Mapbender is a graduated project of the

Open Source Geospatial Foundation The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo), is a non-profit non-governmental organization whose mission is to support and promote the collaborative development of open geospatial technologies and data. The foundation was formed in February 20 ...

. It was awarded OGC web site of the month in 2008. It is used by PortalU and several federal states to implement the

INSPIRE The following is a thematic list of European Union directives: For a date based list, see the :European Union directives by number Numbering From 1 January 1992 to 31 December 2014, numbers assigned by the General Secretariat of the Council ...

regulation. Many municipalities use Mapbender as City Map Services and it is used as the mapping framework for online cycle route planners.Radwanderland operated by the German federal state of Rhineland Palatinate
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Introduction

Mapbender is a

web mapping Web mapping or an online mapping is the process of using maps, usually created through geographic information systems (GIS), on the Internet, more specifically in the World Wide Web (WWW). A web map or an online map is both served and consumed, ...

software implemented in

PHP PHP is a General-purpose programming language, general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementati ...

and

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

, the configuration resides in a data model stored in a

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL (, ), also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. It was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the In ...

PostGIS PostGIS ( ) is an open source software program that adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL object-relational database. PostGIS follows the Simple Features for SQL specification from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Technica ...

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database ...

database. It is developed as an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

project and licensed by the

GNU GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general ...

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, ...

. Mapbender is a framework for managing spatial data services that are standardized following the OGC specifications OWS, WMS and WFS and using the formats

GeoRSS GeoRSS is a specification for encoding location as part of a Web feed. ''(Web feeds are used to describe feeds ("channels") of content, such as news articles, Audio blogs, video blogs and text blog entries. These web feeds are rendered by progra ...

and GML and Web Map Context. The framework implements user management, authentication and authorization. Management interfaces for user, group and service administration are stored as configurations in the database. The software is used to display, overlay, edit and manage distributed

Web Map Service A Web Map Service (WMS) is a standard protocol developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium in 1999 for serving georeferenced map images over the Internet. These images are typically produced by a map server from data provided by a GIS database. ...

s. The maps themselves are generated by Server software. From this perspective Mapbender is a

client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuabl ...

software. The client interfaces are generated dynamically by PHP scripts on the Mapbender Server.

User Interface

User interfaces are created using forms of the same web based type. User interfaces contain elements (buttons, maps, legends, links), each has associated HTML attributes, path to PHP modules or JavaScript code which are stored in the database. Basic modules implement: * zoom in and out * pan map * click and query (OGC WMS GetFeatureInfo) * turn layers on and off * move to coordinate (zoom to) * get coordinate (mouse click) * digitize (add new points, lines, polygons; this requires transactional WFS) * load map services (OGC WMS) * reorder and remove map services * show legend * print * search interfaces * store current map composition as OGC Web Map Context document User interfaces can be started parameterized with a bounding box, set of services and set of activated layers.

Administration Interfaces

Administration interfaces are user interfaces with administration modules. This makes administration highly flexible and multi client capable (both multiple interfaces and user/group permission). Administration modules include management (add, edit, remove) of: * users * groups * interfaces (GUI) * WMS services * WFS and transactional WFS services * OWS Security Proxy * Metadata * Log and protocol * Service monitor

Categorization

Mapbender is designed to manage loosely coupled web services in a

service-oriented architecture In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. By consequence, it is also applied in the field of software design where services are provided ...

. Due to some glitches in early GIS history with Coordinate systems,

Cartesian coordinate system A Cartesian coordinate system (, ) in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular oriented lines, measured ...

s and

Surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ...

this can sometimes be somewhat complex. The Mapbender software covers the following topics: * Web-GIS Client (OGC WMS, WFS, Catalog Service Client) * Geo-CMS (Content Management System) * Web-based map digitizing and editing functionality (OGC WFS-T Client) * Service Meta Information Broker (ISO 19-hundred Series) * Catalog System (ISO 19119 Service Meta Data) * Security Management (Authentication, Authorization, SSO Secure Service) * Accounting Management (Logging) * Spatial Web Services Orchestrating

References

External links

* {{official website, https://mapbender.org/en/
Mapbender on Ohloh
Free GIS software Maps Web mapping