ARCIMS user question

[Steve Lime]

Hi Eric: This would be doable with just the basic MapServer CGI application that you get with MS4W. It sounds like the data may be as simple as:

  shape  date  ph
  -------  -----  --

So you'd want to take advantage of the runtime substitution that MapServer can do. On your webpage let's say you have a select list for the date called "mydate" so then you'd have a layer def like so:

LAYER
  NAME 'water_quality'
  TYPE POINT
  STATUS DEFAULT 
  DATA 'water_quality' # the shapefile
  FILTERITEM 'DATE'
  FILTER '%mydate%'
  CLASSITEM 'PH'
  ...now the class definitions...
END
  
By setting the value for mydate the user would effectively be setting a filter so that only points with data on that date would be displayed. Should be pretty straight forward.

Steve

>>> "D. Eric Keefauver" <Eric.Keefauver at ALTARUM.ORG> 04/24/06 11:06 AM >>>
Hello,

I have been using ArcIMS 9.1 to deploy internet GIS applications for a
while now and have looked into MapServer as a substitute to ArcIMS (only to
the point of setting up a successful demo version of the ITACSA data but
using my data sets).

My question is this: I am looking into having map "service" setup where I
have one shapefile that will render water quality data from a database
(let's say it's a point file). The water quality data is date specific with
associated PH values, so in the end we have, say 40 points that each have
many water quality data values with dates when the testing was completed.
I am thinking of a small application where there could be a drop-down box
where the user could select a date and the map would render the point file
w-quality values on the fly for the selected date. Is this something that
is possible and if so, what would I need to have installed other than
Mapserver MS4W. I am very new to Mapserver. Any information would be
helpful.

Regards,

Eric