Flash, Oracle/SQL, and the web - what's possible?

[lunatic]

Hi all,

Sorry if this is a stupid question but I've done a little searching and nothing quite answers my question.

I am in an occupation that generates a lot of GIS data. ArcIMS, which is supposed to be the answer for making GIS data web ready, has turned out to be clunky and not very user friendly. My boss is wondering if it is possible to create an interactive webpage (I would prefer to use Flash since I am becoming more familiar with it) that allows users to query a database (geodatabase in this case) with some simple forms to retrieve data.

Is this possible? I had heard that the upcoming MX2004 would allow this but since sql/oracle is a little foreign to me I'm not sure how to research an answer.

Thanks for any input/advice!

:)

[Marz]

Not sure about the GIS data.. But if you are trying to access alot of information.. I'd suggest staying away from Flash as the main designer tool.. But not for databases really.

I find php to be just as fast and it's alot easier to work with databases also... But those are just my opinions..

[eyezberg]

Maybe contact Geoffrey Rowland or Kelly Sponberg, who made the app on http://www.cip.ogp.noaa.gov/ (click on "Impact Summary In Map Format") if that's what you're looking for..

[λ]

A lot is possible ;)

One of my parents works for Oracle, and they had a Java app demo of a map showing all this data about services (like plumbing), and spots to show problems. When you clicked the spots, it showed a invoice with the problem, engineer dispatched, etc... it was amazing.

[lunatic]

Thanks for the input everyone!

Eyezberg - I will look into it, but I'm not sure that map is using GIS? As in, pulling the data from a geodatabase and mapping locations directly.

I think my boss is more interested in allowing users (this would be an intranet sort of thing, vs. internet) to download vector and raster datasets directly from the geodatabse as well as the usual pdfs, etc.

Basically we're looking for a way around using ArcIMS - with a Flash type interface to the data.

I'm curious about MX2004's data connector components? Is that a way to connect Flash directly to an RDBMS in Flash's native language (AS?) rather than going through a middle agent like PHP?

Again, I apologize if these are stupid questions. This kind of stuff is all new to me and I'm just trying to get a handle on the lingo!

:blush:

p.s. I really like your site njs! Cool navigation (though a tad difficult when the discs overlap each other) ;)

[ahmed]

Unless your GIS system has an XML Web Service that connects to it (I'd doubt it does), the data connector cannot really help you. :)

[lunatic]

Maybe I should just ask about the functionality of the data connector component itself. What does it do exactly?

The geodatabase I've been talking about is really just an RDBMS (as far as I understand it) with an extra field (spatial - which oracle apparently has built in but oracle is deadly expensive so we use SDE which is an add-on to sql to allow the spatial field, yadda yadda yadda). :h: :sigh: <-- (me, while the data guy is explaining all this).

SO- if the data component in MX2004 allows flash to talk to the databse directly (without using a "middleman" code like PHP, XML, ColdFusion, etc.) then that's a good thing right? And I guess that's probably what my boss would like to get - once all the bugs are worked out of the new flash that is LOL!

Am I trying to compare apples and oranges here? Or am I on my way to a nice fruit salad? :hr:

Thanks again for your patience . . .