[Geojson] Conclusion on Circles/Ellipses

[Allan Doyle]

On Nov 8, 2011, at 10:21 AM, Sean Gillies wrote:

> Dear all,
> 
> It looks to me that we don't have consensus on accepting the
> Circles/Ellipses proposals.
> 
> Spec authors: is there interest in working with Andy to convert this
> into a point radius proposal or shall we reject it?

Let's not reject circles and ellipses if we can develop an extension scheme.

Here's just an idea, not fully developed:

The spec allows any number of additional members. So right now there's nothing to preclude someone from doing

 { "type": "Point", "coordinates": [100.0, 0.0], "Radius" : 1.0, "Units" : "meters" }

But that means that names like "radius" and "units" will likely be used in many conflicting ways by different groups.

So maybe it's better if we develop some kind of extension structure that's lightweight enough to encourage people to use it. E.g.

 { "type": "Point", "coordinates": [100.0, 0.0], 
    "x-geojson-edu.mit.museum" : { "type": "Circle", "Radius" : 1.0, "Units" : "meters" }}

where the "x-geojson-<domain>" can be used to define extensions.

If a bunch of people coalesce around particular extensions, then maybe they could be formalized in the future into "x-geojson-org.geojson" names, like "x-geojson-geojson.org.curves" or "x-geojson-geojson.org.dataseries"



-- 
Allan Doyle
Director of Technology
MIT Museum | http://web.mit.edu/museum | +1.617.452.2111