledge spectrum from designer to programmer. It mixes more and more between those two. The split between interface and program isn’t that easy anymore.
GWT is google’s web toolkit. It bundles html, css and javascript. It lowers the complexity. You automatically use the expert knowledge that google poured into the toolkit.
Well, what about geo? Enter GWT-Openlayers. It is a wrapper around openlayers for GWT. You get a slick interface that looks like a desktop application.
He introduced OSM2World. It allows/helps you to use yourOSM data for 3D models. See also http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/3D_Development .
A picture says more than a 1000 words: http://toolserver.org/~osm/locale/zh.html . Openstreetmap in chinese.
Translating is one problem, rendering all those tiles in all languages is right another problem. Rendering it once is OK, but especially translations are constantly being updated. Re-rendering and re-rendering is a big problem.
Not open street map, but open sea map! It is a sub-project of openstreetmap. The earth is covered for 71% with water. One of the things they provide is a world-wide 8-day weather map.
A problem they’re now having to solve: how do they get the water depth level into the map data? How do you get that “z” into the database? He hopes to get to know people that know how to do it.
There are for instance multiple definitions of the “zero” level. Every country often has its own system. And you’ve got tides. Oh, and the earth is not evenly round (“the geoid”). How to handle that?
My name is Reinout van Rees and I work a lot with Python (programming language) and Django (website framework). I live in The Netherlands and I'm happily married to Annie van Rees-Kooiman.
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