Short description of the WMS standard
The OGC Web Map Service (WMS) standard provides a simple interface for requesting geo-registered map images from one or more distributed geospatial databases or geoinformation systems. A WMS request defines the geographic layer(s) and area of interest to be processed. The response to the request is one or more geo-registered 2D map images (returned as JPEG, PNG, etc) that can be displayed in a browser application. The interface also supports the ability to specify whether the returned images should be transparent so that layers from multiple servers can be combined or not.
WMS operations
The OGC WMS specification support the following operation:
GetCapabilities - Retrieves metadata about the service, including supported operations and parameters, and a list of the available layers
GetMap - Retrieves a map image for a specified area and content
GetFeatureInfo (optional) - Retrieves the underlying data, including geometry and attribute values, for a pixel location on a map
DescribeLayer (optional) - Indicates the WFS or WCS to retrieve additional information about the layer.
GetLegendGraphic (optional) - Retrieves a generated legend for a map
The Role of WMS in SDDI
Currently, no own WMS is operated within the SSD project. However, for many of the SSD districts WMS are provided by regional Spatial Data Infrastructures.
Standard Specification
Specification documents: http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wms
Implementations / Products
The following selection of products was made by the SDDI team and includes those implementations which are (or likely will be) used in the SSD project and from which we know that they are compatible with the requirements of the Smart Sustainable Data Infrastructure. Please note that the list is not a complete list of available or suitable WMS implementations. The Open Geospatial Consortium provides a catalog of implementations of their standards which can be found at http://www.opengeospatial.org/resource. Note that also the OGC list is not complete and not necessarily completely up-to-date.
WMS service implementations:
| Name | License | Homepage | Short description | Used in SSD districts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geoserver | Open Source | http://geoserver.org/ | Geoserver is a free and open source server for sharing geospatial data. It is an OGC compliant implementation of a number of open standards including Web Map Service. GeoServer supports WMS 1.1.1, the most widely used version of WMS, as well as WMS 1.3.0. | |
| MapServer | Open Source | http://mapserver.org | MapServer is an Open Source platform for publishing spatial data and interactive mapping applications to the web. MapServer is released under an MIT-style license, and runs on all major platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X). Like Geoserver, it also supports WMS 1.1.1 and 1.3.0. | |
| deegree | Open Source | http://www.deegree.org | deegree is open source software for spatial data infrastructures and the geospatial web. deegree offers components for geospatial data management, including data access, visualization, discovery and security. It supports WMS 1.1.1 and 1.3.0. | |
| ArcGIS Server | Proprietary | http://www.esri.com/en/arcgis/products/arcgis-enterprise/overview | ArcGIS Server is the core server geographic information system (GIS) software made by Esri. ArcGIS Server is used for creating and managing GIS Web services, applications, and data. It allows setting up all the versions of WMS. |
WMS implementations of clients, interfaces, and libraries required to access and work with a WMS service:
| Name | Type | License | Homepage | Short description | Used in SSD districts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenLayers | Webclient | Open Source | https://github.com/3dcitydb/web-feature-service | OpenLayers is an open source JavaScript library for displaying map data in web browsers. It provides an API for building rich web-based geographic applications similar to Google Maps and Bing Maps. It supports publishing map data from any source using WMS. | |
Cesium | Webclient | Open Source | https://cesiumjs.org/ | Cesium is an open source JavaScript package supporting the presentation of 3D contents within the web browser where users can dynamically switch between 3D globe visualization and 2D map projection. It utilizes HTML5 and WebGL to provide hardware acceleration and plugin independence and provides cross-platform, cross-browser, and cross-device functionalities. It supports publishing maps from a WMS. | |
| Google Earth | Client application | Free, but not Open Source | https://www.google.com/earth/ | Google Earth is a virtual globe developed by Google and supports displaying satellite imageries, aerial photography, topographic maps, and KML files. Google Earth is also a WMS client and allows publishing maps from a WMS. | |
| FME WMS Reader | FME Reader | Proprietary | www.safe.com | FME is a software developed by Safe Software and facilitates the transformation of spatial data into a variety of formats, data models and repositories for transmission to end users. It includes a WMS Reader which allows to define WMS requests and retrieve maps. | |
| QGIS WMS Client | In-built | Open Source | http://www.qgis.org | QGIS is a cross-platform free and open-source desktop GIS application that supports viewing, editing, and analysis of geospatial data. It also supports functionalities to directly load maps from WMS and add them as a layer. | |
| ArcGIS Desktop | In-built | Proprietary | http://desktop.arcgis.com | ArcGIS Desktop allows to directly use Web Map Service (WMS) services as data sources for map layers. Each WMS service may contain multiple data sources. In these cases, each data source will be added as a separate map layer in ArcMap. |
Additional Information
to be provided