tileindexes, time and raster inputs

[Yewondwossen Assefa]

> I have been trying to work with Denis Nadeau (NASA) on setting up a
> mapserver instance with temporal support.  He has provided me a small
> test setup showing what they want to do, but has been having a lot of
> trouble getting proper functioning.
> 
> The basic setup is a common one.  A bunch of images for the same region
> with different times.  Denis has setup a tileindex properly with a TIME
> column with the dates for each image (daily).
> 
> We have the following stuff set on the layer:
> 
>      TILEINDEX 'data/AIRS/testindex.shp'
>      TILEITEM  'location'
>      METADATA
>        wms_title        "Aqua AIRS Visible/NIR False Color Composite, 10 km 
> resolution, registered"   ##required
>        wms_timeextent  "2006-06-10/2006-06-18"
>        wms_timeitem    "TIME"
>        wms_timedefault "2006-06-10"
>     END
> 
> I found this was not working when I made a request with a time set.
> Internally the msLayerMakePlainTimeFilter() was being used which generated
> filter expressions like "TIME = '2006-03-10'".  To get things working I
> have modified rasters layers to default to using the
> msLayerMakeBackticsTimeFilter() which is what is used for in-mapserver
> filter expression evaluation with times for formats like shapefiles.  Since
> direct tileindexes in raster layers need to be shapefiles, this seems like
> the most appropriate default.
> 
> OK, one problem solved.  Perhaps I should move the fix into 4.8.x as well?

I personnaly think you should add it to the 4.8.x release. The issue 
with tileindex and rasters was marked as fixed in another bug (1506) but 
I guess was broken at one point.


> DEFAULT TIME
> ------------
> 
> The next problem is that if I don't include &TIME=something in the request
> url, the default time is not used.  Shouldn't it be?  It seems I have to
> add "&TIME=" (that is an empty time request) in order to get the default
> time to kick in.  Is that the desired behavior?  This is annoying in this
> application context since we end up rendering all the time images (quick
> slow) if a WMS request is made without an explicit time.  Denis and I had
> assumed the default time would be used any time the user did not supply
> a time.
> 
> 

  After reading carefully the specs of wms 1.1.1 there is this paragrah 
(Annec C 4.1) that suggests that your assumptions are correct :

"...The absence of Time or Elevation parameters is equivalent to a 
request for the Layer’s default value (if defined) along that dimension;..."

So it makes sense to change the current behaviour to reflect this. If 
changes are made to reftect this, note that if a layer is time aware 
(ows/wms_timeextent and ows/wms_timefield metadata are defined) but the 
default time is not given (which is not manadatory but desired element), 
a request to a GetMap on that layer would return an exception.

  I missed this parahrah at implemenation time and only implemented the 
use of the default value when the value was missing (which is also 
defined in the specs).  Code modification to change it is minimal. Le me 
know if you want me to chenge it or you will do it.


> TILEINDEX LAYERS
> ----------------
> 
> The next problem I encountered was when trying to use a distinct tileindex
> layer.  This did not seem to work for me, and generally resulted in
> everything being selected.  I tried copying the time metadata to the
> tileindex layer in the hopes it would then get the time filter assigned
> to it, but that did not seem to occur.  The raster layer's filter was
> set (with backtics) but this filter is not propagated on to the tileindex
> layer in mapraster.c.
> 
> How should this work?  How do others handle it?  It also seems that
> direct propogation from the raster layer to the tileindex layer isn't
> safe since the tileindex layer may use a different time query format,
> so the time query needs to be generated directly on the tileindex layer.
> 

Not sure I understand this properly ? how is this diffrent from what is 
descibed in point 1 ?

> As an aside, I was also frustrated trying to hide the tileindex layer
> (TYPE TILEINDEX) from showing up in the capabilities.  Is there a simple
> way of ensuring some layers don't appear there?

  Not that I know. I beleive there were discussions on the list at some 
point but not sure if there was a proposed solution (I could not locate 
a bug on it)

Later,
-- 
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Assefa Yewondwossen
Software Analyst

Email: assefa at dmsolutions.ca
http://www.dmsolutions.ca/

Phone: (613) 565-5056 (ext 14)
Fax:   (613) 565-0925
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