A Web Map Service (WMS) is a standard protocol developed by the

Open Geospatial Consortium The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), an international voluntary consensus standards organization for geospatial content and location-based services, sensor web and Internet of Things, GIS data processing and data sharing. It originated in 199 ...

in 1999 for serving

georeference Georeferencing means that the internal coordinate system of a map or aerial photo image can be related to a geographic coordinate system. The relevant coordinate transforms are typically stored within the image file (GeoPDF and GeoTIFF are examples) ...

d map images over the Internet. These images are typically produced by a map server from data provided by a GIS database.

History

The

(OGC) became involved in developing standards for web mapping after a paper was published in 1997 by Allan Doyle, outlining a "WWW Mapping Framework". The OGC established a task force to come up with a strategy, and organized the "Web Mapping Testbed" initiative, inviting pilot web mapping projects that built upon ideas by Doyle and the OGC task force. Results of the pilot projects were demonstrated in September 1999, and a second phase of pilot projects ended in April 2000. The Open Geospatial Consortium released WMS version 1.0.0 in April 2000, followed by version 1.1.0 in June 2001, and version 1.1.1 in January 2002. The OGC released WMS version 1.3.0 in January 2004.

Requests

WMS specifies a number of different request types, two of which are required by any WMS server: * GetCapabilities – returns parameters about the WMS (such as map image format and WMS version compatibility) and the available layers (map bounding box, coordinate reference systems,

URI Uri may refer to: Places * Canton of Uri, a canton in Switzerland * Úri, a village and commune in Hungary * Uri, Iran, a village in East Azerbaijan Province * Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, a town in India * Uri (island), an island off Malakula Isla ...

of the data and whether the layer is mostly opaque or not) * GetMap – returns a map image. Parameters include: width and height of the map, coordinate reference system, rendering style, image format Request types that WMS providers may optionally support include: * GetFeatureInfo – if a layer is marked as 'queryable' then you can request data about a coordinate of the map image. * DescribeLayer – returns the feature types of the specified layer or layers, which can be further described using WFS or WCS requests. This request is dependent on the Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD) Profile of WMS. * GetLegendGraphic – return an image of the map's legend image, giving a visual guide to map elements. All communication is served through HTTP.

Map image

A WMS server usually serves the map in a

bitmap In computing, a bitmap is a mapping from some domain (for example, a range of integers) to bits. It is also called a bit array or bitmap index. As a noun, the term "bitmap" is very often used to refer to a particular bitmapping application: th ...

format, e.g. PNG, GIF, JPEG, etc. In addition,

vector graphics Vector graphics is a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector display ...

can be included, such as points, lines, curves and text, expressed in SVG or

WebCGM Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) is a free and open international standard file format for 2D vector graphics, raster graphics, and text, and is defined by ISO/IEC 8632. Overview All graphical elements can be specified in a textual source file th ...

format.

Software

Open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

that provide web map services capability include: * deegree * GeoServer * MapServer * MapGuide Open Source * QGIS Server Proprietary server software that allow providing web map services include: *

ArcGIS Server ArcGIS Server is the core server geographic information system (GIS) software made by Esri. ArcGIS Server is used for creating and managing GIS Web services, applications, and data. ArcGIS Server is typically deployed on-premises within the organ ...

* ArcIMS * Cubeserv from Terrapixel *GeoWebPublisher from

Bentley Systems Bentley Systems, Incorporated is an American-based software development company that develops, manufactures, licenses, sells and supports computer software and services for the design, construction, and operation of infrastructure. The company's ...

*GeognoSIS from Cadcorp * GeoMedia *

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The wor ...

MapViewer *SIAS (

Smallworld Smallworld is the brand name of a portfolio of GIS software provided by GE Digital, a division of General Electric. The software was originally created by the Smallworld company founded in Cambridge, England, in 1989 by Dick Newell and others ...

Internet Application Server) from

GE Energy GE Power (formerly known as GE Energy) is an American energy technology company, owned by General Electric. Structure As of July 2019, GE Power is divided into the following divisions: * GE Gas Power (formerly Alstom Power Turbomachines), bas ...

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered ...

's Infrastructure Map Server * Manifold System *

Luciad Luciad is an international supplier of geographic information system (GIS) tools. They provide products intended for. geospatial situational awareness. The company mainly focuses on the aviation, defense and security markets, Defence customers ...

's LuciadLightspeed and LuciadFusion products– Luciad solutions
/ref> Open source standalone (client side) software that allow viewing web map services include: *

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Proprietary standalone (client side) software that allow viewing web map services include: * Google Earth *

Esri Esri (; Environmental Systems Research Institute) is an American multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company. It is best known for its ArcGIS products. With a 43% market share, Esri is the world's leading supplier of GIS ...

ArcGIS ArcGIS is a family of client, server and online geographic information system (GIS) software developed and maintained by Esri. ArcGIS was first released in 1999 and originally was released as ARC/INFO, a command line based GIS system for mani ...

& ArcGIS Explorer *

Global Mapper Global Mapper is a geographic information system (GIS) software package currently developed by Blue Marble Geographics that runs on Microsoft Windows. The GIS software competes with ESRI, GeoMedia, Manifold System, and MapInfo GIS products. Global ...

Kongsberg Gallium Ltd. Kongsberg Geospatial is a Situational Awareness and Geospatial Visualization software company located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1992 as Gallium Visual Systems Inc. and purchased in 2006 by Norwegian Defence firm Kongsberg Gr ...

InterVIEW / InterMAPhics *

's LuciadLightspeed, LuciadRIA and LuciadMobile products WMS is a widely supported format for maps and GIS data accessed via the Internet and loaded into client side GIS software. Major commercial GIS and mapping software that support WMS include: *

's Map 3D and Civil 3D products *

' MicroStation, Bentley Map, desktop and server based GIS products * Cadcorp SIS product suite * D3.js *

ESRI Esri (; Environmental Systems Research Institute) is an American multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company. It is best known for its ArcGIS products. With a 43% market share, Esri is the world's leading supplier of GIS ...

products * GeoMedia *

* Kinetica * Manifold System * MapInfo Professional * Maptitude Mapping Software *

MATLAB MATLAB (an abbreviation of "MATrix LABoratory") is a proprietary multi-paradigm programming language and numeric computing environment developed by MathWorks. MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementa ...

and Mapping Toolbox * Qlik Sense *

Tableau Tableau (French for 'little table' literally, also used to mean 'picture'; tableaux or, rarely, tableaus) may refer to: Arts * ''Tableau'', a series of four paintings by Piet Mondrian titled ''Tableau I'' through to ''Tableau IV'' * ''Tableau viv ...

Open source software that supports WMS include: * QGIS * uDig * OpenJUMP * MapGuide Open Source *

NASA World Wind NASA WorldWind is an open-source (released under the NOSA license and the Apache 2.0 license) virtual globe. According to the website (https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/), "WorldWind is an open source virtual globe API. WorldWind allow ...

GRASS GIS ''Geographic Resources Analysis Support System'' (commonly termed ''GRASS GIS'') is a geographic information system (GIS) software suite used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, producing graphics and maps, spatial and ...

* GeoTrellis * JOSM * gvSIG * OpenLayers * Leaflet.js *

's SIAS, an

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library, supports WMS for integrating WMS maps into web pages, as does Mapbender

References

External links