FOSS4G 2021 - The role of open source python package geoserver rest in Web GIS development

This work describes geoserver-rest, an open-source python package that can manage the geospatial data in a geoserver which is helpful for uploading, editing, and deleting the raster/vector layers from various sources. It is also useful for generating the style/legend from the uploaded geospatial data. Thus, generated legend can be used for visualization of maps in the web-GIS platform. The package is successfully used to build the web-GIS portal for agricultural datasets of Afghanistan, which has around 6000 map layers. The main benefit that geoserver-rest provides to this project is the ability to upload the data to the geoserver and create the styles file dynamically. Thus, created style files are directly linked to the corresponding layer and provide the Web Mapping Service (WMS) standard and visualize in an interactive way.

The geoserver-rest is the open-source spatial data management library written in python based on the geoserver API. Python is the chosen language because it is easy to use, object-oriented runs on all the major Operating Systems (OS) and already has thousands of libraries and frameworks. It is one of the leading technologies for web development. Implementation of geoserver-rest in python will significantly enhance the approach of GIS application development. Since the package is developed in the python library, it can be useful for the web platform as well as desktop applications development. Rather than serving the data in client and server, it also generates the style files and creates the legend dynamically by reading the uploaded dataset. The automation for geospatial data sharing and dynamic style creation feature makes it unique and more popular and useful in the latest web-GIS development works. It will be very helpful for editing, updating, and deleting large sets of data.

Authors and Affiliations –
Tek Bahadur Kshetri (1)
Angsana Chaksan (1)
Shraddha Sharma (1)

(1) Geoinformatics Center (GIC), Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand

Requirements for the Attendees –
Basic knowledge of geoserver

Track –
Academic

Topic –
Academic

Level –
2 - Basic. General basic knowledge is required.

Language of the Presentation –
English