|
Web Mapping Illustrated, by Tyler Mitchell, publ. O'Reilly Media Aimed at web authors with little GIS experience, this book gives a good introduction to creating an online web map or service using open source tools. The book should have enough to get you going, but you will need to consult other sources to complete a good working site. In my opinion, the book should be reprinted with a section covering map clients such as OpenLayers.
This book is targeted at web administrators/authors with little or no GIS experience, and gives a good coverage of the various open source tools available. Specifically, GDAL (Geospatial Data Abstraction Layer), OpenEV (basic desktop analysis and editing), UMN MapServer (a map server for websites), and PostGIS (geographic extension to PostgreSQL) are covered. Looking at the MapServer chapters, a lot of pages are devoted to installation. This is good, because it can be difficult to install. However, you will need to use other sources such as the online community to produce more than the most basic map files. Despite this relatively shallow approach, there is a chapter introducing the MapServer API and MapScript. Ie. the approach is intended to give a taster of what is possible, rather than an in depth discussion. Notably absent from the book, is any kind of coverage of client software such as OpenLayers. OpenLayers can greatly improve the user experience of MapServer by making it more "AJAXy", as well as adding additional data source flexibility. The book is also out of print, but continues to be available online at Safari. O'Reilly would do well to produce a second edition with chapters dedicated to OpenLayers and/or a similar client package. I know my bookshelf has a space waiting for just such a book!
 |
Twitter @geowebguru
Subscribe to this comment's feed
