Advanced Cartographic Map Rendering In GeoServer
Channel: Andrea Ross
Date: 25/09/2013

Various software can style maps and generate a proper SLD document for OGC compliant WMS like GeoServer to use. However, in most occasions, the styling allowed by the graphical tools is pretty limited and not good enough to achieve good looking, readable and efficient cartographic output. Topics that will be covered are as follows: - Mastering multi-scale styling, choosing the appropriate style and content for the various map scales - Using GeoServer extensions to build common hatch patterns - Line styling beyond the basics, such as cased lines, controlling symbols along a line and the way they repeat - Leveraging TTF symbol fonts and SVGs to generate good looking point thematic maps, line and fill patterns - Use the full power of GeoServer label lay-outing tools to build pleasant, informative maps on both point, polygon and line layers, including adding road plates to your map - Leverage the labelling subsystem conflict resolution engine to avoid overlaps in stand alone point symbology - Blending charts into a map - Dynamically transform data during rendering to get more explicative maps without the need to pre-process a large amount of views, such as on the fly contours extraction, heat maps, and wind maps from raster data - Leverage the analitic power of spatial databases to build dynamic thematic maps based on SQL views - Perform cross layer filtering and parametrize it to perform informative cross layer containment and neighborhood searches. The presentation aims to provide the attendees with enough information to master SLD documents allowing him to produce amazingly looking maps on his own. At the end of the presentation the SLD will no longer be cartographer's enemy.