GeoWebCache has been pulled apart and put together again with Spring, the result is version 0.8.0 (click here to download WAR and source) and it is much more modular and configurable than previous versions. The goal of this exercise was to make it easier to integrate with GeoServer, which has already been done and will be documented very soon. GWC can now configure itself automatically based on a WMS getCapabilities document and serve both EPSG:4326 and EPSG:900913 using the same layer definition. It can also create KML super-overlays for Google Earth, in addition to the Virtual Earth and Google Maps support that was introduced in 0.7.2.

Along the way I learned that there have been some issues with JPEG and metatiling, and consequently GeoWebCache now falls back to Java 2D (instead of JAI) when dealing with those. Note that URLs used in GWC, and a few configuration parameters, have changed since the previous version.

The GeoServer team would like to announce the release of 1.6.3. This is a stable release containing over 30 patches and improvements since 1.6.2.

One of the more visible additions is support for watermarking. People have been asking for this for some time, so thanks to GeoSolutions for implementing it. Also, coverage reprojection now works much better. Thanks to Martin Desruisseaux of Geomatys for the continued support on the GeoServer CRS subsystem. KML generation has been optimized (faster, less memory consumption) especially when dealing with large geometries. GeoServer supports so many projections natively, but that can have its downsides, namely when certain clients aren’t prepared for the size of the capabilities document! Now the SRS list can be limited in the WMS capabilities. Special thanks to Gabriel Roldán for the above two features.

You can view the 1.6.3 changelog for details, and download from geoserver.org. Thanks to the community for continually improving GeoServer. Please continue to submit those bug reports and feature requests.

Development pushes ever on here, and I’d like to mention that the very first build of the 1.7.x branch has been released. 1.7.0-alpha1 is very much an alpha release, with the usual applicable caveats. The major developments are Xlink support for WFS 1.1 and a full implementation of WCS 1.1.1. This release is based on GeoTools 2.5.x.

GeoTools 2.5.x contains the new feature model, which should be able to handle the full complexity of GML and any other model that architects may throw at us.  There is still a lot of work to fully incorporate it in to GeoServer, but this alpha release does represent the first step forward towards that goal.

You can get 1.7.0-alpha1 on the Latest download page, while 1.6.2 is still available on the Stable page.

The Open Planning Project (TOPP), the main sponsor of GeoServer development, is pleased to announce the recent hiring of Andreas Hocevar, one of the top five committers of OpenLayers, the default front end mapping engine for GeoServer.  Andreas has been doing a lot of work in OpenLayers on SLD, the open standard to style maps, which is what GeoServer uses to define styles.  His initial work will be focused on intuitive creation of SLDs for GeoServer, utilizing OpenLayers and the Ext.js gui framework.  This will be one of the main pieces of the plan to let everyone remix maps.  Afterwards he will continue to work on applications built on both frameworks and open standards.  We are excited to have Andreas aboard to help TOPP continue to expand its offerings to a full open geospatial stack, and to strengthen the relationship between GeoServer and OpenLayers.

Just wanted to get a quick note in the blog, that Google Summer of Code is now open for student applications. GeoServer is participating as part of OSGeo’s project. We participated last year as well, and had a great success with Chris Whitney’s JTileCache project, which has since evolved in to GeoWebcache. There is the opportunity to improve GeoWebcache this year, as well as potential projects on SQL Server, some Amazon Web Services related ones, spatial index for H2 and more. See the ideas page, and if you’re a student (or mentor) with another idea please don’t hesitate to propose it. The developers can help flesh out ideas on the lists and on IRC.  Oh, and the deadline for students to apply is March 31st, next Monday, so get working on your applications as soon as possible, as the process moves quickly.