Mer et Demeures: maps and spatial data
Mer et Demeures sells and rents properties by the sea all over the world through a platform that requires a very complex and interactive map. We worked on it and developed very advanced solutions, programmed directly by us.
Client
BF Communication
Industry
Real estate
Year
2021
The initial situation
Mer et Demeures is a French company, based in Provence, selling and renting properties by the sea all over the world. Being active since 2014, it has a portal, which has been translated into 8 languages, with over 100,000 ads in 40 countries and 6 continents.
This massive platform had already been in production for a long time and required a very complex and interactive map. Here is how we took action.
Main technical activities
Development
Implemented activities
A web map is the representation of a geographical system, providing spatial data and information. The map can have different features, depending on what is needed: in general, in order to create one, we need a spatial database for data-storage and a Javascript library to design it on the webpage.
Thanks to Django's internal stack, with GeoDjango and PostgreSQL, we found an immediate solution, without resorting to external services. We made spatial and relational queries at the same time, which is very useful for having a good reactivity.
Simplicity allowed us to focus on highly advanced solutions, directly programmed by us, such as backend clustering, which permitted us to group points in queries without making advanced cash in global visualisation.
We used borders, limits, administrative boundaries. We created dynamic spatial entities.
You can follow the entire process, focusing on code, in this article.
Implemented technologies
Final result
As a result of their work for Mer et Demeures, the team 20tab has been able to study, explore and experiment with a topic as fascinating as it is complex as maps. All that was learned allowed this solution to be customized, new skills to be acquired, and disseminated at various conferences.
Our CTO, Paolo Melchiorre, has covered this topic in several talks given at events such as PyConX, Python Web Conf 2021, GeoPython 2021, PostGIS Day 2021.
