How to use ESRI Map with Mapserver?

[David Lowther]

Paul,

I guess I see two ways to approach this problem:

1 - If the web service is WMS compliant (yes, I know this is a stretch) then
you could use the service as a layer in your map configuration file.
2 - You would need to automate several steps each time you make a map:

- Request the ArcWeb Services map at an extent and projection that matches
the current extent of the map. (It's surprisingly hard to say, but what I
mean is, if you zoom in the extent changes. Request a map at this extent.)
- Create a world file from the returned image (if it doesn't exist)
- Create a dummy layer in your Mapfile for the ArcWeb image.
- Modify the Data attribute of the dummy layer with the image file you
returned above.

I'm sure there are gotchas in this scenario, but I have managed to
successfully make this work for ArcIMS and Mapserver, I can't imagine ArcWeb
Services would be that much more difficult.

David Lowther
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
Behalf Of Paul Maine(ATS)
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 10:07 AM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] How to use ESRI Map with Mapserver?

I have installed MS4W and am using a PHP5 web service to get a map image
(gif)
from ESRI Arcweb Services. How can I use the map image with MapServer? In
other
words, I desire to use this map image as the bottom layer and then use
MapServer
to add additional layers.

Thank You