What This Book Covers

This book introduces several concepts and tools. They can be grouped into the following four categories:

• Mapping and data-management concepts

• Command-line data-management tools

• Command-line and web-based mapping tools

• Spatial database management

You will study the following tools:

Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) with OGR

This tool includes application programming interfaces (APIs) and command-line utilities for raster and vector data. GDAL's web site is http://www.gdal.org.

OpenEV

For basic desktop GIS and imagery analysis; includes tools to draw new map features for use in other programs.

UMN MapServer

This tool includes command-line tools to build CGI web applications and uses the MapServer API, called MapScript, to custom-script mapping applications.

PostGIS

This tool is an extension to the PostgreSQL database management system that allows you to store and manipulate spatial data alongside tabular data.