[mapserver-users] ArcIMS Gateway

[Bruno Gendron]

Hi to everyone,

I have been working a lot lately in creating a
PHP-Mapscript-based ArcXML-parser for Mapserver, which
handles basically 2/3 of the ArcXML 1.1 <REQUEST> spec
and returns an ArcXML <RESPONSE> to any ArcXML-enabled
client. Actually, the parser talks directly to
Mapserver, but it could be modified to forward its
request an WMS format to any WMS-compliant server and
back.

However, my work is part of a larger project, which
include a Flash-DHTML Mapserver client, and I don't
know at this point in time if this ArcXML-parser will
be in the public domain (a public demo will go on-line
soon, so stay tuned).

So, basically, yes, something closely related has been
done, and, no, I haven't seen any pitfall in doing
this. In respect to Mapserver, the mapfile structure
can easily (hum!) related to ArcXML tags. The nice
thing with ArcXML is that it could be easily extended
to include special geo-processing tags (I am in the
process of creating such tags to handle complex
queries).

Bruno Gendron
GIS consultant
Lachine, Canada

--- Paul Ramsey <pramsey at refractions.net> a écrit : >
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 

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