[Geoserver-users] SLD

GeoServer GeoServer User
1

Hi,
  Two small questions on how Geoserver uses SLDs.

1/ can I use SVG defined graphics for symbols in a point dataset?
2/ when I assign an SLD to a featureType does GeoServer take the 1st
namedLayer tag to apply against the dataset?

TIA

Ross Elliott

The information in this e-mail and any attachment is confidential and may be privileged. If you have received this e-mail in error, please delete it immediately and destroy any copies on your system. You should not retain, copy or use this e-mail for any purpose, nor disclose all or any part of its content to any other person. Opinions expressed in this e-mail may not be endorsed by the company and unless explicitly indicated, this e-mail shall not form part of any binding agreement. Infoterra Limited a company registered in England under number 2359955 and having its registered office at Atlas House, 41 Wembley Road, Leicester, LE31UT. VAT number GB 476 0468 27

2

Ross Elliott wrote:

Hi,
  Two small questions on how Geoserver uses SLDs.

1/ can I use SVG defined graphics for symbols in a point dataset?
  

Nope

2/ when I assign an SLD to a featureType does GeoServer take the 1st
namedLayer tag to apply against the dataset?

When you apply a SLD file to a feature type it becomes the default SLD, so no matter what the named layer is, it's ignored and that SLD is used if you don't specifically specify the SLD in the request. So it doesn't have to match up. But if you were using SLD POST then the named layer would have to match up.

TIA

Ross Elliott

The information in this e-mail and any attachment is confidential and may be privileged. If you have received this e-mail in error, please delete it immediately and destroy any copies on your system. You should not retain, copy or use this e-mail for any purpose, nor disclose all or any part of its content to any other person. Opinions expressed in this e-mail may not be endorsed by the company and unless explicitly indicated, this e-mail shall not form part of any binding agreement. Infoterra Limited a company registered in England under number 2359955 and having its registered office at Atlas House, 41 Wembley Road, Leicester, LE31UT. VAT number GB 476 0468 27

Brent Owens
(The Open Planning Project)

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3

Thanks,
  So if I have an SLD with several named layers then can I assume it
only uses the 1st one? If so then it explains what I've seen happening
with some SLDs I've been given.

--
Ross Elliott
Senior Software Engineer
Infoterra Ltd
T +44 (0)1252 362095
www.infoterra.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: Brent Owens [mailto:brentowens@anonymised.com]
Sent: 30 January 2007 16:27
To: Ross Elliott
Cc: geoserver-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Geoserver-users] SLD

Ross Elliott wrote:

Hi,
  Two small questions on how Geoserver uses SLDs.

1/ can I use SVG defined graphics for symbols in a point dataset?
  

Nope

2/ when I assign an SLD to a featureType does GeoServer take the 1st
namedLayer tag to apply against the dataset?

When you apply a SLD file to a feature type it becomes the default SLD,
so no matter what the named layer is, it's ignored and that SLD is used
if you don't specifically specify the SLD in the request. So it doesn't
have to match up. But if you were using SLD POST then the named layer
would have to match up.

TIA

Ross Elliott

Brent Owens
(The Open Planning Project)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
--- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join
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The information in this e-mail and any attachment is confidential and may be privileged. If you have received this e-mail in error, please delete it immediately and destroy any copies on your system. You should not retain, copy or use this e-mail for any purpose, nor disclose all or any part of its content to any other person. Opinions expressed in this e-mail may not be endorsed by the company and unless explicitly indicated, this e-mail shall not form part of any binding agreement. Infoterra Limited a company registered in England under number 2359955 and having its registered office at Atlas House, 41 Wembley Road, Leicester, LE31UT. VAT number GB 476 0468 27

4

hmm, I'm not sure but it sounds like it should match up the correct named layer with the layer that is specified to be rendered, and not just render the first named layer in the list. What you could probably do is just break out each style into its own file to avoid confusion. Then later you can group several layers and styles together in one request using the SLD body parameter like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<StyledLayerDescriptor version="1.0.0"
         xmlns:gml="http://www.opengis.net/gml&quot;
          xmlns:ogc="http://www.opengis.net/ogc&quot;
          xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/sld&quot;&gt;

<NamedLayer>
    <Name>a</Name>
    <NamedStyle>
         <Name>style_a</Name>
    </NamedStyle>
</NamedLayer>

<NamedLayer>
    <Name>b</Name>
    <NamedStyle>
         <Name>style_b</Name>
    </NamedStyle>
</NamedLayer>

<NamedLayer>
    <Name>c</Name>
    <NamedStyle>
         <Name>style_c</Name>
    </NamedStyle>
</NamedLayer>

</StyledLayerDescriptor>

Brent Owens
(The Open Planning Project)

Ross Elliott wrote:

Thanks,
  So if I have an SLD with several named layers then can I assume it
only uses the 1st one? If so then it explains what I've seen happening
with some SLDs I've been given.

5

Brent Owens ha scritto:

Ross Elliott wrote:

Hi,
  Two small questions on how Geoserver uses SLDs.

1/ can I use SVG defined graphics for symbols in a point dataset?
  

Nope

I did not know the answer to 2), but as far as I know, you can use
SVG as graphics just as you can use png or gif. Brent, are you
aware of any issues here that I don't know about?

Cheers
Andrea

6

I'm not aware of any issues, I just wasn't aware that we supported SVG graphics in SLD. If so, that's pretty cool!
Have you given it a try Ross?

Brent Owens
(The Open Planning Project)

Andrea Aime wrote:

Brent Owens ha scritto:

Ross Elliott wrote:

Hi,
  Two small questions on how Geoserver uses SLDs.

1/ can I use SVG defined graphics for symbols in a point dataset?
  

Nope

I did not know the answer to 2), but as far as I know, you can use
SVG as graphics just as you can use png or gif. Brent, are you
aware of any issues here that I don't know about?

Cheers
Andrea

7

I've tried it by linking to an external svg graphic just like linking to
a png, but no luck. My knowledge of SLD and SVG is very low, I was
hoping that just like you can embed features inline using the ogc
namespace you could also embed svg graphics.

--
Ross Elliott
Senior Software Engineer
Infoterra Ltd
T +44 (0)1252 362095
www.infoterra.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: Brent Owens [mailto:brentowens@anonymised.com]
Sent: 30 January 2007 18:28
To: Andrea Aime
Cc: Ross Elliott; geoserver-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Geoserver-users] SLD

I'm not aware of any issues, I just wasn't aware that we supported SVG
graphics in SLD. If so, that's pretty cool!
Have you given it a try Ross?

Brent Owens
(The Open Planning Project)

Andrea Aime wrote:

Brent Owens ha scritto:

Ross Elliott wrote:

Hi,
  Two small questions on how Geoserver uses SLDs.

1/ can I use SVG defined graphics for symbols in a point dataset?
  

Nope

I did not know the answer to 2), but as far as I know, you can use SVG

as graphics just as you can use png or gif. Brent, are you aware of
any issues here that I don't know about?

Cheers
Andrea

The information in this e-mail and any attachment is confidential and may be privileged. If you have received this e-mail in error, please delete it immediately and destroy any copies on your system. You should not retain, copy or use this e-mail for any purpose, nor disclose all or any part of its content to any other person. Opinions expressed in this e-mail may not be endorsed by the company and unless explicitly indicated, this e-mail shall not form part of any binding agreement. Infoterra Limited a company registered in England under number 2359955 and having its registered office at Atlas House, 41 Wembley Road, Leicester, LE31UT. VAT number GB 476 0468 27

8

OK, I think it works like this.
Any sld passed into the wms needs matching layer names (as expected by
the WMS spec) but when defining a feature type it takes the first named
layer regardless of the name, I have SLDs that have no layer names that
match the WMS but they still get rendered. If this is the way it works
then it would be worthwhile adding it to the sld docs.

--
Ross Elliott
Senior Software Engineer
Infoterra Ltd
T +44 (0)1252 362095
www.infoterra.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: Brent Owens [mailto:brentowens@anonymised.com]
Sent: 30 January 2007 16:51
To: Ross Elliott
Cc: geoserver-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Geoserver-users] SLD

hmm, I'm not sure but it sounds like it should match up the correct
named layer with the layer that is specified to be rendered, and not
just render the first named layer in the list. What you could probably
do is just break out each style into its own file to avoid confusion.
Then later you can group several layers and styles together in one
request using the SLD body parameter like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<StyledLayerDescriptor version="1.0.0"
         xmlns:gml="http://www.opengis.net/gml&quot;
          xmlns:ogc="http://www.opengis.net/ogc&quot;
          xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/sld&quot;&gt;

<NamedLayer>
    <Name>a</Name>
    <NamedStyle>
         <Name>style_a</Name>
    </NamedStyle>
</NamedLayer>

<NamedLayer>
    <Name>b</Name>
    <NamedStyle>
         <Name>style_b</Name>
    </NamedStyle>
</NamedLayer>

<NamedLayer>
    <Name>c</Name>
    <NamedStyle>
         <Name>style_c</Name>
    </NamedStyle>
</NamedLayer>

</StyledLayerDescriptor>

Brent Owens
(The Open Planning Project)

Ross Elliott wrote:

Thanks,
  So if I have an SLD with several named layers then can I assume it
only uses the 1st one? If so then it explains what I've seen happening

with some SLDs I've been given.

The information in this e-mail and any attachment is confidential and may be privileged. If you have received this e-mail in error, please delete it immediately and destroy any copies on your system. You should not retain, copy or use this e-mail for any purpose, nor disclose all or any part of its content to any other person. Opinions expressed in this e-mail may not be endorsed by the company and unless explicitly indicated, this e-mail shall not form part of any binding agreement. Infoterra Limited a company registered in England under number 2359955 and having its registered office at Atlas House, 41 Wembley Road, Leicester, LE31UT. VAT number GB 476 0468 27

9

Ross Elliott ha scritto:

I've tried it by linking to an external svg graphic just like linking to
a png, but no luck.

This should be working, but we do not parse every possible svg around.
Can you describe in detail what you did, and eventually what you
could find on the geoserver log (if nothing relevant shows, try to
change the logging level to FINE).

My knowledge of SLD and SVG is very low, I was
hoping that just like you can embed features inline using the ogc
namespace you could also embed svg graphics.

No, this is not the case, but as a Graphic it should work.
Cheers
Andrea

10

Ross Elliott ha scritto:

I've tried it by linking to an external svg graphic just like linking to
a png, but no luck.

The attached example, referrig an online svg, works on my Geoserver (1.5.x series).
Yet, it's tricky to make it work because you have to provide
the exact mime type, image/svg+xml.

Hope this helps
Cheers
Andrea

default_point.sld (1.46 KB)

11

Yeh I believe that is how the feature type works, is by taking just the first namedLayer. This is either planned or not thought out, I will have to research it. But in most cases people just create one style with one named layer for each feature type. Then anything passed through the WMS parameters overwrites the default style.

In the mean time I will add this to the docs.

Thanks for finding this Ross.

Brent Owens
(The Open Planning Project)

Ross Elliott wrote:

OK, I think it works like this.
Any sld passed into the wms needs matching layer names (as expected by
the WMS spec) but when defining a feature type it takes the first named
layer regardless of the name, I have SLDs that have no layer names that
match the WMS but they still get rendered. If this is the way it works
then it would be worthwhile adding it to the sld docs.

12

Sounds like it was planned to me, that way you can use the same SLD in
many featureTypes, it's just that most people who create SLDs probably
do so for passing in to a WMS and would expect named matching layers. I
actually like the way Geoserver does this. Now if only it could do
nested layers as well!

On a different note is anyone looking into getFeatureInfo for points and
lines, currently (I suspect) you have to get an excact point on a line
or point to get it to work. The UMN Mapserver guys fixed this by adding
a buffer to the passed in point so you can click near a feature and
still hit it.

--
Ross Elliott
Senior Software Engineer
Infoterra Ltd
T +44 (0)1252 362095
www.infoterra.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: Brent Owens [mailto:brentowens@anonymised.com]
Sent: 30 January 2007 21:16
To: Ross Elliott
Cc: geoserver-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Geoserver-users] SLD

Yeh I believe that is how the feature type works, is by taking just the
first namedLayer. This is either planned or not thought out, I will have
to research it. But in most cases people just create one style with one
named layer for each feature type. Then anything passed through the WMS
parameters overwrites the default style.

In the mean time I will add this to the docs.

Thanks for finding this Ross.

Brent Owens
(The Open Planning Project)

Ross Elliott wrote:

OK, I think it works like this.
Any sld passed into the wms needs matching layer names (as expected by

the WMS spec) but when defining a feature type it takes the first
named layer regardless of the name, I have SLDs that have no layer
names that match the WMS but they still get rendered. If this is the
way it works then it would be worthwhile adding it to the sld docs.

The information in this e-mail and any attachment is confidential and may be privileged. If you have received this e-mail in error, please delete it immediately and destroy any copies on your system. You should not retain, copy or use this e-mail for any purpose, nor disclose all or any part of its content to any other person. Opinions expressed in this e-mail may not be endorsed by the company and unless explicitly indicated, this e-mail shall not form part of any binding agreement. Infoterra Limited a company registered in England under number 2359955 and having its registered office at Atlas House, 41 Wembley Road, Leicester, LE31UT. VAT number GB 476 0468 27

13

On a different note is anyone looking into getFeatureInfo for points and
lines, currently (I suspect) you have to get an excact point on a line
or point to get it to work. The UMN Mapserver guys fixed this by adding
a buffer to the passed in point so you can click near a feature and
still hit it.

This is a tough one.
What geoserver does (or used to do, long time not seeing the code) is to use
the bounding box of the pixel at the point (or maybe two pixels around), in
the layer's CRS, to make a bbox filter.

But the problem gets worst. It's supposed to work quite well if you render
each point as a tiny symbol (square, triangle, circle, etc.). In this case
the user has to affine his shooting. GetFeatureInfo is like playing darts.
Problem is that with different marker sizes and shapes, it is logical if the
user expects a proper response if he pointed over the symbol, but the symbol
has nothing to do with the actual geometry (sigh!)

Even worse, I had an experience where points were represented as triangles,
and your only chance of catching up on a GetFeatureInfo were pointing at the
center pixel of the lower side of the triangle.... no way pointing at the
center, which would be more friendly... (though don't remember right now if
the spec says something related to how the marker should be positioned
regarding the point location)

So that's why I say its a tough problem.

So the question is, would it be enough of a solution if we just increase
the "pixel tolerance" around the requested point to create the BBOX (actually
intersects?) filter?

Gabriel
--
Gabriel Roldán (groldan@anonymised.com)
Axios Engineering (http://www.axios.es)
Tel. +34 944 41 63 84
Fax. +34 944 41 64 90

14

question: shouldn't it has to be possible to embedd the svg on the sld itself?
I know the spec says nothing about embedding an image but... it would be cool.

Think on a style being created in udig and then being exported as SLD for
geoserver... but you don't want/can put the images on a URL accessible
place...

Gabriel

On Tuesday 30 January 2007 20:22, Andrea Aime wrote:

Ross Elliott ha scritto:
> I've tried it by linking to an external svg graphic just like linking to
> a png, but no luck.

The attached example, referrig an online svg, works on my Geoserver
(1.5.x series).
Yet, it's tricky to make it work because you have to provide
the exact mime type, image/svg+xml.

Hope this helps
Cheers
Andrea

--
Gabriel Roldán (groldan@anonymised.com)
Axios Engineering (http://www.axios.es)
Tel. +34 944 41 63 84
Fax. +34 944 41 64 90

15

Ross Elliott wrote:

Sounds like it was planned to me, that way you can use the same SLD in
many featureTypes, it's just that most people who create SLDs probably
do so for passing in to a WMS and would expect named matching layers. I
actually like the way Geoserver does this. Now if only it could do
nested layers as well!

There's actually a kludgey way to do this in 1.4.0. If you just want a nested layer to show up in the Capabilities document as nested, you can describe the nesting with WMS Path in the featureType config:

http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOSDOC/WMS+Path

If it's returning a set of layers in response to a single parent name of the nested layers, then you can use the layer grouping option:

http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOSDOC/WMS+Layer-group+option

You specify what a set of layers should respond to.

Thus with both of these you can accomplish the full functionality of nesting layers I believe. And yes, I completely agree that it's very obscure and you should just have to configure one thing. But there is something there, unless I'm completely misunderstanding what you want out of nested layers (which is possible).

Chris

--
Chris Holmes
The Open Planning Project
http://topp.openplans.org

16

And the general course of action we recommend is that clients use GetFeature from the WFS, instead of GetFeatureInfo from the WMS. They accomplish basically the same thing, but GetFeature gives you much more control, instead of just a pixel location and some weird assumptions about how big the buffer is.

Chris

Gabriel Roldán wrote:

On a different note is anyone looking into getFeatureInfo for points and
lines, currently (I suspect) you have to get an excact point on a line
or point to get it to work. The UMN Mapserver guys fixed this by adding
a buffer to the passed in point so you can click near a feature and
still hit it.

This is a tough one. What geoserver does (or used to do, long time not seeing the code) is to use the bounding box of the pixel at the point (or maybe two pixels around), in the layer's CRS, to make a bbox filter.

But the problem gets worst. It's supposed to work quite well if you render each point as a tiny symbol (square, triangle, circle, etc.). In this case the user has to affine his shooting. GetFeatureInfo is like playing darts.
Problem is that with different marker sizes and shapes, it is logical if the user expects a proper response if he pointed over the symbol, but the symbol has nothing to do with the actual geometry (sigh!)

Even worse, I had an experience where points were represented as triangles, and your only chance of catching up on a GetFeatureInfo were pointing at the center pixel of the lower side of the triangle.... no way pointing at the center, which would be more friendly... (though don't remember right now if the spec says something related to how the marker should be positioned regarding the point location)

So that's why I say its a tough problem.

So the question is, would it be enough of a solution if we just increase the "pixel tolerance" around the requested point to create the BBOX (actually intersects?) filter?

Gabriel

--
Chris Holmes
The Open Planning Project
http://topp.openplans.org

17

Gabriel Roldán ha scritto:

question: shouldn't it has to be possible to embedd the svg on the sld itself?
I know the spec says nothing about embedding an image but... it would be cool.

Think on a style being created in udig and then being exported as SLD for geoserver... but you don't want/can put the images on a URL accessible place...

Hmm... yeah, I think it would be nice, but as you said, non standard
compliant.
Moreover, what do you do with png symbols, or with external fonts?
I think the real problem is that at the moment it's hard to handle
resources referred by an SLD and you need inner knowledge about how Geoserver works to handle that properly. And you also need access
to the file system that hosts Geoserver, not something that is always
easy or possible (think about a server located in an ISP and having
to handle SLD by a mix of web ui and ftp file uploads, oh my...).

Cheers
Andrea

18

That's exactly how UMN Mapserver works, you change the size of the buffered pixel for each query layer, not ideal but it does work providing the buffer size takes account of the biggest symbol size in the layer and the placement of it. Ideally (for me at least) the WMS spec would allow a BBOX for a query area rather than a single point (like UMN Mapserver's cgi-mode query) this wouldn't solve the problem where a symbol is placed far away from the actual point but I suspect that's a rare occurance anyway.

--
Ross Elliott
Senior Software Engineer
Infoterra Ltd
T +44 (0)1252 362095
www.infoterra.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: Gabriel Roldán [mailto:groldan@anonymised.com]
Sent: 30 January 2007 23:20
To: geoserver-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Cc: Ross Elliott; Brent Owens
Subject: Re: [Geoserver-users] SLD

On a different note is anyone looking into getFeatureInfo for points
and lines, currently (I suspect) you have to get an excact point on a
line or point to get it to work. The UMN Mapserver guys fixed this by
adding a buffer to the passed in point so you can click near a feature
and still hit it.

This is a tough one.
What geoserver does (or used to do, long time not seeing the code) is to use the bounding box of the pixel at the point (or maybe two pixels around), in the layer's CRS, to make a bbox filter.

But the problem gets worst. It's supposed to work quite well if you render each point as a tiny symbol (square, triangle, circle, etc.). In this case the user has to affine his shooting. GetFeatureInfo is like playing darts.
Problem is that with different marker sizes and shapes, it is logical if the user expects a proper response if he pointed over the symbol, but the symbol has nothing to do with the actual geometry (sigh!)

Even worse, I had an experience where points were represented as triangles, and your only chance of catching up on a GetFeatureInfo were pointing at the center pixel of the lower side of the triangle.... no way pointing at the center, which would be more friendly... (though don't remember right now if the spec says something related to how the marker should be positioned regarding the point location)

So that's why I say its a tough problem.

So the question is, would it be enough of a solution if we just increase the "pixel tolerance" around the requested point to create the BBOX (actually
intersects?) filter?

Gabriel
--
Gabriel Roldán (groldan@anonymised.com)
Axios Engineering (http://www.axios.es)
Tel. +34 944 41 63 84
Fax. +34 944 41 64 90

The information in this e-mail and any attachment is confidential and may be privileged. If you have received this e-mail in error, please delete it immediately and destroy any copies on your system. You should not retain, copy or use this e-mail for any purpose, nor disclose all or any part of its content to any other person. Opinions expressed in this e-mail may not be endorsed by the company and unless explicitly indicated, this e-mail shall not form part of any binding agreement. Infoterra Limited a company registered in England under number 2359955 and having its registered office at Atlas House, 41 Wembley Road, Leicester, LE31UT. VAT number GB 476 0468 27

19

Ross Elliott ha scritto:

That's exactly how UMN Mapserver works, you change the size of the
buffered pixel for each query layer, not ideal but it does work
providing the buffer size takes account of the biggest symbol size in
the layer and the placement of it. Ideally (for me at least) the WMS
spec would allow a BBOX for a query area rather than a single point
(like UMN Mapserver's cgi-mode query) this wouldn't solve the problem
where a symbol is placed far away from the actual point but I suspect
that's a rare occurance anyway.

This reminds me a lot about the meta-buffer issue with tiled rendering.
If the SLD is relatively static, we can spot the right buffer size by
inspecting it. If not, we could have a new parameter in the request
that allows the user to force a specific search area.

Ross, can you open a jira issue about this? Maybe we won't fix this
overnight, at least a jira issue will make us avoid forgetting about it.

Cheers
Andrea

20

You understand exactly what I want it to do. I did look at both of these
options before but they don't quite deliver what a WMS client or user
would expect, whilst a user would like a nested layer tree returned they
would also expect (as would the WMS client) to be able to select a
parent layer and display all the child layers and Geoserver doesn't
quite do this yet from what I can see (especially as under 1.4 the WMS
path stuff seems to be broken) and from what I understand the layer
grouping looks like you can only have one layer group. It's not a big
deal and I'm sure things will change over time.

--
Ross Elliott
Senior Software Engineer
Infoterra Ltd
T +44 (0)1252 362095
www.infoterra.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Holmes [mailto:cholmes@anonymised.com]
Sent: 30 January 2007 23:40
To: Ross Elliott
Cc: Brent Owens; geoserver-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: [Maybe spam] Re: [Geoserver-users] SLD

Ross Elliott wrote:

Sounds like it was planned to me, that way you can use the same SLD in

many featureTypes, it's just that most people who create SLDs probably

do so for passing in to a WMS and would expect named matching layers.
I actually like the way Geoserver does this. Now if only it could do
nested layers as well!

There's actually a kludgey way to do this in 1.4.0. If you just want a
nested layer to show up in the Capabilities document as nested, you can
describe the nesting with WMS Path in the featureType config:

http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOSDOC/WMS+Path

If it's returning a set of layers in response to a single parent name of
the nested layers, then you can use the layer grouping option:

http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOSDOC/WMS+Layer-group+option

You specify what a set of layers should respond to.

Thus with both of these you can accomplish the full functionality of
nesting layers I believe. And yes, I completely agree that it's very
obscure and you should just have to configure one thing. But there is
something there, unless I'm completely misunderstanding what you want
out of nested layers (which is possible).

Chris

--
Chris Holmes
The Open Planning Project
http://topp.openplans.org

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