Despite the painful problem I encountered in my previous post, I did manage to recover and get some maps made and thought I’d share one of them. Over on the right side of the page, you’ll find a link to a little project I put together as a basis for learning the Google Maps API.
The database currently lists about 4,200 breweries. While still incomplete, especially in Asia, Africa, Central and South America, and parts of Europe, I was still curious about how the worldwide distribution looked. Unfortunately, trying to plot them on a map with the Google Maps API is not feasible because of the large number of markers; supposedlly more than a couple hundred markers are a problem, but I’ve not had any serious problem showing up to about 1,000 markers, but 4,000+ definitely won’t work.
Enter Quantum GIS. Since the data is stored in a PostGIS database, it was relatively easy to generate a world map showing all of the brewery locations that have been entered in the database. Admitedly, the map could use some refinement, but I’ve only recently started working with Quantum GIS and have limited experience with its capabilities at the moment.
