Book Image

GeoServer Beginner's Guide

Book Image

GeoServer Beginner's Guide

Overview of this book

GeoServer is an open source server-side software written in Java that allows users to share and edit geospatial data. Designed for interoperability, it publishes data from any major spatial data source using open standards. GeoServer allows you to display your spatial information to the world. Implementing the Web Map Service (WMS) standard, GeoServer can create maps in a variety of output formats. OpenLayers, a free mapping library, is integrated into GeoServer, making map generation quick and easy. GeoServer is built on Geotools, an open source Java GIS toolkit.GeoServer Beginner's Guide gives you a kick start to build custom maps using your data without the need for costly commercial software licenses and restrictions. Even if you do not have prior GIS knowledge, you will be able to make interactive maps after reading this book.You will install GeoServer, access your data from a database, style points, lines, polygons, and labels to impress site visitors with real-time maps.Follow along through a step-by-step guide that installs GeoServer in minutes. Explore the web-based administrative interface to connect to backend data stores such as MySQL, PostGIS, MSSQL, and Oracle. Display your data on web-based interactive maps, style lines, points, polygons, and embed images to visualize this data for your web visitors. Walk away from this book with a working application ready for production.After reading the GeoServer Beginner's Guide, you will have beautiful, custom maps on your website built using your geospatial data.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
GeoServer Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Chapter 1. GIS Fundamentals

In this chapter, you will learn the foundation of geographical information system and spatial data. Although you do not need to understand these subjects in great depth to take advantage of the features of GeoServer, we will give you the basic information required to understand what you will be doing in the book. You will be introduced to the magic of spatial.

We are going to cover the following topics:

  • Why is spatial data special?

  • Spatial data formats.

  • The magical world of Spatial Reference System (SRS): getting a sphere on a plane.

  • What is a map and why does it matter?

  • The art of Cartography. Building map types such as Choropleth and Proportional Symbol.

By the end of the chapter, you will have the basic skills to identify which spatial data format best suits your needs.