Add Vector building footprints to Geoserver

[alexander-petkov]

Add vector building footprints to the Geoserver catalog.

Data source:

https://github.com/microsoft/USBuildingFootprints

[alexander-petkov]

Check out Mapbox GL used as a platform to display vector data:

https://blog.mapbox.com/announcing-mapbox-gl-for-the-web-16a41e07df43

[alexander-petkov]

Some good tips on optimizing geometry storage in Postgis: http://www.danbaston.com/posts/2018/02/15/optimizing-postgis-geometries.html

[alexander-petkov]

Here is an example of extracting building footprints within some distance of a coordinate pair:

https://aws.wfas.net/geoserver/bing/wfs?
              service=WFS&version=1.1.0
              &request=GetFeature&typeName=bing%3Anearest_buildings
             &outputformat=shape-zip&viewparams=lon:-114.014429;lat:46.861;distance:100

Explanation:

1. nearest_buildings is the name of a parameterized view with the following parameters:
2. lon: desired longitude (-180 to 180)
3. lat: desired latitude (0 to 90)
4. distance: maximum distance (in meters) to nearest buildings
5. outputFormat: return results in a zipped archive containing a shapefile

GetMap result for the above parameters:

[alexander-petkov]

Follow the WPS Request examples wiki for getting a count for features intersecting a geometry.