Openlayers 3 Beginner's Guide - Softcover

Gratier, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1782162364 ISBN 13: 9781782162360

Publisher: Packt Pub Ltd, 2015

Synopsis

Get started with OpenLayers 3 and enhance your web pages by creating and displaying dynamic maps

About This Book

• Create and display maps online with the latest HTML5 features available, using the OpenLayers 3 library
• Learn how to interact with the map and learn best practices to improve the loading time for a map
• A practical beginner's guide, which also serves as a quick reference with useful screenshots and detailed code explanations

Who This Book Is For

Whether you are a hobbyist or a professional web developer, if you wish to use maps on your website, then this book is for you. A basic understanding of JavaScript will be helpful, but is not necessary. If you've never worked with maps before, this book will introduce you to some common mapping topics and will guide you through the OpenLayers library. Experienced developers can also use this book as a reference to OpenLayers 3 components and to further enhance their knowledge.

What You Will Learn

• Build a complete, real-world OpenLayers application optimized for production use
• Work with different raster data sources to create a base map
• Overlay vector data sources and work with vector features directly
• Customize the appearance of vector layers
• Understand the concept of map projections and how to use them
• Manage and work with interactions such as click and touch
• Work with controls to enhance the user experience
• Target mobile platforms and explore challenges presented by mobile development

In Detail

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.

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.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas Gratier

Thomas Gratier is a GIS consultant living in Nantes, France, who mainly specializes in web development. He has an MSc degree in geography and urban planning from The Institute Of Alpine Geography of The University of Grenoble. Career-wise, he decided to steer towards more technical work but kept his geospatial passion in mind. He's gained 8 years of geospatial and programming experience, working for public authorities on water and flood risk prevention and management, various private urban consultancies in urban planning and web mapping solutions, and, multinational company CapGemini's GIS Division. He's continued building a stronger knowledge in IT technologies, open source and open data, and both web and geo standards. He does his development work with JavaScript, Pythons and PHP. His favorite libraries and tools for working are GDAL/OGR, PostGIS, QGIS, and OpenLayers, but he also enjoys using OpenStreetMap-related libraries, such as Mapnik or Osm2pgsql. He is an open source advocate, a Charter Member of The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (http://www.osgeo.org)(OSGeo). He gets involved in writing French translations for open source geospatial projects, such as MapServer and Zoo Project. With like-minded professionals, he contributes to weekly geospatial news updates at Geotribu (http://geotribu.net). He currently works as a freelance GIS consultant, providing development, consulting, and training services. More information can be found on his website at Web Geo Data Vore (http://webgeodatavore.com).

Paul Spencer

Paul Spencer is a software engineer who has worked in the field of open source geospatial software for more than 15 years. He is a strong advocate of open source development and champions its use whenever possible. Paul has architected several successful open source projects and been actively involved in many more. Paul was involved in the early design and development of OpenLayers and continues to be involved as the project evolves. Paul joined DM Solutions Group (DMSG) in 1998, bringing with him advanced software development skills and a strong understanding of the software-development process. In his time with the company, Paul has taken on a leadership role as the CTO and primary architect for DM Solutions Group's web mapping technologies and commercial solutions. Prior to joining DMSG, Paul worked for the Canadian Military, after achieving his master's degree in software engineering from The Royal Military College of Canada.

Erik Hazzard

Erik Hazzard is the author of OpenLayers 2.10 Beginner's Guide, Packt Publishing. He has worked as the lead developer for a GIS-based company, has done contracting work with the design studio, Stamen, and has co-founded two start-ups. Erik is passionate about mapping, game development, and data visualization. In his free time, he enjoys writing and teaching, and can be found at http://vasir.net.

Edition details

• Publisher: Packt Pub Ltd
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1782162364
• ISBN 13: 9781782162360
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 512