[OZAPRS] Help needed with a data visualization project

[Andrew Errington]

On Wed, April 7, 2010 14:16, Darryl Smith wrote:
> People
>
>
> I have a list of postcodes and I want to overlay on the map a
> semi-transparent layer showing the area of coverage of all the postcodes
> on my list.
>
> This is to do with the Senate Inquiry I mentioned I had written a report
> for yesterday. I have decided I need to add something to it. The postcodes
> have to do with where Home Assessors are located, and what I want to show
> is how badly people in regional areas are covered by this program. For
> instance of the 8,000 assessors, not a single one appears to be located
> within hundreds of KM from Broken Hill.
>
> If anyone can help me with this project it would be appreciated.

I'd gladly help, as this kind of thing interests me.  Please email me
off-list about it.

In the meantime, take a look at the OpenStreetMap project (OSM), and in
particular the OpenLayers project.  It sounds like you need to make a
layer with polygons representing postcode regions, then use OpenLayers to
overlay that onto a background map (which should be an OSM layer FTW).

You may need a little bit of data-wrangling too, for example, you have a
list of post codes, but do you have a corresponding list of coordinates
representing the shape of each postcode coverage area?  I believe some
work is being done in the OSM project to make such representative shapes,
and since it's open and free you will be able to use the data for your own
purposes.

73,

Andrew