[mapserver-users] ArcIMS Gateway

[Stephen Lime]

Hmmmm... An interesting idea but I'd rather see ESRI stop being so friggin
proprietary. The Geography Network is supposed to be open yet you must
be an ESRI user to participlate at any meaningful level. Ask tech support
none of the "open" pieces are actually there yet. Note that Dan added
support for external WMS layers (i.e. you can access ArcIMS if there is
a wrapper in front).

Mapping ArcXML to WMS or even MapServer shouldn't be that hard. The
reason I lump MapServer in there is because WMS isn't all that feature
rich,
yet.

Steve

Paul Ramsey wrote:

> Mapserverers,
>
>   We have started playing with ArcGIS 8.1 and were pleased and
> interested to note that it supports adding an "Internet Server" as a
> data layer. ESRI is certainly picking up the "distributed GIS" ball.
> There is, of course, one small catch: when ESRI says "internet server"
> they mean "ArcIMS server". :)
>
>   ESRI actually packages a little module with ArcIMS which sits in front
> of IMS and turns OGC Web Map Server requests into IMS-style requests.
> Basically a WMS emulator. I was thinking that it would be useful to have
> an emulator which does the reverse: sits in front of a WMS server and
> turns IMS-style requests into WMS requests -- an IMS emulator. That way
> people could use WMS servers for external data serving and still be able
> to add those WMS layers to ArcGIS projects.
>
>   So (1) has anyone already done this? and (2) does anyone see any
> notable pitfalls in doing so?
>
> Paul