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Web Mapping Illustrated Using Open Source GIS Toolkits

By Tyler Mitchell
June 2005
Pages: 367
ISBN 10: 0-596-00865-1 | ISBN 13: 9780596008659
(Average of 4 Customer Reviews)

Book description

Developers who want to publish maps on the web often discover that commercial tools cost too much and hunting down the free tools scattered across Internet can use up too much of your time and resources. Web Mapping Illustrated shows you how to create maps, even interactive maps, with free tools, including MapServer, OpenEV, GDAL/OGR, and PostGIS. It also explains how to find, collect, understand, use, and share mapping data, both over the traditional Web and using OGC-standard services like WFS and WMS.
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Featured customer reviews

Excellent - must have for open source GIS,  November 01 2005
Submitted by Kent W.   [Respond | View]

This book might be better named something like Open Source GIS tools for web mapping, because it covers much more than IMS (Mapserver). There are many extremely useful tips and references that you just can't get without a lot of trial and error. Plus, the author is very helpful and has answered all questions I've sent very quickly and clearly. If you do GIS work and want to try open source tools, including the excellent Mapserver IMS, I can't imagine a better book.


Web Mapping Galore!,  July 28 2005
Submitted by Franck Martin   [Respond | View]

This book is a good introduction to all the areas of web mapping. It describes only Open Source Software therefore making web mapping affordable to the masses.

You will get started with mapserver and understand the concepts behind web mapping. You will receive an introduction in more advanced area like web scripting.

A must read for any mapping afficiandos.

You have no more excuses if your web site does not have an interactive map.


The difinitive guide to Open Source Web Mapping,  July 10 2005
Submitted by Joel Dudley   [Respond | View]

I'm amazed how a book containing so much information can be read so quickly. The author does an amazing job of demistifying the dynamic worlds of GIS and Web Mapping from an Open Source (OS) perspective. The chapters are well organized, allowing the reader to go from a GIS novice to a developer of large-scale MapServer GIS implementations with relative ease. The book is full of beautiful, full-color example maps and software screenshots. A reader of this book will not only have an understanding of the OS software tools used in the GIS community, but also the fundamental geographical concepts on which the GIS tools are based. After banging my head against the wall on a relatively simple mapping project this book was a godsend. There is literally nothing like it on or offline.

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Media reviews
"If you want to create and edit personal map data, this is the book to have. If you want to convert map data from one format to another, this is the book to have. If you want to do anything with maps stored in digital format, this is the book to have. My advice is to browse through a copy to establish whether you will be able to handle the software: it does not offer point-and-click solutions. As with all O'Reilly books it is very well written with clear explanations of terms and concepts."
-- Major Keary, PC Update


"I like maps, and this book made me want to run right out and add gratuitous maps to my Web site. Better yet, it made me think that the next time I’m on a project where the right thing is to put up an interactive map on a Web server, I will have an answer that doesn’t involve all the Web programmers saying glumly, 'Gee, that sounds really hard.'"
-- Elizabeth Zwicky, ;login:


"...very beautiful. It’s one of the few O’Reilly publications with full-color illustrations, which really enhances the map visualizations used as examples throughout the book. It is full of the kind of details you actually need to know to get the software installed, but it also presents basic concepts so that you don’t get left in the dust if you’ve never studied map making before."
-- Terry Hancock, Free Software Magazine

"Tyler Mitchell's Web Mapping Illustrated, published by O'Reilly, could have spared me about a week of hair-pulling back in 2000 when I was just beginning to discover open source GIS software. Our projects are reasonably well documented, and there is an enormous amount of knowledge within the community, but there has never before been a broad and coherent synthesis of that information. Finally, new users can see the entire domain of open source mapping from data creation, to data processing, to digital map. We've needed this book for a long time."
--Sean Gillies, Import Cartography, July 2005

"With all the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) swirling around the geospatial community about open source software and open standards, Tyler Mitchell’s book could not have come at a better time. The book, subtitled 'Using Open Source GIS Toolkits,' effectively says 'don’t panic' and 'here’s how' to those in and outside of GIS who want to use these tools."
--Adena Shulzberg, Directions Magazine, July 2005

"The ability to generate maps from your data has long been something pretty much restricted to companies with deep pockets.  But Google seems to have sparked an interest in mapping software, and there are plenty of open source tools out there that will allow you to create your own Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  O'Reilly's come out with a book that will be a 'must have' if this is an interest of yours...Web Mapping Illustrated by Tyler Mitchell."
--Thomas "Duffbert" Duff, Duffbert's Radon Musings, July 2005

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"If you want to create and edit personal map data...convert map data from one format to another...[or] do anything with maps stored in digital format, this is the book to have."
--Major Keary, PC Update