[R-sig-Geo] The geonames.org server changed / geonames package

[Barry Rowlingson]

2009/1/23 Tomislav Hengl <T.Hengl at uva.nl>:
>
> Hi Barry, Edzer,
>
> Just to let you know that geonames.org server changed from "ws.geonames.org" to "ws5.geonames.org"
>
> See the info at: http://www.geonames.org/export/
>
> Maybe you should add to your R package "geonames" an option to specify the server name manually,
> e.g.:
>
> setGNserver <- "ws5.geonames.org"

 Ouch! Thanks for that. The domain name is only in one place in the
code, but I never thought they'd change it! They say it's only
temporary so maybe it'll be changed back before I get round to
implementing an option.

>
> PS: Does anybody know more about how to utilize the Google maps services in R
> (http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/services.html)? (i.e. to get the same type of output
> as in the case of geonames.org). These need to be combined with some Java script or similar right?
>
> My idea is to automate the way to save an image shown in Google maps (e.g. as TIF), then obtain the
> bounding coordinates, import to a GIS and use the image (high res satellite imagery) as a GIS layer.

 I'd watch google's copyright on map images if you do that...

 The problem is that a google map isn't a single image, but a number
of tiles and overlays that are made into a full map using javascript
in the browser. You can get the map tiles easily enough:

http://khm1.google.com/kh?v=35&hl=en&x=3&y=5&z=4

 I think google don't make it easy (for example, by providing their
imagery as a WMS server) on purpose.

Barry