MoreThe Open GIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC) today announced the availability of the Web Map Service (WMS) Cookbook version 1.0, the first in a planned series of books detailing the implementation and use of OpenGIS Specifications. WMS defines interfaces for Web-based software to learn about, retrieve, merge and query maps. The Cookbook provides the basic understanding and steps needed for implementing and exploiting the WMS interface and related technologies. The document is available for download in Portable Document Format (PDF) at visit http://www.ogcnetwork.org.
Cookbook contributors include software vendors, universities, and local government users of the WMS interface from around the world. The variety of contributions highlights the different software being used and insures widespread applicability.
The book is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1 establishes the background and context of the WMS interface implementation specification including a discussion of WMS client and server development technologies (XML, XSL/XSLT, ASP/JSP, etc.). This introductory chapter provides a general orientation for all readers but is targeted for managers and end-users. Chapter 2 addresses the design architecture of software systems that implement the WMS interface through use-case scenarios, WMS request examples, and illustrations. DTD/XML documents and XSL/XSLT style sheet examples highlight the role these technologies can play in WMS client and server implementations. Chapter 3 explores implementations of WMS in existing software on both the server and client side. Detailed "recipes" for implementing WMS in popular commercial, open source and freeware products are provided. Technical personnel deploying existing systems and developers implementing new systems will find this chapter particularly useful.
Stephan Winter, Associate Professor at the Institute for Geoinformation, Technical University Vienna, Austria shared his students' experience with the Cookbook. "The students were able to implement a WMS service (with no prior knowledge of server installation) within 4 weeks of part-time effort. The result is currently running on an intranet. The students reported that it was possible to do such a project with only the cookbook in hand. I'm confident the Cookbook will be valuable to a wide range of users."
