[mapserver-users] mapserver and netCDF data format.

[Frank Warmerdam]

abhijeet kodgire wrote:
> My question here was, Can we upload/publish the netCDF data with WCS 
> protocol and then get spatial/temporal subset of it back as netCDF file 
> with GetCoverage request? 

Abhijeet,

In general yes.  But I would advise you to start by investigating how
well GDAL supports the netcdf data you would like to work with.  It
will generally try and "unroll" temporal dimensions as raster bands
but it sometimes has problems correcting identifying what dimension
is what.

I have not personally used the temporal support in MapServer WCS
so I'm not too sure how well it works.  At the least it may be fairly
involved to use it.

> If yes, How to publish your netCDF data with WCS ? what is the
 > output of GetCoverage request? (Is it netCDF file or
> some other format?).

You can configure desired output formats for WCS using the
OUTPUTFORMAT block in a map file.  It is certainly possible to
offer netcdf products from MapServer WCS with the correct
configuration.

Be aware that MapServer/GDAL netcdf output is relatively
simplistic.  You will need to investigate it's suitability
for your needs.

> Does GDAL library convert the netCDF data to some other format nd 
> publish it with mapserver? I was wondering how t works.

GDAL is the raster reading library for MapServer and MapServer
can directly consume any raster format supported by GDAL without
conversion as long as things are built properly.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
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