Retrieving raster data

We will use WCS to get raster data by using the sample data shipped with GeoServer. In case you disabled it, as we did in Chapter 11, Tuning GeoServer in a Production Environment, you will need to enable the WCS in GeoServer. Like in the WFS examples, we will use Curl for sending requests:

1. As with WFS, the first operation we will use is GetCapabilities. It returns a list of available coveragetype and operations:

      $ curl -XGET "http://localhost/geoserver/wcs?
        service=wcs&version=1.0.0&request=GetCapabilities"
        -o getCapabilities.xml

2. The following lines show you the brief description for a coverage, extracted from the list returned:

      <wcs:CoverageOfferingBrief> 
        <wcs:description>A very rough imagery of North
         America</wcs:description> 
        <wcs:name>nurc:Img_Sample...