2011 – MetroGIS Proximity Finder

The MetroGIS Government Services Proximity Finder is a web service that lists all jurisdictions at a particular point, and then finds the nearest government service based on a particular location. It was similar to another SharedGeo project, the Minnesota Structures Collaborative, because it involved loading and/or accessing data from many local government sources and using it in a standardized way to provide a unified service to users.  SharedGeo’s project team included Houston Engineering, Inc.

An end product of this project is a web service that allows web site developers to use a central data store to answer questions like “Where is the nearest hospital?” or “What school district am I in and where is the nearest school in my school district?” A data loading tool also allows registered users to easily add layers to the central data store, and an example client application is included that updates based on added layers. Sample clients that show how to use the service in Google Earth and the GeoMoose open source web map constructor were also included.

 

---