Background
-When publishing data to the internet it is common practice to provide -the data using standardized exchange protocols. Adopting standards -facilitates a wide usage of the data. Within the geospatial domain, the OGC -and ISO TC211 data exchange standards are industry standards and -are often required by law, e.g. the European INSPIRE regulations.
-The GeoCat Bridge extension takes care of exporting your map, data, styles and metadata to -opensource mapping platforms that provide data exchange and catalog -services that comply with these standards. Bridge will properly link service and metadata -and vice versa, so users can easily bind to a service from a catalog search result or find the -relevant metadata for an exposed dataset.
- -Serverside software components currently supported by Bridge are GeoServer, MapServer and GeoNetwork. -Some options are available to migrate data to and expose data from PostGIS.
-You can also choose to save the metadata and map symbology on your computer as files -or in a GeoPackage so you can use them to publish on other software platforms -(e.g. deegree, QGIS).
-Supported server types and formats
-GeoServer is the reference implementation of -the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)_ Web Feature Service (WFS) and Web -Coverage Service (WCS) standards, as well as a high performance -certified compliant Web Map Service (WMS). GeoServer has a REST API, -which can be used to configure feature types. Bridge uses this API to publish data. -Geoserver internally uses SLD -to define the visualisation of data layers.
-MapServer is an Open Source platform for -publishing spatial data and interactive mapping applications to the web. -Originally developed in the mid-1990’s at the University of Minnesota, -MapServer is released under an MIT-style license, and runs on all major -platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X). -Mapserver services are defined by Mapfiles, -which can be generated by Bridge.
-GeoNetwork is a catalog for registering -assets, such as spatial datasets. It contains a CatalogService for the Web (CSW) -endpoint. GeoNetwork can operate on various metadata models via a plugin mechanism. It -supports ISO19115-3, ISO19139, ISO19110 and DCAT metadata standards. GeoNetwork -opensource software complies with the requirements of INSPIRE discovery services and metadata.
-GeoStyler is a JS library used in the Shogun framework -to create generic styles. GeoServer also has a plugin -that allows to style layers using GeoStyler. Bridge does not make use of the GeoStyler library, but it does use the GeoStyler format -internally as an intermediate format, which can be exported as a GeoStyler style file (JSON).
-Mapbox Style is a style format that defines the visual -appearance of vector tiles in the Mapbox JavaScript API. -Bridge is able to generate a Mapbox style document.
-PostGIS is a spatial extension to the popular open source Postgres database. -Bridge is able to export any local data to a remote (or local) PostGIS database, allowing it -to be consumed by data services.
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