Styled Layer Descriptor

A Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD) is an XML schema specified by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) for describing the appearance of map layers. It is capable of describing the rendering of vector and raster data. A typical use of SLDs is to instruct a Web Map Service (WMS) of how to render a specific layer.

In August 2007 the SLD specification was split up into two new OGC specifications :

• symbology encoding implementation specification (SE)
• styled layer descriptor

Styled layer descriptor specification now only contains the protocol for communicating with a WMS about how to style a layer. The actual description of the styling is now exclusively described in the symbology encoding implementation specification.

Open-source SLD-supporting software

Desktop software

• JUMP GIS

• UDig

• AtlasStyler SLD editor

Server-side software

• GeoServer
• Mapserver

See also

• UDig
• GeoServer

External links

• OpenGIS Styled Layer Descriptor Implementation Specification
• OpenGIS Symbology Encoding Implementation Specification
• AtlasStyler SLD Editor is a free-software (LGPL) SLD Editor developed with GeoTools + Java + Swing.
• SLD Cookbook, a collection of simple SLD code samples, part of the GeoServer User Manual.