[Geojson] Features without geometry

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2007 at 11:11:43AM -0400, Andrew Turner wrote:
> I agree (I think) with Stephen.
> 
> GeoJSON seems to have defined it's own, stand-alone format that
> happens to be in JSON notation. This is different from GeoRSS which
> merely added geographic extensions to the RSS & Atom formats (and uses
> XML notation).

GeoJSON defines several distinct pieces of JSON:
 * Geometry. Must have type and coordinates.
 * Feature: Must have type and geometry, may have properties.
 * GeometryCollection: Must have type and members. members must be
   an array of Geometries.
 * FeatureCollection: Must have type and members. members must be
   an array of Features.
 . 
> What I think Stephen is looking for, and I would be to, is merely a
> path for using GeoJSON to "add geometry" to more complete JSON
> objects. This is "flipped" from what the last example on the draft is

The Geometry object can be used inside anything. however, the property
names are *just strings* -- since JSON has nothing like built in
namespace handling, anything else is asking too much of the multitude of
JSON clients out there. (In fact, some have said that the *existing*
spec is too hard for clients to handle... but C# programmers aren't my
highest priority anyway ;))

>       {
>         "type" : "atom:item",
>         "atom:summary": "post 2",
>         "atom:description" : "i love geoblogging"
>         "location" : {
>           "type", "geo:Point",
>           "geo:coordinates": [-120, 40]
>         }
>       }

This could be:
    {
      "type" : "atom:item",
      "atom:summary": "post 2",
      "atom:description" : "i love geoblogging"
      "location" : {
        "type", "Point",
        "coordinates": [-120, 40]
      }
    }

and the 'location' field would be a valid GeoJSON Geometry.

So, I think what you want already exists. Except namespaces in JSON.
Those don't exist. :)

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta