[OSM-dev] Data format for OSM annotation layers

[Nick Whitelegg]

>> >GeoRSS would be perfect for this, wouldn't it? Then you could allow
>> >people to subscribe to updates in their area, and it'd be very
>> >portable and could be used on many different systems. I'd say KML
>> >would be a good addition to a GeoRSS feed, especially as Google
>> >Earth/Maps seem to be resisting GeoRSS so far.
>>
>> My understanding of GeoRSS is that it is basically a geo-coded RSS 
format,
>> i.e. it's good for (as you say) alerting people of updates on a map.
>> However it doesn't really seem to be designed for bounding-box 
retrieval.
>> The sort of app I had in mind involves the user panning an OSM slippy 
map
>> and markers appearing as you move into new areas. Such an app would
>> require a server which takes a bounding box and returns data of some 
sort
>> representing the markers within.

>Although this is true, WFS Simple is doing exactly this: taking the WFS
>format, and changing the output to be encoded in GeoRSS. Starting off
>from a script that just includes a bounding box should work ifne, and in
>fact, many of the existing GeoRSS server support some kind of location
>based query.

>Using GeoRSS and adding in a bbox param seems to make perfect sense to
>me.

OK - looks like GeoRSS it is then.
Doesn't look like it'll be too hard to implement a tiled, bbox-based 
GeoRSS layer in OpenLayers... basically a case of taking bits from the 
existing (tiled) WFS layer code with the existing (untiled) GeoRSS layer 
code.

Nick