Compelling location-based services require more than simple “what’s near me?” operations. The Open Street Map dataset is a perfect example of a rich geographically-based wiki that can be used for much more than map rendering. With Neo4j Spatial, any data can be adapted to complex queries with geographic components like “Select all streets in the Municipality of NYC where at least 2 of my friends are walking right now”. This video demonstrate the important benefits of modeling geodata in a graph, the main components needed to expose data to geo stacks like map servers, and explains how the Open Street Map dataset is modeled in Neo4j. Using Neo4j unlocks the full potential of the OSM data far beyond just rendering maps. There are some cool examples of Neo4j Spatial, from Telecomms network planning, Web-based AJAX GIS systems, topology editing and routing to REST and Web Feature Service endpoints, all in a single stack. This is Location-based Services on steroids!
 

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