City Map Service solutions of the WhereGroup are a lot more than just a copy of the traditional paper map. Intuitive interfaces provide a multitude of dynamic up-to-date information - always in the context of the city map. The service is characterized by ease of use and the ability to choose what you want to see. Keep your city maps free of unwanted advertizing - but at the same time provide a reputable electronic platform for those local businesses that add a real value for your citizens and guests.

The WhereGroup uses professional mainstream technology that reaches into your central SOA and binds public services to optimized interfaces. Use the same service architecture with mobile technology to empower your public services in the field.

Helpful to the Guest

Finding your way around in a new city becomes a lot easier if you can virtually visit the place beforehand. Where are the parking lots, are there construction sites blocking streets, how to find the park and ride sites that might have been set up for large events? These and many more questions are answered by the local map service operated by the city itself. Who will know better about what is going on in a city but its citizens!

Empowering Citizens

How does a city develop? In many cases (more or less public) planning committees try to get a hold on critical development, and publish documents with measures that can be taken to address the problems at hand. In many cases these documents will contain highly detailed maps.

The city map service can be used to disseminate this information and open it to public peer review. This results in much broader attention than when plans and documents could only be displayed in dark basements. One key feature to genuine collaborative governing is accessibility. Digital city map portals make that possible.

Advantages for the Administration

To the city administration the city map service is a lot more. It ties into the enterprise SOA Service Oriented Architecture) and makes spatial data accessible. Too often the data sits in the basement unused although there is a real need outside the local administration. City map services give you the means to disseminate your data to a variety of customers. Tap into commercial enterprises who have many vested interests in having access to quality data provided by a neutral organisation.

All investment that has gone into setting up and operating a city service infrastructure is usually returned by 100% after only one year of operation (contact us for references). The expensively created and maintained spatial data can finally be accessed by all internal administrations.

There is a soft factor which gives the initial impulse to start using GIS at all: The quality of all decisions that are related to locations improves, and some questions can be answered that could not be asked before.

This is where your professional background comes in: take advantage of being able to access and model your city virtually.

Oblique Imagery

One of newest features about to get released are oblique images as they are currently produced by BLOM ASA for Pictometry. Although this kind of imagery is not readily usable for high precision photogrammetric processing it does give a completely new insight to your city. The OGC WMS standard can be tweaked (in a way nowadays called a "Mashup") to allow to include oblique imagery. The technical background is currently being developed by the WhereGroup in the OGC. Read the OGC Best Practices Paper on Oblique Images in WMS presented in the St. Louis Meeting in March 2008.

How IT All Connects

The technology foundation of city map portals is always based on loosely coupled services bound by standards of the W3C, OGC and ISO in a dynamic infrastructure that integrates your existing legacy systems. Return on Investment is excellent due to the longevity design of the architecture and long term support by a corporate and at the same time cooperative background organized in the largest Open Spatial Community, the OSGeo Foundation. Highly reliable and thoroughly tested components result in high availability and low cost operation.

In hype terms we are about to empower the neogeographer to explore niches and discover worlds with a loosely coupled service architecture to mashup the Web 2.0. Who knows what is going on in a city? Its citizens. Who will eventually maintain the spatial data of a city? Probably its citizens. We get you a step closer and connect you with others who want to do the same and we use software produced by people who are doing it right now.

Der Stadtplandienst Mainz

Reference: The City Map Service of Mainz

The City Map Service of Mainz is operated exclusively with Open Source technology, from the operating system to the JavaScript code. Find more references from the Wheregroup or check the Mapbender Wiki home of the City Map Service management and operation environment. The services of the City of Mainz are also made available through the Geoportal of the state of Rhineland Palatinate which is part of the European INSPIRE program and maintaines a set of metadata in ISO profile.

Now that you have endured all the technology and marketing bla, feel free to have a look at some screenshots from the City of Mainz. And you know: You can access all of what you see here 24h a day in up-to-date versions free of cost delivered right into your home via an electric impulse.

The aerial imagery of the City of Mainz is rendered with UMN MapServer software. The service is configured as an OGC WMS version 1.1.1 service. You can GetCapabilities Document of the Aerial Imagery of the City of Mainz. (This link is intended to be found by Google.)

Overview of development plans

Current Zoning as overlay on top of the high accuracy cadastral base map. It has a precision of 3 to 5 cm.

Noise Exposure by road traffic at night.

Managed parking zones, ATM, handicapped restrooms as overlay on traditional city map. More than 200 layers of information are accessible publically, several dozen more can be accessed for a fee.