Raster masking with gdal_rasterize and PostGIS

Clips an elevation file of Poland to the outlines of the country, plus .12 degrees. Gives a nicely buffered edge.

gdal_rasterize -b 1 -i -burn -9999 PG:'host=localhost dbname='unep'' -sql "SELECT ST_buffer(the_geom, .12) from coastlines where name='Poland'" Poland_elev.tif

Upside down NetCDF created with GDAL

Python Douglas Peuker algorithm

http://mappinghacks.com/code/dp.py.txt

Mapserver read NetCDF

OUTPUTFORMAT
NAME GEOTIFF_FLOAT
DRIVER "GDAL/GTiff"
MIMETYPE "image/tiff"
IMAGEMODE FLOAT32
EXTENSION "tif"
END

LAYER
NAME "mynetcdf"
STATUS OFF
TYPE RASTER
DUMP TRUE
DATA "mydata.nc"
METADATA
wcs_label "Test netCDF Server"
ows_extent '-0.5625 -89.69761276245117 359.4375 89.69761276245117'
wcs_resolution '1.125 -1.1212201595306397'
ows_srs "EPSG:4326"
wcs_formats "GEOTIFF_FLOAT"
wcs_nativeformat "netCDF"
wcs_bandcount "27"
wcs_rangeset_axes "bands"
wcs_rangeset_label "Atmospheric Levels"
wcs_rangeset_name "bands"
END
END

See also: http://mapserver.org/ogc/wcs_format.html#netcdf