A story about a programming beginner who made a business efficiency map application with GeoDjango

Introduction

This article is a "History" of the development record developed by me, who is a beginner in programming the web application Public Mapping using Django, a development framework using Python.

Please refer to "Development Postscript" for details on the application configuration and development process. Click here for the app Click here for public repositories

Concept: What kind of app did you make? ??

--You can easily record location information and memos on the map. --You can browse and edit from anywhere (web application) --Even if you print it, you can see it at a glance

We have created a regional information sharing memo app that is intended for operation by a small team.

Why do you need this app?

Click here for a proposal that summarizes the intention of creating the app ** I am an incumbent construction consultant who is mainly in charge of environmental assessment. ** ** My job is to go to the construction site or planned construction site, investigate and summarize information related to the local natural environment and social environment, and propose and implement environmental conservation measures. In order to carry out the survey smoothly, it is necessary to be familiar with the local information.

• Where and where rare plants are growing, the shortest way to get to the site is to take this road, in the past there was sighting information of rare animals here, ... *

In addition to the information about these survey targets,

• The nearest convenience store where you can take a restroom break is here, there is only a parking lot where you can park your car safely, the address of the residents who are indebted to you locally is ***, and you can eat ramen here when you go to the site. The places where police crackdowns are common are ... *

There is a lot of information necessary to carry out on-site work safely and smoothly.

What is the challenge?

However, only the former information remains in the survey report and deliverables, and how to manage the latter information necessary for the survey is left to the method of each research team and the method of the person in charge. Is always the case. (Therefore, engineers and investigators who are familiar with the field have value ...)

In addition, the local situation will be updated. Individuals leave notes on the map at hand, share information by exchanging emails, etc. Various information is exchanged and accumulated every day. Problems arise when there are no rules in place within the team and information sharing is unsuccessful.

In order to prevent such troubles, it is possible to consider location information management using existing location information recording applications and GIS software, but this time, such a voice came from the field ...

How can the problems in the field be solved?

In response to voices from such sites, we created an app that realizes the following three points in order to solve the problems that the site has. ・ Public cloud cannot be used → Server can be placed on rental server or own server ・ Multi-functional GIS software is difficult to use → Even inexperienced people can easily operate by focusing on the minimum necessary functions ・ What if I can't use my smartphone or computer? → Map layout that can be printed and carried around

Why did you make it yourself?

In a nutshell, ** Web application development is cool! I wanna try! !! Because I had a longing for **. The reason I chose the map app genre was because I felt the motivation that overflowed from me, wanting to contribute to solving problems in the field and also wanting to have fun in site management. While managing the research work, I also work as a GIS operator, and it is also my self-improvement purpose that I wanted to learn about webGIS that I had never touched.

Future outlook

The collected location information is analyzed to find out the meaning and is Nambo. Python, the language used by Django, has a wealth of location-based statistical analysis packages. By creating the app this time, I learned the basics of handling location information on the web. In the future, we will apply geographic analysis to web apps and

Field survey → Data acquisition → Data analysis → Expression of analysis results

I would like to try to create an app that can do up to one stop.