Until a decade ago, spatial data and the art of map building were considered tricky and complex—almost reserved for highly skilled and specialized professionals.
The advent of web mapping has changed the way geography is perceived by people. This has been largely powered by a few types of open source software that made it possible for everyone to collect, manage, and publish spatial data on the Internet.
GeoServer is one of these precious gems. Along with open JavaScript frameworks such as OpenLayers and Leaflet, it gives everyone the tools they need to create a powerful map server and lightweight applications that run in modern browsers. This allows users to show data visualizations, create online data editors, and do much more.
GeoServer is a complete and powerful type of server software that can publish data to a web mapping application. In recent releases, support for geoprocessing operations has been added, which lets you use GeoServer as a data processor.
Since the beginning, GeoServer has support to standards from Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), which is kept compatible with its recent most relevant releases (for more information on OGC, have a look at http://www.opengeospatial.org).
This book will guide you through the details of configuring data for publication, creating geoprocessing tasks, and optimizing your server for optimal performance.
Chapter 1, Working with Vectors, discusses vector data publication with WFS. It covers how to use the data with a JavaScript client. It also explores how to use parametric SQL views and how to enhance performance with feature generalization.
Chapter 2, Working with Rasters, explores the different raster data types you can publish with GeoServer. It also covers the mosaic data creation and adding support for more formats that integrates GDAL libraries in your server.
Chapter 3, Advanced Styling, deals with the art of representing data on a map. Using the CSS module, you will explore how to create symbols for vector data and how to build a renderer for raster data.
Chapter 4, Geoprocessing, teaches you how to create data processing tasks on GeoServer. By following the recipes, you'll understand how you can use GeoServer to create complex server-side functions and use them in your client.
Chapter 5, Advanced Configurations, deals with some advanced configuration tasks. You'll explore database connection optimization, configuring the cache to improve performance, and Spatial Reference System (SRS) optimization.
Chapter 6, Automating GeoServer Configurations, explores the GeoServer REST interface. Using the operation published in that interface, you will discover how to create automatic tasks to update your site's configuration.
Chapter 7, Advanced Visualizations, focuses on some visualization techniques. You will explore how to add time support in WMS, create animated maps, and export data to Google Earth.
Chapter 8, Monitoring and Tuning, teaches you the use of the control flow and how to monitor extensions for GeoServer. With the tools provided, you can control how the requests are filtered and queued to your server. You will learn how to save information about users' requests and analyze them to build reports.
Appendix, OGC for ESRI Professionals, discusses a brief comparison between GeoServer and ArcGIS for Server, a map server created by ESRI. The importance of adopting OGC standards when building a geographical information system is stressed. You will learn how OGC standards lets you create a system where different pieces of software cooperate with each other.