[Mapserver-users] ArcIMS vs MapServer Functionality

Thu Jun 26 12:08:20 EDT 2003

Mark,

Our decision was to go with javascript on the client side. We thought that
we would save the mapscript for things that couldn't be done with straight
CGI mapserver. You can see our interface at
http://geo.ou.edu/okstatedemo.htm.

This does raise a question from my standpoint though:

Are there performance benefits to using either the CGI or Mapscript? 

David Lowther
Software Engineer
GEO Information Systems
University of Oklahoma
dlowther at ou.edu
(405) 325-3131
http://www.geo.ou.edu

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Howard Mark [mailto:MHoward at spaceimaging.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2003 10:17 AM
> To: 'Charlton Purvis'; mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> Subject: RE: [Mapserver-users] ArcIMS vs MapServer Functionality
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Hope this post is appropriate.
> I have written a JAVA servlet connector that can be used to 
> connect ArcIMS calls to a WMS server. I also have an ArcView 
> 3x extension that connects to WMS servers and also ArcIMS 
> through the JAVA servlet. SO to summarize -- you can connect :
> 
> ArcMap to ArcIMS with the standard ESRI AXL connection.
> ArcMap to any WMS server with my custom connector - I see 
> IMSEmu does this as well.
> 
> HTML apps to WMS - Mapserver. (standard).
> HTMS apps to ArcIMS with the standard  ESRI WMS connector.
> 
> ArcView 3x to WMS with my OGC/WMS extension.
> ArcView 3x to ArcIMS with my OGC/WMS extension and JAVA 
> servlet connector.
> 
> Asking for shapefiles dynamically is not really appropriate - 
> that's more of an extract thing. You'd do this only once for 
> an AOI, then use the data for spatial analysis. There is a 
> OGC WFS spec that would get you data in GML. Then you could 
> translate that to shapefiles.
> 
> I have some info on all this at:
> 
> http://jas.spaceimaging.com:1001/subscriptions/SubscriptionSer
> vices.htm
> or https://jas.spaceimaging.com/subscriptions/SubscriptionServices.htm
> 
> Mark
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charlton Purvis [mailto:cpurvis at asg.sc.edu]
> Sent: Friday, June 20, 2003 11:23 AM
> To: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> Subject: RE: [Mapserver-users] ArcIMS vs MapServer Functionality
> 
> I have been asked similar questions, and I want to make sure 
> that I've got the right answers.  Unfortunately, I haven't 
> had time to test these things out myself, so I can't speak 
> from experience.
> 
> They appear on our bulletin board here, 
> http://caro-coops.org/bb/viewtopic.php?p=346#346, in a more 
> legible format.  But I'll include a subset as part of this 
> post for your review below.
> 
> Thanks for your help.
> 
> Charlton
> 
> =========================================
> 
> (a) What is done on the MapServer end?
> 
>     MapServer can act as a WMS server and a WMS client. Who 
> cares? See (b).
> 
> (b) What is done on the ArcIMS end?
> 
>     MapServer can access data on an ArcIMS box. But using 
> only this ArcIMS Servlet Connector does not enable ArcIMS 
> boxes to understand MapServer-served data. That is addressed in (c).
> 
> Quote:
> From 
> http://www.alexandria.ucsb.edu/dev/doc/esri/Documentation/Inst
> alling_Arc
> IMS/introduction/overview.htm which is reference material for 
> ArcIMS 4.0.1.
> 
> The ArcIMS Servlet Connector is the standard connector used 
> for ArcIMS, and it supports the OpenGIS Consortium (OGC) Web 
> Map Service (WMS) 1.1.0 implementation specification. It uses 
> the ArcIMS language, ArcXML, to communicate from the Web 
> server to the ArcIMS Application Server. The ArcIMS Servlet 
> Connector provides Map Service-level user password 
> authentication. You need the ArcIMS Servlet Connector to 
> administer your ArcIMS site and author and design ArcIMS Web pages.
> 
> (c) Caveat: MapServer jumps through hoops in order to accommodate ESRI
> users: bypass a WMS approach. Instead, have MapServer provide 
> output in native ESRI formats (i.e. shapefiles).
> 
> Quote:
> According to Dave McIlhagga of DM Solutions:
> 
>     This can be achieved with the latest versions of 
> MapServer (v. 4.0) which is currently in Beta. It has been 
> re-designed to support the capacity to output data in one of 
> a number of directly accessible data formats such as 
> Shapefiles and MapInfo MITab files.
> 
>     Of course, the exact manner in which this would happen is 
> very application specific so work would have to be done in 
> one of the scripting environments to allow the application to 
> control the area of extraction you are interested in pulling 
> out, the layers you want to receive, and the format you want 
> to receive them in.
> 
> 
> (d) If all else fails, fake out the ESRI clients (like 
> ArcMap, ArcCatalog, etc.) by acting as an ArcIMS emulator. 
> This involves the use of a PostgreSQL database (w/ PostGIS 
> extensions installed).
> 
> Quote:
> According to Paul Ramsey, a PostGIS-er:
> 
>     On the bright side, ArcXML is (relatively) easy to 
> emulate. I have written an emulator 
> (http://postgis.refractions.net/download.php) called IMSEmu 
> which puts an ArcIMS interface around mapserver, allowing 
> ArcMap to connect to it directly, as if it were an ArcIMS 
> server. Ed McNierney and Steve Greenwood will shortly be 
> releasing a PHP script which has the same functionality and 
> some enhancements they have added.
> 
> 
> Bottom line is that:
> * MapServer can be a WMS server and a WMS client.
> * ESRI ArcIMS (w/ the servlet extention) can only be a WMS server.
> * The missing piece is that ArcIMS cannot be a WMS client. 
> That's where
> (c) comes in.
> 
> So let's answer some questions that were posed earlier:
> 
> (1) Can an ArcIMS user looking at a Mapserver page overlay 
> their own local arc/shape files, or alternatively easily 
> "pull" the data from the mapserver application into their 
> local arc-Ims application?
> 
> Yes: using (a) and (c). Incidentally, ESRI might be moving 
> toward becoming a WMS client, but IMS isn't there yet; other 
> Arc products are. 
> http://www.esri.com/software/opengis/interopdo> wnload.html
> 
> 
> (2) Can we do the above in reverse, i.e. data 
> served via arc-IMS to be pulled easily over mapserver plots?
> 
> Yes: using (a) and (b).
> 
> (3) I am not sure exactly how the OPeNDAP protocol would 
> function via Mapserver. In our case, we offer our data via 
> DODS but this is [not] accessible regardless of what tools we 
> provide via ArcIMS. Perhaps I am missing something here.
> 
> An interesting point. As things stand right now, the answer 
> is yes and no. We have netCDF data (and eventually HDF data) 
> on DODS servers that needs to be shared and mapped. DODS 
> allows the sharing. No problem. But to map them, I've had to 
> create scripts that retrieve these shared datasets and 
> through a few automatable steps, end up populating a MapServer map.
> 
> We're happy to share!
> 
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> 
> 
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