MapServer and OGC WMT specs

[Stephen Lime]

Couple of comments. All aspects of the WMT (with the possible exception of #2) are
supportable via MapScript. Plans are to use MapScript to support all the get functions,
should be pretty straight forward. Since MapScript can interact with shapefiles and
inline features directly SVG support is not out of the question either.

On the projection end. Word has it that Frank Warmerdam is looking into adapting
Proj.4 to accept EPSG codes too. Hopefully that means not mods to the MapServer
will be necessary. Will have to check on this one.

A MapScript based solution would need to directly interact with any application data and
configuration files to build an image, do a query or return features using SVG or whatever. 
There is no redirection like the current script. In those cases I think it'd be necessary for 
the wrapper to live with the application. I don't think that's a bad thing since it keeps
things in one place. There are certainly enough other ways to make apps look like they
live one place when they're actually someplace else.

Steve

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst

Minnesota DNR
500 Lafayette Road
St. Paul, MN 55155
651-297-2937

>>> Rob Atkinson <rob at socialchange.net.au> 05/04/00 04:22PM >>>

Hi,

the perl wrapper is workable but needs some work.

also JRC in Italy have built a mapscript version using WMS 0.1 - this is trivial
to update to WMS 1.0. Its at the same level of complexity.
I have mapserv and the wrapper running on UNIX and NT - in fact its all running
under W98 on my laptop.

TODO #1: We need to build a GML response to getFeatureInfo query - GML issues
are being thrashed out now - this should be easy enough to do.

TODO #2: The big issue is CGI control over projection - I've yet to see a
working example of the syntax and havent had time to reverse engineer the code
to try. The script will have to map EPSG codes into mapserver (PROJ 4)
equivalents.

TODO #3: we ought to give it the ability to parse the .map file and build the
capabilities XML automatically.

The wrapper can run on any web server - so we dont need to have access to the
actual installation to make it WMS compliant - however to parse the map file we
would. Any ideas how best to overcome that?

Rob Atkinson


"Sullivan, James R." wrote:

> I would be interested in the answer to this question, too.  Besides the
> capabilities XML file, have there been any more XML DTD's, etc produced for
> Mapserver?
>
> Jim Sullivan
> NIMA / TE
>
>         -----Original Message-----
>         From:   Daniel Morissette [SMTP:danmo at videotron.ca] 
>         Sent:   Wednesday, May 03, 2000 2:57 PM
>         To:     mapserver-users
>         Cc:     ddnebert at usgs.gov 
>         Subject:        MapServer and OGC WMT specs
>
>         Hi,
>
>         We have a client that wants to setup a network of satellite servers
>         based on MapServer and compliant with the OGC-WMT specs.  I know
> that a
>         little while ago, Doug Nebert made available a first version of an
>         OGC-WMT wrapper for MapServer written in MapScript.  I haven't given
>         this wrapper a try yet, but I would be interested in hearing the
> status
>         of that project and any other effort that might be happening on that
>         front... I would rather spend my time improving (and promoting) an
>         existing solution than start another one from scratch.
>
>         Also, since Doug's wrapper uses Perl, and our client wants to use
> some
>         WinNT servers, I would be interested in hearing from groups that
> have
>         succesfully used the Perl version of MapScript on Win NT.  I am
> already
>         familiar with compiling, installing and using MapServer on NT, but I
>         haven't used Perl on NT myself, so I am looking for hints on the
> best
>         Perl solution with Apache on WinNT, and also any MapScript
> compilation
>         and setup issues, if any... etc.
>
>         Thanks,
>         --
>         ------------------------------------------------------------
>          Daniel Morissette                       danmo at videotron.ca 
>                       http://pages.infinit.net/danmo/ 
>         ------------------------------------------------------------
>           Don't put for tomorrow what you can do today, because if
>               you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow.