Development: The Fall of the Tiled Map Image

Pregenerated tiled map images as used by Google Maps, Microsoft Bing and many GIS focused vendors has been the dominant solution GIS web mapping for solutions for many years. Pregenerated tile maps were a clever and highly successful solution to the technology limitations of the time (circa 2004) however, these limitations no longer exist. Is it time for a change of approach?

Technology: PostGIS v2.0 a game changer?

PostGIS for PostGres

For many years there has been a limited choice of geodatabases when looking for a single solution for all geodata models. Only Oracle Spatial and ESRI offered comprehensive coverage of spatial models. Oracle Spatial provided database models and algs for vector, network, raster and topology in addition to the usual database refinements and in database geocoding. ESRI offered ArcGIS Server with comprehensive support for Vector, Network and Raster models but left topology to the clients and had no offering for geocoding.Competitors such as PostGIS, MapInfo Spatialware, Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL only offered support for vectors.

It seems the status quo may be about to change....