serving WMS true color maps

Frank Warmerdam fwarmerdam at GMAIL.COM
Fri Aug 26 09:51:18 EDT 2005


On 8/26/05, Frederic Claudel <fclaudel at csir.co.za> wrote:
> It looks like you cannot restrict formats available in the WMS GetCapabilities document. You always have image/png, image/gif (I tried with Mapserver 4.4 and 4.7 from FWTools.)
> Is there a way around that issue?

Frederic,

You are correct that currently I don't think there is a way to restrict
the builtin formats from being offered for WMS.   However, you can 
override the built-ins if you use the same name for an outputformat. 
So you could create an outputformat called GIF, but set all the
parameters up as png24 or jpeg.  

It is a very small change to the code to comment out some of
the default formats, but if you are using pre-built binaries I can 
see that would not be convenient. 

There has been some discussion of a mechanism (perhaps 
WEB object level metadata) to control the list of formats offered
for WMS but nothing has been done on that.  If you are willing 
you could try and promote that activity on mapserver-dev.   I 
would likely be willing to implement such a feature if you took
care of bringing forward a proposal and getting it approved by the
TSC.  Something like:
  METADATA
     "wms_formats" "gif,png,png24"
  END

in the web section.  If not found, the default output format list will
be used (as now).

I think there is also an open bug report on this issue, mostly related
to excluding non-raster formats like pdf, html and so forth in 
capabilities reports. 

> The clients I'd like to use are:
>  - Udig 1.0.0 (not beta)

I would also encourage you to advocate greater user control for 
formats with the uDig team. 

> PS: I actually think the WMS spec needs a way for a client to explicitly ask for an indexed / or truecolor map.

I concur.  The opaqueness of format features in WMS is a frustration to  
me as well. 

> This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner,
> and is believed to be clean.  MailScanner thanks Transtec Computers for their support.

Ah, but has the email been scanned for thought-crime?  Perhaps that
is a new area of potential in the mail scanning business. 

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent



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