I have just begun to poke my head into Ottawa's open data. I have not
used these types of data before and just have a few questions.

For my web application I would like to interface with the data through
a mysql database and into google maps api. But I am having huge
difficulties finding references on how to use SHP data.

Does anyone have any good resources to learn from our techniques on
how to use SHP data into a web application?

Thanks so much!
Tyler

Hi Tyler,

I've imported the datasets using ogr2ogr into a MySql database already. It
is available for download at http://kodonnell.ca/opendataottawa/

The Mysql Geospacial API can be used to convert from the internal (and
relatively compact) binary format into the lat/long formats that can be
passed directly to the Google Maps API.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/gis-introduction.html

For large Polygon shapes you'll need to use the compact "encoded" form by
passing lat/long coordinates through this class (if you're using PHP:
http://kodonnell.ca/opendataottawa/PolylineEncoder.txt).

Cheers & good luck.
Kevin.

*Kevin O'Donnell*

kodonnell.ca<http://kodonnell.ca/?utm_campaign=misc&utm_source=sig&utm_medium=email>

(613) 203-2620

Hi Tyler,
I recently got the City of Ottawa wards, which are provided as SHP data,
displayed onto google maps. For reference, this is the data file I used:
http://www.ottawa.ca/online_services/opendata/info/wards2010_en.html
<http://www.ottawa.ca/online_services/opendata/info/wards2010_en.html>There
may be better ways to do this, but these were the steps I took:

1) I used a tool called shp2text (http://www.obviously.com/gis/shp2text/) to
get CSV output from the SHP file
2) I then used this website to convert from the MTM Zone 9 NAD83 coordinates
to latitude and longitude for google maps:
http://pages.globetrotter.net/roule/utmgoogle.htm

I tried out some other tools before landing on the website used in step 2,
but couldn't figure out any of them enough to use them.

HTH,
Chris