North Dakota GIS Day 2003: Presentations
Web Mapping Services: A New Age in Sharing Geospatial Data
Presenter: Brian C. Fischer, GIS Specialist
Houston Engineering, Inc.
What do you think of when you think of Web Mapping Services? Maybe you think of the North Dakota GIS Hub or any interactive Web GIS application. In actuality web mapping services can mean a lot of different things to people. Web mapping services are becoming the industry standard when it comes to sharing geospatial data. Now wouldn't this be great if sharing the geospatial data through the web was software independent. Meaning any client software could work with any web mapping service. In order for this to happen there would need to be standards developed amongst the GIS industry. Is this a reality?
The idea of open standards for sharing geospatial data is not new. In fact there is a large consortium dedicated to the idea of creating a world where data can be shared over the web regardless of software. The organization is called the OpenGIS Consortium (http://www.opengis.org/). They have developed many specifications, but the one this presentation will focus on is the Web Mapping Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS) specification. This presentation will introduce you to the concept of OpenGIS, provide a brief overview of the specifications, give you examples of it in use and discuss how it is implemented in a few GIS software packages.
One particular software toolkit that implements the WMS and WFS specification is MapServer (http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/). MapServer is an open source web mapping software package, meaning it is free, developed by the University of Minnesota. This presentation will also demonstrate a few MapServer applications developed by Houston Engineering that use OpenGIS web mapping services from other organizations. The amazing thing is these applications where developed using free software. In today's budget shortages why not use affordable Internet Mapping Solutions, if it fits your need.
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