The highlights of the release are:

* MapFish 2.0 comes with GeoAlchemy and uses GeoAlchemy internally. Among other things, this brings MapFish support for PostGIS as well as Spatialite, MySQL, and Oracle Spatial.
* MapFish 2.0 is based on Pylons 1.0, the first stable version of Pylons.
* the API of MapFish 2.0 is incompatible with that of MapFish 1.2 (please go here to learn how to migrate your applications).
* the client plugin installs OpenLayers 2.9.1, and GeoExt 0.7 in the application and does not longer install MapFish Client.

The full list of enhancements and bug fixes can be found in the Release Notes.

To install MapFish 2.0 follow this link. And to get a sense about how MapFish can help you, check out our quickstart.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the release, and especially to Tobias Sauerwein, an intern at Camptocamp, who worked on GeoAlchemy and its integration in MapFish!

We’re looking forward to your feeback.

Le catalogue 2010 des formations Geospatial de Camptocamp est désormais disponible en ligne . L’ensemble des sessions est axé sur la mise en œuvre et le développement de solutions Geospatial Open Source.

Les thématiques de nos formations portent sur l’ensemble du domaine Geospatial :

• les données : traitement, catalogage ;
• les applications serveurs : MapServer, GeoServer, PostGIS ;
• les applications clientes : OpenLayers, uDIG ;
• les frameworks : Pylons, Symfony, MapFish ;
• les standards : WMS, WFS.

Parmi les principales nouveautés, nous proposons des packages de formation thématique "tout compris" qui donnent lieu à une réduction sur le prix total :

• WebSIG : PostGIS + MapServer + OpenLayers ;
• MapFish : MapFish serveur + MapFish client ;
• …

Nous proposons toujours de nombreuses sessions de perfectionnement ou de développement des composants eux-mêmes, sur des technologies déjà présentes l’année passée (GeoNetwork, PostGIS, MapServer …) et maîtrisées par notre équipe.

Ces différentes sessions privilégient avant tout le côté « mise en pratique » concrète des solutions, technologies et standards, via des méthodes pédagogiques actives.

Camptocamp organise des sessions "inter-entreprises" (se référer aux dates disponibles sur le catalogue) mais également de nombreuses sessions "intra-entreprise" permettant des formations "à la carte".

Les sessions du 1er trimestre auront lieu :

• du 23 au 25 février 2010 à Paris sur GDAL-OGR ;
• du 23 au 25 mars 2010 à Paris sur PostGIS ;
• du 1er au 3 mars 2010 (MapFish client) et du 4 au 5 mars 2010 (MapFish-server) sur Chambéry.

L’équipe formation de Camptocamp reste à votre entière disposition pour tout renseignement complémentaire.

Pour nous contacter : formation@camptocamp.com

Le Toronto Code Sprint a été l’occasion pour moi de continuer à avancer dans ce process, et faire en sorte d’améliorer encore la qualité et la robustesse du code de ces fonctions.  L’ensemble des modifications réalisées étant intégré à la future release 1.4.0 qui doit sortir sous forme d’une première RC dans un avenir très proche.

A l’issue de ces journées, en guise de bilan, a été réalisé, pour les fonctions d’export:

• Une  réécriture de l’ensemble de la fonction d’export ST_AsSVG, avec ajout de tests unitaires et de test de non régression.  Fonctionnelement, son comportement est très proche de celle de la branche 1.3… sauf qu’elle corrige un bug bloquant sur  des aggrégations de géométries volumineuses (GEOMETRYCOLLECTION) avant export SVG.
• L’ajout dans les fonctions d’export GML et GeoJson de la possibilité de générer des CRS dans un format compliant RFC 5165.  Ce format est attendu par les units tests de validation OGC (CITE) pour GML, et il est recommandé comme format préférentiel par la  spécification GeoJson 1.0.  Une évolution suivante sera de pouvoir rajouter la version de la base EPSG utilisée (envisagée pour la 1.5 de PostGIS)
• Une analyse et mise en place de la couche bas niveau permettant d’assurer un futur support des géométries de type Curves pour GML3 et SVG  (ces deux formats permettant une description des curves). Un post présente les logiques de représentation Curves pour PostGIS . Pour rappel les curves ne font pas parti de OGC SFS 1.1,  mais de ISO/SQL:MM part 3, cette dernière spécification devient le nouvel objectif de PostGIS à terme (à l’horizon de la 2.0).

Un premier prototypage pour GML3 pour les arcstrings et circularstrings a été également réalisé (mais non commité). Il reste en effet encore du travail sur les COMPOUNDCURVE et les curves surfaciques (enchainement de LINESTRING et CIRCULARSTRING).

Pour la prochaine release 1.5 de PostGIS, les fonctions d’import sont également envisagées, i.e pouvoir convertir du GML en Geométrie PostGIS native, et idem pour les KML et le GeoJson…

Bref encore une foultitude de fonctionnalités qui continuent à faire de PostGIS le SGBD spatial de référence en OpenSource.

Merci à Mark, Regina et Paul pour leurs soutiens, conseils et encouragements sur Toronto et sur la mailing list dev ,

Olivier Courtin, GIS Expert, PostGIS Developper

The plot starts with a Toronto hotel on the banks of the Ontario lake booked from the 7th to the 10th of March, 4 whole days initiated by Paul Ramsey gathering the C tribe of Open Source GIS.

Paul successfuly managed to obtain sponsorship and to create the impulsion to unite more than 20 developpers essentially from the MapServer, PostGIS and GDAL communities, but also TinyOWS, libLAS and OpenLayers (a couple of developpers from closed-source MrSid were also present).

A big thanks to him and to Tom Kralidis for looking after the logistics of the events, and to the sponsors for financially participating to allow this to happen.

At first sounding North-American only, the event finally took an international accent with the presence of some european developers, Camptocamp having sent Thomas Bonfort and Olivier Courtin to take part in the sprint.

The event was “back to the roots” for the MapServer tribe, probably more resemblant to the Mapserver User Meetings, these having been superceeded in 2006 by the FOSS4G conferences where highly technical meetings between core developers are greatly reduced.

For the PostGIS tribe, this was trully a new thing, the major actual contributors having beforehand never met physically !

One of the major advantages of this kind of event is to allow a very rapid pace of development for each project, ensured by the physical (or IRC for some) presence of the major contributors who can straight away provide their expertise and visions, take decisions, and be sollicited on specific questions.

There was a strong interaction between members of each project, but also between members of different projects, learning on the way how to make their code best interact
with one another.

The second advantage of these meetings is that they help build up and keep a team dynamic, which is somewhat harder to obtain solely through online discussion and exchanges.

And the building of a dynamic for 20 people spanning a 4 day period was clearly addressed, beginning right at the first evening the day before the sprint at the local bar, a beer in one hand, a burger in the other, with geek Tshirts being the rallying apparel.

Day #1 was mainly passed on discussion and planification of the objectives and actions to take in the following days, as well the individual roadmaps for each project. This lively, noisy, and rich in propositions first day finished on a virile and sportive event, namely
a Hockey game between a Canadian and American team. For us europeans not used to icerings, the show was permanent, passing from intense game periods, to manly fights between players, to entertainment between the game periods (with a musical band, cheerleaders, and superhero contests)

The following days were much more “to the point”, alterning intense studious periods where only the keyboards clicking could be heard aside from the AC fan and the cans of pop being opened (the choice of said pops having been longly discussed on the sprint list beforehand, of course !), and animated technical discussions that necessitated or led to the intervention of the concerned gurus.

The daily ending call around 6PM was the sign that our physical needs should take the pace over our intellectual ones (in other words, that it was time for beer and food!).

Nevertheless, these moments weren’t solely fun and games, as many technical and fructuous discussions took place late into the night.

The last day (#4 for the initiated) was somewhat slower, as folks were getting tired and slowly leaving depending on the time of their flight back home.

All in all, it was a real pleasure to meet all these great people, and getting to share some well-spent time together. As you can imagine, the public was essentially masculin, Regina Obe of PostGIS fame being the sole feminine presence on this weekend of the international women’s day!

The theme of the session had been clearly set by Paul beforehand, namely “The Need for Speed”, as a beneficial emulation has existed since 2007 between the C and JAVA tribes on the grounds of pure performance.

And you have to know that for the C tribe, being caught up on the grounds of pure performance is in the very least a direct affront, so a proportionate response had to be taken! We do have some margin before we get to throw our gloves on the ground and start a fight like what we saw on the ice ring though!

This post gives the general tone of the event, we’ll elaborate in the next couple of posts on the more technical details of what was accomplished, namely on the performance front, the respect of OGC/ISO standards, and the creation of high quality and high resolution maps.

Paul successfuly managed to obtain sponsorship and to create the impulsion to unite more than 20 developpers essentially from the MapServer , PostGIS and GDAL communities, but also TinyOWS , libLAS and OpenLayers (a couple of developpers from closed-source MrSid were also present).

A big thanks to him and to Tom Kralidis for looking after the logistics of the events, and to the sponsors for financially participating to allow this to happen.

At first sounding North-American only, the event finally took an international accent with the presence of some european developers, Camptocamp having sent Thomas Bonfort and Olivier Courtin to take part in the sprint.

The event was "back to the roots" for the MapServer tribe, probably more resemblant to the Mapserver User Meetings, these having been superceeded in 2006 by the FOSS4G conferences where highly technical meetings between core developers are greatly reduced.

For the PostGIS tribe, this was trully a new thing, the major actual contributors having beforehand never met physically !

One of the major advantages of this kind of event is to allow a very rapid pace of development for each project, ensured by the physical (or IRC for some) presence of the major contributors who can straight away provide their expertise and visions, take decisions, and be sollicited on specific questions.

There was a strong interaction between members of each project, but also between members of different projects, learning on the way how to make their code best interact
with one another.

The second advantage of these meetings is that they help build up and keep a team dynamic, which is somewhat harder to obtain solely through online discussion and exchanges.

And the building of a dynamic for 20 people spanning a 4 day period was clearly addressed, beginning right at the first evening the day before the sprint at the local bar, a beer in one hand, a burger in the other, with geek Tshirts being the rallying apparel.

Day #1 was mainly passed on discussion and planification of the objectives and actions to take in the following days, as well the individual roadmaps for each project. This lively, noisy, and rich in propositions first day finished on a virile and sportive event, namely
a Hockey game between a Canadian and American team. For us europeans not used to icerings, the show was permanent, passing from intense game periods, to manly fights between players, to entertainment between the game periods (with a musical band, cheerleaders, and superhero contests)

The following days were much more "to the point", alterning intense studious periods where only the keyboards clicking could be heard aside from the AC fan and the cans of pop being opened (the choice of said pops having been longly discussed on the sprint list beforehand, of course !), and animated technical discussions that necessitated or led to the intervention of the concerned gurus.

The daily ending call around 6PM was the sign that our physical needs should take the pace over our intellectual ones (in other words, that it was time for beer and food!).

Nevertheless, these moments weren’t solely fun and games, as many technical and fructuous discussions took place late into the night.

The last day (#4 for the initiated) was somewhat slower, as folks were getting tired and slowly leaving depending on the time of their flight back home.

All in all, it was a real pleasure to meet all these great people, and getting to share some well-spent time together. As you can imagine, the public was essentially masculin, Regina Obe of PostGIS fame being the sole feminine presence on this weekend of the international women’s day!

The theme of the session had been clearly set by Paul beforehand, namely "The Need for Speed", as a beneficial emulation has existed since 2007 between the C and JAVA tribes on the grounds of pure performance.

And you have to know that for the C tribe, being caught up on the grounds of pure performance is in the very least a direct affront, so a proportionate response had to be taken! We do have some margin before we get to throw our gloves on the ground and start a fight like what we saw on the ice ring though!

This post gives the general tone of the event, we’ll elaborate in the next couple of posts on the more technical details of what was accomplished, namely on the performance front, the respect of OGC/ISO standards, and the creation of high quality and high resolution maps.

Thomas Bonfort, Senior Developper (MapServer) & Olivier Courtin, GIS Expert (PotGIS & OGC)