Book Image

OpenLayers 3: Beginner's Guide

By : Thomas Gratier, Paul Spencer, Erik Hazzard
Book Image

OpenLayers 3: Beginner's Guide

By: Thomas Gratier, Paul Spencer, Erik Hazzard

Overview of this book

<p>This book is a practical, hands-on guide that provides you with all the information you need to get started with mapping using the OpenLayers 3 library.</p> <p>The book starts off by showing you how to create a simple map. Through the course of the book, we will review each component needed to make a map in OpenLayers 3, and you will end up with a full-fledged web map application. You will learn the key role of each OpenLayers 3 component in making a map, and important mapping principles such as projections and layers. You will create your own data files and connect to backend servers for mapping. A key part of this book will also be dedicated to building a mapping application for mobile devices and its specific components.</p>
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
OpenLayers 3 Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Map renderers


By default, OpenLayers draws, or renders, the map in the browser using an HTML 5 canvas element and its associated 2D drawing context. This is known as the Canvas renderer. However, OpenLayers actually comes with three renderers. The ability to choose a different renderer for the map can be very powerful but it should also be used with care. Each renderer has some specific capabilities and limitations. In particular, only the Canvas renderer is considered stable at the time of writing this book.

The Canvas renderer

The Canvas renderer draws the map's contents onto an HTML 5 canvas element (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canvas_element). The canvas element is a high-performance 2D drawing surface supported by all modern web browsers (on Internet Explorer, Canvas support starts with version 9). The canvas renderer is the most fully supported renderer in OpenLayers. It does not support some of the advanced features of the WebGL renderer, including 3D, controlling the contrast, brightness...