[mapserver-users] Bewbie question about MapServer and WPS

[Jeff McKenna]

Hi Petros,

Since you are examining WPS, I recommend ZOO-Project 
(http://zoo-project.org/), from the MapServer family, which supports 
writing services in many languages (C, Python, PHP, JavaScript, ...), as 
well as creating GDAL/OGR services, and even outputting dynamic 
MapServer WMS services on-the-fly (meaning: it creates a MapServer 
mapfile that serves the result through a web map service).

But here is a great working example:

- MapServer is serving the background data (spatialite database) here 
through GeoJSON/WMS and the application leverages ZOO-Project to execute 
spatial commands (buffer etc).  Give it a try at 
https://ms4w.dev/zoo-project/demo/

If you check Developer Tools in your browser, you will see at call to 
the ZOO loader (https://ms4w.dev/cgi-bin/zoo_loader.cgi) and sending a 
request such as https://pastebin.com/nhpyc2jx

And the response from MapServer in GeoJSON: https://pastebin.com/G2VEVYRF

All thanks to the power of ZOO-Project WPS !!!

Hope that opens doors for you.

-jeff



-- 
Jeff McKenna
MapServer Consulting and Training Services
https://gatewaygeomatics.com/



On 2020-02-26 8:43 a.m., Petros.Likidis at scb.se wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I have to warn you that I am entirely new to GIS and all the terminology 
> so my questions might be strange. Nevertheless, my company wish to 
> expose a service that receives a polygon as input and outputs 
> statistical data about the area defined by the polygon. For instance, it 
> could be the number of residents in different age groups, the average 
> income, the number of companies divided by industry, etc.
> 
> The service will aggregated the statistical data on the fly according to 
> input polygon. Then it will then preform some type of disclosure control 
> of the aggregated data before it is send back to the caller. I guess 
> that this service should be exposed as a WPS service or is there any 
> other type of service that is more appropriate if it should be 
> consumable from other GIS-applications?
> 
> If it should be a WPS will I be able to expose it through MapServer? If 
> MapServer can do this or am I bound to use a specific programing 
> language or can MapServer start an arbitrary program that dose the 
> processing?
> 
> Kind regards
> 
> Petros
>