[Geojson] FW: Features without geometry

[Andrew Turner]

Yeah, that's all I was asking for on clarification & examples. That it
is valid "GeoJSON" in that your JSON can have some "where" elements
that use GeoJSON formatting, and some entries don't have "where"
elements.

thanks for clarifying Sean.

On 10/3/07, Sean Gillies <sgillies at frii.com> wrote:
> Andrew, if I were working on a JSON encoding of Atom (like James Snell
> is), I'd add a
>
>   ...
>   "where": {"type": Point, "coordinates": [...]}
>   ...
>
> to the entry object.
>
> Sean
>
> Andrew Turner wrote:
> > So, I'm still not clear if/how GeoJSON is used to just 'add'
> > geographic content to larger/richer JSON content. Can an example be
> > added for clarity - b/c I will definitely be mixing geographic &
> > non-geographic content together.
> >
> > Also - regarding omitting vs. null geometry. KML and RSS/Atom both are
> > valid without any geometry element. So it seems odd that GeoJSON would
> > break that mold to require a null-geometry.
> >
> > On 10/3/07, Stephen Battey <Stephen.Battey at dottedeyes.com> wrote:
> >>> Would this alleviate the concerns of the original poster, if
> >>> we said "must have a property 'geometry', which must be a
> >>> GeoJSON Geometry or null" ?
> >> Yes, that would certainly help.
> >> Although semantically a null geometry means 'this feature has no
> >> geometry' I think I can get away with using it to mean 'geometry not
> >> specified'. The rationale being: if a client specifically asks not to
> >> receive any geometry then the client should know to interpret
> >> "geometry": null  as 'geometry not specified'.
> >> I think that's a reasonable condition to ask of client applications, and
> >> it means clients can use a GeoJSON parser to parse the JSON regardless
> >> of whether they query for geometry or centroids, bounding boxes,
> >> metadata, etc.
> >>
> >>
> >> >From a purely aesthetic point of view, would it be better to use a
> >> consistent syntax for empty/null geometry and properties?
> >> We have empty geometry defined as ..
> >>         "geometry": null
> >> .. and empty properties defined as ..
> >>         "properties": {}
> >>
> >> Actually, now that I'm thinking out loud (well, on paper), maybe the
> >> difference is a positive thing. They are, after all, two different types
> >> of information.
> >> Also, using 'null' clearly indicates "an empty geometry" whereas an
> >> empty object might give the impression there is geometry but the data
> >> ("type" and "coordinates") was inadvertently omitted when the JSON was
> >> constructed.
> >>
> >> The more I think about it the more I like  "geometry": null
> >> I think it is a useful addition to the spec.
> >>
> >>
> >> Steve
> >>
> >>
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: geojson-bounces at lists.geojson.org
> >>> [mailto:geojson-bounces at lists.geojson.org] On Behalf Of
> >>> Christopher Schmidt
> >>> Sent: 02 October 2007 21:24
> >>> To: Sean Gillies
> >>> Cc: geojson at lists.geojson.org
> >>> Subject: Re: [Geojson] FW: Features without geometry
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Oct 02, 2007 at 01:45:57PM -0600, Sean Gillies wrote:
> >>>> Thank you for the correction. I much prefer
> >>>>
> >>>>    { "geometry": null }
> >>>>
> >>>> over
> >>>>
> >>>>    { "geometry": {"type": "Empty", ...} }
> >>> I can get down with that. My primary concern is that if it
> >>> looks like a duck, it has the same properties as a duck.
> >>> Since 'null' doesn't look like a duck, then it doesn't need
> >>> to have any particular properties.
> >>>
> >>> Would this alleviate the concerns of the original poster, if
> >>> we said "must have a property 'geometry', which must be a
> >>> GeoJSON Geometry or null" ?
> >>>
> >>> Is there anyone against this?
> >>>
> >>> http://wiki.geojson.org/index.php?title=GeoJSON_draft_version_
> >> 4&diff=153&oldid=151
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> --
> >> Christopher Schmidt
> >> MetaCarta
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> >
> >
>
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-- 
Andrew Turner
ajturner at highearthorbit.com      42.2774N x 83.7611W
http://highearthorbit.com              Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Introduction to Neogeography - http://oreilly.com/catalog/neogeography