How to create shortest route and multiple routes service using openlayers?

Question

I created a digital database of many important features and locations of my city. and I want to create a web application in which shortest distance between two locations can be calculated and displayed. Is it possible with openlayers as client scripting. My shapefiles are in postgis.

What I am expecting is :

• The database contains all roads, point features etc.

• When the user types a location, the required location name can be listed out from the database and then user can similarly select another location

• Then my technique is to find the nearest road points for the two locations (may be using buffer method) and then

• finding the shortest and possible routes between the two road points along the road vector features.

  But I don't know how to write the code and algorithms.

Answer 1

Yes, that's possible using PostGIS with pgRouting and OpenLayers. You'll find an extensive tutorial here: http://pgrouting.org/docs/ol-workshop/index.html

In a similar question (routing using openlayers and pgrouting) the following GeoExt for pgRouting tutorial is recommended: http://workshop.pgrouting.org/chapters/geoext_client.html

You'll want to look into auto-complete scripts to support users when typing location names.

Finding nearest points on line has been discussed multiple times, e.g. Nearest neighbor between a point layer and a line layer

You'll have to learn to write code ... or hire someone.