About the book
Nowadays, a great degree of data is susceptible to be located and visualized in a map, from geological or climate data to marketing and sales information.
Geographic information has become one of most important and valuable kind of informations.
Professionals from many industries needs to know and be up to date with all the related GIS technologies: spatial databases, map and feature servers, desktop or web application, frameworks, libraries, etc.
Within all this network, web technologies are one that has grown more in last decade due, in part, by the browsers performance evolution.
Who is this book addressed ?
This book is for anyone interested on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies and, concretely, on web mapping based on the new version of OpenLayers library.
OpenLayers3 is one of the most complete and powerful open source GIS solutions for web development.
Whether you are an experienced user or a new OpenLayers user, this book is a great reference to start learning the new concepts and API of the OpenLayers3. Learn to create maps, add controls and animations, add data from OGC compliant servers using standard formats, work with vector layers, style features, etc.
How is the book organized ?
No one becomes an expert reading a book. Learn anything implies two things: understand concepts (the theory) and obtain experience working in real world samples (the practice).
Because of this, I have wanted to create a book as a mix between an usual programmers book and a cookbook. All chapters has been divided in two sections, the theory where I explain the chapter related concepts, and the practice, where we can see simple but real examples.
The chapters follows the order I consider are the logical path to introduce, understand and learn how to work with OpenLayers3.
Why I wrote this book?
There are many reasons to write a book: to teach others, to earn money, for fame, … but mine is much more selfish than any of those. I wrote this book to learn.
As developer, learn new technologies and be up to date is part of my job. My day to day is a mix between front-end and back-end developer and OpenLayers is one of the tools in my toolbox. After looking at the new OpenLayers3 API it was clear the project had been made a great evolution (new concepts and completely new API) so I started to look at it.
As someone says the best way to learn is to teach. That is the real reason I started writing this book. I hope you enjoy it as I enjoy writing it.
The book cover
The book cover is the work of my friend Hugo Tobio an awesome illustrator. It is based on the OpenLayers logo, its colors and shape. It expresses the ability to build great things with the components offered by the library.