Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
It can handle most types of vector and raster data, including the NASA Blue Marble tile set
for the entire globe.
According to its documentation, the SharpMap library supports both desktop and web-based
projects (the later via the use of the AJAX Map control). It can also create custom thematic
map styles by combining many different types of overlay.
The project home page can be found at
sharpmap.codeplex.com
.
BruTile
While not a full GIS library in the same sense as others, BruTile does one thing, and does it
very well: it serves raster tiles cut up and reorganized on the fly to allow smooth scrolling and
zooming of any input that the library handles.
BruTile is actually used by both SharpMap and DotSpatial to provide output support on their
raster tile components. It's also used to display open street map data running inside a
Silverlight map at
brutiledemo.appspot.com
.
BruTile can be used in any type of project, from web and Silverlight, to high-end desktop
apps. It also has an adapter that allows it to be used in custom ArcGIS deployments.
The project home page is located at
brutile.codeplex.com
.
And There's More...
As with the other bits of software mentioned previously, there are simply many, many more
available. What I've not even begun to cover here is the fact that all the major players such
as ESRI and Pitney Bowes offer their own SDKs as well. In fact, a large chunk of ESRI's
profit comes from the provision of GUI toolkits that are used in much the same way as
MapWindow. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to, there are simply too many to cover in
this short book.
The Demos
So now we get to that all-important question: what will I be using for the demos in this topic?
I already have a setup of PostgreSQL with PostGIS, and most of my spatial SQL examples
will be done using this. Any database management tool you have that can connect to
Postgres will work. However, I will be using the one that comes provided with the server:
pgAdmin.
In addition to this, I'll be using Quantum GIS to manage and display data along with a
demonstration of using GeoKettle to load some data.
For the programming examples, I'll be using SharpMap in Visual Studio 2010 Professional in
the C# language. The samples can be downloaded from
bitbucket.org/syncfusion/gis-
