[Mapserver-dev] MapServer and OGC services

[Tom.Kralidis at CCRS.NRCan.gc.ca]

Hi,

I'd like to provide a few comments w.r.t. MapServer current and forthcoming
support of OGC services, and development of them.  This comes after I set up
a WMS with MapServer, and was looking to set up WFS as well.

Currently, MapServer provides WMS publishing by means of directives through
the mapfile, whose structure is basically "wms_<parameter>" "value".
Populating these fields produces the appropriate information to respond to
an OGC WMS GetCapabilities request.

According to the following wiki:

http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WFSMapServer

..one can have WFS functionality also by using a similar nomenclature, i.e.
"wfs_<parameter>" "value", in various areas of a mapfile.

Having said this, I find myself adding directives with the same information
in order to publish as WMS and WFS, i.e.

LAYER
 NAME roads
 METADATA
  "wms_title" "road network"
  "wfs_title" "road network"
 END
...
END

While this may not be a huge deal, given the limited OGC services supported
by MapServer, what happens when MapServer supports other OGC services,
current and / or forthcoming?

Perhaps an abstracted model and approach should be put forth in the mapfile?
i.e.

LAYER
 NAME roads
 METADATA
  TITLE "road network"
  ABSTRACT "This is a road network"
  ...
 END
...
END

This would streamline the approach for those populating mapfiles; also the
software can fork out the information, depending on the type of request it
gets (i.e. services=wms|wfs|...).  I guess what I'm saying is that thought
should be given to MapServer working with this information independently,
and not having to add parameters according to specs, yet publish information
as per the spec using the internal model of the mapfiles.

Comments?

..Tom

=================================
Tom Kralidis
Systems Scientist
Canada Centre for Remote Sensing
Tel: (613) 947-1828
http://www.cgdi.ca/
=================================