Web GIS– Fall 2008 - G410/510 – 4 credits

taught by David Percy of the Geology Department

Format: Two 2-hour lectures, with lab built in

Tu/Th: 2 - 4pm

Using Open Source software tools, students will learn to build interactive maps for use on the World Wide Web. Mapserver, OpenLayers and various frontend tools will be used to develop customized solutions for community based projects.

Students will learn to use Open Source utilities such as GDAL and OGR for data preparation.

Suggested prerequisite: either a background in GIS or Computer
Science/ IT. Some familiarity with UNIX command line tools is useful.
Optional books:


Students will need either a background in GIS or a background in programming. For example: It is recommended that students have completed raster and vector based GIS coursework, or have equivalent work experience; alternatively, students could have a strong programming background either through coursework or work experience, but no GIS experience. Please note that HTML coding does not count as programming. Javascript development would, however.

Exercises will be based on my own work, lending a "real world" feel to the class.

Other resources:

listservs
osgeo.org

Tentative Syllabus:

Meeting

Topic

Reading

Lab Exercise

1

Intro to course; fundamentals of web mapping; discussion of reading matter, demo of software, intro to mapfiles, intro to OGC standards

Basic HTML
Turton: Lesson 1 topics 1 through 8

Install openlayers, research WMS/WFS sources

2

More about mapfiles

Turton, lesson 2 and 3

 

3

CGI


Use Quantum GIS to create a mapfile, upload and test it.

4

GetFeatureInfo (queries)


 

5

Projections


Openlayers modifications

6

Javascript

Turton, lesson 7
 

7

PostGIS

Carto2: MapinteractionOverview.html
 

8

Web mapping frameworks


Install and customize a web mapping framework,ie kamap, chameleon, maplab, dbox

9

ISPs and configuring servers