MapServer is an open-source development environment for building spatially enabled internet applications, built in the C language, and is widely known as one of the fastest Web mapping engines available. It can run as a CGI program or via MapScript which supports several programming languages (using

SWIG The Simplified Wrapper and Interface Generator (SWIG) is an open-source software tool used to connect computer programs or libraries written in C or C++ with scripting languages such as Lua, Perl, PHP, Python, R, Ruby, Tcl, and other la ...

). MapServer can access hundreds of data formats, any raster or vector format supported by

GDAL The Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) is a computer software library for reading and writing raster and vector geospatial data formats (e.g. shapefile), and is released under the permissive X/MIT style free software license by the ...

, and reprojections on-the-fly are handled by PROJ. MapServer was originally developed by Steve Lime, then working at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

— so, it was previously referred to as "''UMN MapServer''", to distinguish it from commercial "map servers"; today it is commonly referred to as just "MapServer", and is maintained by the MapServer Project Steering Committee (PSC). MapServer was originally developed with support from

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

, which needed a way to make its

satellite imagery Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell ima ...

available to the public.

Open Source Geospatial Foundation

In November 2005, Autodesk, the MapServer Technical Steering Committee Members, the University of Minnesota, and DM Solutions Group announced the creation of the MapServer Foundation. With this announcement, Autodesk announced that its internet mapping application, MapGuide, would be developed as an open source application with all new

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communicati ...

and be named "MapServer Enterprise". The existing MapServer application would be renamed "MapServer Cheetah". This name change was overwhelmingly opposed by the MapServer community. Autodesk then backed off this name change and retained the name, "MapGuide" for its product. Also, plans to establish the MapServer Foundation were scrapped; Instead, the

Open Source Geospatial Foundation The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo), is a non-profit non-governmental organization whose mission is to support and promote the collaborative development of open geospatial technologies and data. The foundation was formed in February ...

(OSGeo) was established to include MapServer and other open source GIS projects (which now includes

MapGuide Open Source MapGuide Open Source is a web-based map-making platform that enables users to quickly develop and deploy web mapping applications and geospatial web services. The application was introduced as open-source by Autodesk in November 2005, and the cod ...

Timeline

''MapServer'' has had an important role in Web mapping history. The following is a summary of its evolution: * 1994: UMN awarded with NASA/ForNet funding to support web-based delivery of forestry data.MapServer History
/ref> * 1997-07: MapServer 1.0, Developed as Part of the

ForNet Project. Grew out of the need to deliver

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Ear ...

data across the web for foresters. * 1998-07: MapServer 2.0 released as final ForNET deliverable; added reprojection support ( PROJ.4). * 1999: UMN makes MapServer an open source project. * 2000-06: MapServer 3.0 was developed as part of the NASA TerraSIP Project. This is also the first public, open source release of ''UMN MapServer''. * 2001-06: MapServer 3.2 released with MapScript 1.0, like CSS, adds layout flexibility. * 2002-06: MapServer 3.5 was rewritten, and added support for PostGIS and

ArcSDE ArcSDE (''SDE'' for ''Spatial Database Engine'') is a server-software sub-system (produced and marketed by Esri) that aims to enable the usage of Relational Database Management Systems for spatial data. The spatial data may then be used as part o ...

. Version 3.6 adds initial OGC WMS support. * 2003-07: MapServer 4.0, adds 24bit raster output support and support for

SWF SWF ( ) is an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript.Open Screen Pr ...

. * 2005-04: MapServer 4.6, adds support for SVG. * 2007-09: MapServer 5.0 released, introducing Anti-Grain Geometry (AGG) graphics library. * 2011-05: MapServer 6.0 released, adds support for opengl & KML output, with 5.6.X as stable versions. * 2012-11: MapServer 6.2 released, adds support for INSPIRE services. Released along TinyOWS and MapCache. * 2013-09: MapServer 6.4 released, adds CMake support, contour rendering, layer geometry transformations. * 2015-07: MapServer 7.0 released, adds heatmap layers, WFS 2.0 support, and layer-level character encoding. * 2018-07: MapServer 7.2 released, adds MVT support, support for multi-line comments in the mapfile, and Python 3 support for MapScript. * 2019-05: MapServer 7.4 released, adds PHP 7 MapScript support through

, and initial PROJ 6 API support. * 2020-05: MapServer 7.6 released, adds full support for PROJ 6 API, adds connection options in mapfile, and special character support in mapfiles on Windows. * 2022-09: MapServer 8.0 released, adds native FlatGeobuf support, OGCAPI: Features support, new config file for MapServer, and PHP native MapScript removed, in place of PHPNG (SWIG) MapScript.

References

External links

* {{official website, https://mapserver.org/ Free GIS software University of Minnesota software Software using the MIT license

Open Source Geospatial Foundation

Timeline

See also

References

External links