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Cool article from a technical perspective. I dont understand the business ask for drawing a map to show potential customers, then placing them randomly on the map. Why not just give rough volume numbers or something instead? It seems at least misleading.
What's an ask?
A better approach might be to use block-level census data to give you a probability density function to where you should plot your random made-up fake 'potential customer' icons. Less risk that when a roadside truckstop in alaska brings up your site you wind up making the misleading claim that you can find them fifty customers within walking distance...
The assumptions here seem a little urban-centric. Maybe in a downtown area, the only places you shouldn't show potential customers is in the middle of bodies of water; but what about a more rural or wild location - are you going to show a business that you can find them potential customers in the middle of fields? mountaintops? military testing ranges? A better approach might be to use block-level census data to give…
There are many resources [1][2][3] for geographic data. Learning how to use tools like PostGIS [4], gdal [5], and d3 [6] are well worth the effort.
Hacks like this are great when there is no other way around it, but I can't help but imagine that it would have been a much easier problem to solve using some of these existing data sets and tools.
When given the option to attempt a novel hack like the original poster's keep in mind that the skills learned while solving the problem with existing tools and workflows will be very valuable the next time you need to do any GIS related work!
[1] http://nationalatlas.gov/mld/hydrogm.html [2] http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/geo/shapefiles2012/main [3] http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/searchresu... [4] http://postgis.net [5] http://www.gdal.org [6] http://bost.ocks.org/mike/map/
I don't see the need to treat water different from earlier placed markers. Here's how I would hack this: whenever you place an icon, draw a slighty larger circular 'lake' on top of that hidden canvas. That added lake prevents you from placing another icon in the neighborhood of that icon.
Would this not be much more easily solved by reverse geocoding each coordinate and seeing if google gives you a valid address for it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's an ask?
A "business ask" is like a "business need", but not clearly a need. It's a way to differentiate (and possibly dismiss) them and avoid seeming dismissive.
I think you all are making stuff up. Is this some new nonsense you're trying to propagate?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A "business ask" is like a "business need", but not clearly a need. It's a way to differentiate (and possibly dismiss) them and avoid seeming dismissive.
https://www.google.com/webhp#q=%22business+ask%22 I think you all are making stuff up. Is this some new nonsense you're trying to propagate?
http://www.theofficelife.com/business-jargon-dictionary-A.ht...
Or you could just use OpenStreetMap which, y'know, gives you access to the Actual Map Data rather than having to reverse-engineer it from the rendered image...
If only there was something like maps.google.com for OSM. Yes, there's openstreetmap.org but that doesn't have directions or location sharing. Also, if people started using it like maps.google.com, I'm sure the OSM project wouldn't be too happy, seeing as how tile serving on such a scale gets expensive fast.