Previous: Acquiring data
3:Creating Services
I needed a data-rich map that wasn't cluttered and loads fast. This means tile-caches for most services, and each layer in its own service (you can do this with sub-layers, and as I added more layers, I began to re-think my choice not to use them). Most maps were cached between Level 6 (Country) or 7 (State) and Level 15(Neighborhood). Anything larger scale prevents the referential context needed; anything smaller and elements were too close together, or simply too small, to be useful, and you get a noisy map where it's hard to figure out what you're looking at. The exception to this is CobSites, which is intended to be viewed globally to get a sense of the international scope of cob-building. A large-scale icon manages the points when zoomed in beyond 1:577,000.
Caching tiles takes time, and for datasets larger than my largest (2GB) it's worth changing your instance type (say, to a high-memory, double extra large on-demand instance) just for tiling and changing it back when you're done. It's the cloud: it's "elastic." Use it.
My services directory:
3:Creating Services
I needed a data-rich map that wasn't cluttered and loads fast. This means tile-caches for most services, and each layer in its own service (you can do this with sub-layers, and as I added more layers, I began to re-think my choice not to use them). Most maps were cached between Level 6 (Country) or 7 (State) and Level 15(Neighborhood). Anything larger scale prevents the referential context needed; anything smaller and elements were too close together, or simply too small, to be useful, and you get a noisy map where it's hard to figure out what you're looking at. The exception to this is CobSites, which is intended to be viewed globally to get a sense of the international scope of cob-building. A large-scale icon manages the points when zoomed in beyond 1:577,000.
Caching tiles takes time, and for datasets larger than my largest (2GB) it's worth changing your instance type (say, to a high-memory, double extra large on-demand instance) just for tiling and changing it back when you're done. It's the cloud: it's "elastic." Use it.
My services directory:
