volumetric data from a WCS

[Frank Warmerdam]

On 7/13/05, Norman Barker <nbarker at rsinc.com> wrote:
>  
> Hi, 
>   
> I am really asking this question on behalf of Andrew Woolf, after he raised
> it in a meeting today. 
>   
> In the WCS spec it should be possible to request BBOX as x,y,z (if the data
> format in the describe 
> coverage) supports it.  This is kind of important for weather data,
> currently we work around this using 
> the bands to be a z dimension.  This isn't really true though, and leads to
> problems with generalised 
> clients interpreting the data. 
>   
> Is it possible to extend GDAL (and hence MapServer) to use 3D/4D+ data sets?
>   
> The bands and temporal subsetting are great, and are really fast, just a
> BBOX of x,y,z would be useful. 

Norman, 

I don't think it is practical for GDAL to be truely 3D.    So
for the forseeable future 3D or 4D datasets will end up being
treated as stacks of bands, or some other sort of collection of
2D bands or datasets.

The image objects that MapServer draws into are also 
essentially a stack of 2D bands.  In theory MapServer is
more malleable in this regard, but it isn't a direction I am eager
to pursue. 

To be honest if you want a true volumetric WCS and the 
"stack of bands" approach doesn't work for you, you might be
better off implementing from scratch rather than trying to change
the MapServer data model appropriately.

Best regards,
-- 
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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