Thursday, July 24, 2008

Terrain in GeoMedia WebMap Mashup

In addition to the Satellite, street map, and hybrid map types, Google Maps also publishes a terrain map type. If you use the default GeoMedia WebMap 6.1 Publisher template to create a new Google Maps mashup, you will notice that there is no terrain button in the web page; only the Map, Satellite, Hybrid, and No Backdrop buttons are available. See the screen shot below.

To enable the display of terrain shaded relief data from Google, you need to add in the terrain map type to the Google Maps javascript code. Here are the steps to do it.
  1. Go to the GeoMedia WebMap Publisher created mashup folder, e.g. C:\GeoMediaWebMapProjects\mymashup\
  2. Change directory to the System folder.
  3. Use a text editor to open the file gm.js.
  4. Inside the text editor, locate the function initView.
  5. Look for the following lines in the function.



    objMapViewEle = document.getElementById("map");
    //testoutput("creating new custom map type");
    var tileLayers = [new GTileLayer(new GCopyrightCollection(), 0, 18)];

    var custommap = new GMapType(tileLayers, G_NORMAL_MAP.getProjection(), "No Backdrop",{errorMessage:"No Data Available"});
    //testoutput("creating GMap2");
    objMapView = new GMap2(objMapViewEle);

    objMapView.addControl(new GLargeMapControl());

    objMapView.addMapType(custommap);

    objMapView.addControl(new GMapTypeControl());

    gOverviewMapControl = new GOverviewMapControl(new GSize(150,150));
    objMapView.addControl(gOverviewMapControl);
    objMapView.addControl(new GScaleControl());


  6. Add in the following line in bold:

    objMapView.addMapType(custommap); objMapView.addMapType(G_PHYSICAL_MAP); objMapView.addControl(new GMapTypeControl());

  7. Save and close the file gm.js.
  8. Now, open up the mashup web page in an Internet browser. You should be able to see the Terrain button. Clicking on the button will display the terrain data in the map window as shown in the screen shot below.



There you go. Just remember, that the change in gm.js will be overwritten if you decide to republish the mashup again from GeoMedia WebMap Publisher.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Query Oracle Spatial in Microsoft Excel

Oracle has been building spatial query tools inside the database engine for many years now since Oracle 8i. But I have not seen many examples of Microsoft Office applications that directly query a Oracle Spatial database for spatially related information without having to use any GIS vendors' software.

A simple example that came to my mind is an Office application that generates water usage demand reports by geographic regions. Here, I outline the steps I took to create a simple Excel VBA to query an Oracle Spatial database. The VBA will look for all point geometries INSIDE a polygon geometry to calculate the total demand by usage type and the results printed to an Excel sheet.

Create Sample Oracle Data
For my convenience, I used Intergraph's GeoMedia Professional 6.1 to create a couple of Oracle tables CUSTDATA and DEMANDPOLYGON with GEOMETRY fields. However, you can use any tool of your choice to create the spatial tables. Even plain SQL statements through the Oracle SQL*PLUS prompt is fine.

CREATE TABLE CUSTDATA
(
ID INTEGER,
POSTCODE VARCHAR2(6),
BPNAME VARCHAR2(255),
TELNO VARCHAR2(10),
ACCTCLASS VARCHAR2(255),
PREMISENUM VARCHAR2(50),
PREMISEADDR VARCHAR2(255),
AVGBILL FLOAT(126),
X FLOAT(126),
Y FLOAT(126),
GEOMETRY SDO_GEOMETRY
);

CREATE TABLE DEMANDPOLYGON
(
ID INTEGER,
DESCRIPTION VARCHAR2(255),
GEOMETRY SDO_GEOMETRY
);

CUSTDATA holds point geometry data while DEMANDPOLYGON stores polygon geometries. After creating the tables, I inserted a few records inside the newly created tables. My sample data looks like the screen shot below.



Create an ODBC Data Source
If you don't have an ODBC Data Source Name pointing to the Oracle schema, then you can use the Control Panel's ODBC Data Source Administrator to define one as shown in the two figures below.




Create a New VBA in Microsoft Excel
  1. Bring up Microsoft Excel and create a new Excel Workbook. Then click Tools > Macros > Visual Basic Editor to bring up the VBA Editor.



  2. Select Tools > References. Select Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects 2.1 library to reference.



  3. Select Insert > UserForm to create a new form. By default, it is named as UserForm1.
  4. Using the IDE's toolbox, add in the following controls: Label, ComboBox, and 2 CommandButtons. Arrange the controls as shown in the figure below. Name the CommandButton controls as cmdOK and cmdCancel.



  5. Select View > Code to enter the VBA code for the UserForm1. Enter the following code.

    Option Explicit

    Dim mobjConnection As ADODB.Connection

    Private Sub cmdOK_Click()
    Dim sql As String
    Dim objRs As ADODB.Recordset
    Dim demandType As String
    Dim demand As Double
    Dim excelRow As Integer

    'Form the Oracle Spatial query statement
    sql = "SELECT A.ACCTCLASS,SUM(A.AVGBILL) AS DEMAND FROM CUSTDATA A, DEMANDPOLYGON B "
    sql = sql & "WHERE "
    sql = sql & "B.DESCRIPTION='" & ComboBox1.Text & "' "
    sql = sql & "AND "
    sql = sql & "SDO_RELATE(A.GEOMETRY,B.GEOMETRY,'MASK=INSIDE')='TRUE' "
    sql = sql & "GROUP BY A.ACCTCLASS "
    sql = sql & "ORDER BY A.ACCTCLASS ASC "

    'Print out the report title and heading on the Excel sheet
    With Sheet1
    .Range("A1").Value = "REPORT OF WATER DEMAND FOR " & ComboBox1.Text
    .Range("A2").Value = "TYPE"
    .Range("B2").Value = "TOTAL DEMAND"
    End With

    'Submit the query to Oracle and loop through the recordset.
    'Print out the results in the Excel sheet
    excelRow = 3
    Set objRs = New ADODB.Recordset
    objRs.Open sql, mobjConnection
    While Not objRs.EOF
    demandType = objRs.Fields(0)
    demand = objRs.Fields(1)
    Sheet1.Range("A" & excelRow).Value = demandType
    Sheet1.Range("B" & excelRow).Value = demand
    excelRow = excelRow + 1
    objRs.MoveNext
    Wend
    End Sub

    Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
    Dim username As String
    Dim password As String
    Dim dataSourceName As String
    Dim connString As String

    username = "demo"
    password = "demo"
    dataSourceName = "demo"

    ' Open a ADO database connection to the Oracle Spatial Schema
    connString = "Data Source=" & dataSourceName & ";User ID=" & username & ";Password=" & password & ";"
    Set mobjConnection = New ADODB.Connection
    With mobjConnection
    .ConnectionString = connString
    .ConnectionTimeout = 10
    .CursorLocation = adUseClient
    .Open
    End With

    'Query the DEMANDPOLYGON table for the names of all the polygons
    'Add the names to the combo box for selection
    Dim sql As String
    Dim objRs As ADODB.Recordset
    sql = "SELECT DISTINCT DESCRIPTION FROM DEMANDPOLYGON ORDER BY DESCRIPTION ASC"
    Set objRs = New ADODB.Recordset
    objRs.Open sql, mobjConnection
    ComboBox1.Clear
    While Not objRs.EOF
    ComboBox1.AddItem objRs.Fields(0)
    objRs.MoveNext
    Wend
    ComboBox1.ListIndex = 0
    objRs.Close
    Set objRs = Nothing

    End Sub

  6. In the VBA IDE' project pane, right click on the ThisWorkbook object and select View Code. Add in the following code.

    Private Sub Workbook_Open()
    UserForm1.Show
    End Sub

  7. Now save and close everything.

Running the Excel VBA
Double click the Excel file you created previously. The Excel Workbook should open and you would be prompted with the following:



Choose a region from the drop down list and press OK. The Excel VBA would submit a spatial query to Oracle to find all the CUSTDATA records inside the selected demand polygon. The results are grouped, tabulated and displayed in the Excel spreadsheet as shown below.



Notes
The example code shown is quite unsophisticated. I have hardcoded the Oracle login, password and ODBC data source name. There is also no error handling at all. These are intentional as the example is just meant to illustrate a technique.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

GeoMedia WebMap Publisher 6.1 Permission Denied Error

This must be a beginner's mistake but it stumped me for a couple of days. On a Windows XP SP2 notebook, I tried to run GeoMedia WebMap Publisher 6.1's Server Configuration Utility - but I kept getting a permission denied error message as shown below.

I suspected the DCOM Config Access Permissions may not be granted with the correct permissions but I could not see it. I thought I had set all permissions as per according to the Web Map Publisher instructions. But then some kind soul from the GeoMedia Developer's forum pointed to me that the INTERACTIVE user needs to be granted access permission also in the Component Services.


Once I did that, I had no problems bringing up the Publisher Server Configuration Utility.