Marco Fioretti is looking for GIS PHP modules. He writes, “I have an urgent project to work on which includes processing GIS data with PHP, and I’d really like to start with something which is already tested.” My original post about the Image_GIS libraries, which he found, now points to a dead link, he reports; Image_GIS is now found here. Read on for what Marco needs; it’s quite technical and quite detailed.

Marco continues:

I have to build a new website, with a map section. Users must be able to say “show me path number X, and all the interest points distant less than 20 km from its starting point,” where

• “show me” means generate on demand a PNG image of the map with all the requested data. The image must be printable at the right resolution, that is when on paper must be in the exact scale (Hmmm, maybe PDF is better for this: which other tools may work with Image_GIS to do PDF?)
• the map comes from a complete GIS database, scale 1:25000, the same used for official topographic maps
• “path number X” may be available as a series of GPS waypoints or as part of a road already included in the map
• those waypoints and all interest points will be stored in a MySQL or PostGreSQL database.

My questions are simply:

1. Do you think Image_GIS is the right tool for this job?
2. Obviously, I’d prefer to do the whole website with existing FOSS applications. Given the specs above, which other programs/PHP modules/tools do you recommend? I just need to be pointed in the right direction, so I can download everything, study it and start coding everything together by myself.