JBishopwx
I'll be doing a whole new GIS vector mapping engine and server-side this time, so everything downloads immediately like Google Maps. I want higher density place names. I haven't researched these public datasets yet as I'm still focused on the core competency of "world's most optimized streaming multiresolution tiled geospatial raster display engine" for the actual data. But when it comes to GIS mapping engine and everything, there is an overall requirement to be much better than first-gen in all aspects, as it's 2025 vs 2015.
Since everything is streamed from server and the new philosophy is one of maximum optimization from prohibiting arbitrary client side inputs (so that everything is efficiently streamed from server to attain the kinds of speed increases we need), there is a general hesitance to custom GIS data because the default should already be light-years ahead, with entire country local street mapping and on-map auto road name text labels immediately for anywhere in the country with zero manual heavy per-county loading.
However, yes, place names should be a reasonable exception. Actually it's not an exception - it's a separate feature, on top of the base place labels in GIS tiles, where the user adds their own place names which display in the labeling engine and integrate with storm tracking tools.
So the best design would seem to be, far improved static base place names / GIS labeling engine, with ability for user to add their own customized additional places. You would not however see in WSV3 Tactical the full-scale database editor you see in WSV3 Professional, because the whole idea is that's now on server. You would just add your custom places.
Your CPU has to chew through tens of thousands of place names right now in first-gen for every labeling pass.
So the design I propose above gives you the best of both worlds, efficient tiled server-based GIS data with separate ability for custom user-added place names.
Obviously a GIS program like WSV3 Tactical is going to need to allow the user to drop points and give them a text label, which should integrate nicely with e.g. storm path ETA list.