As part of a new project, I'm going to be including "location" fields for a few entities. In the future, I can see some benefits in including GIS functionality in this application.

Does anyone know any good references on this subject? I'm interested in ascertaining the field types I would want to use to capture location information in a manner compatable with GIS.

As a further topic, I would want to possibly tie in this data to some mapping software or service that would allow me to render mapping information in a web-based application driven by VFP (probably using Web Connection, but that shouldn't matter). I know I've seen several Internet sites that offer some links to maps (most of this has been pretty unimpressive). I'm wondering if this is based on GIS data, and whether they are using some mapping software with an API or COM interface, or if it's a hosting service that renders these maps.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

-- Randy