MapServer Support for Web Coverage Services

Stephen Lime - Minnesota DNR Dr. Thomas E. Burk - University of Minnesota MUM 2004 - Ottawa, Canada

Presentation Overview
Background Implementation Usage Demo Application Future Work

MapServer
Pre-dates OGC interoperability efforts Two primary objectives, via the Internet:
o o

create maps and associated products (e.g., scalebars, legends and reference maps) query spatial data mapserv CGI provides out-of-box functionality MapScript, access to the C/C++ API from popular programming languages

Two primary components:

o o

GDAL
Geographic Data Abstraction Library Middleware for raster data access, similar in concept to ODBC Provides most MapServer raster input and some output capabilities Provides limited image processing support for operations such as projection and resampling

MapServer OGC Support

Web Mapping Service (WMS) - a perfect match for existing MapServer functionality Web Feature Service (WFS) - MapServer supports non-transactional elements, equates roughly to MapServer query support Web Coverage Service (WCS) - furthest spec from core MapServer functionality, must rely heavily on MapServer/GDAL interface

Groundwork
MODIS Download Facility early 2000
First

extension of MapServer that has several characteristics of recent WCS standard

Lead to development of a SEEDS proposal for NASA funding

Partners:

University of North Dakota and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

WCS Overview
Like WFS, WCS is a natural progression from WMS Unfiltered access to a coverage, values or properties at a set of geographic locations WCS 1.0.0 is limited to simple, that is grid, coverages *whew* Supports simple queries in the form of spatial, temporal and/or other property subsets

Design Assumptions
Not a ground-up WCS implementation

Will not support the full WCS specification Build upon functionality already available within MapServer Any extensions to MapServer must be made available via the core product, the CGI interface and MapScript Must integrate with OGC specification implementations supported by MapServer (e.g. WMS and WFS) Relies upon GDAL for data extraction, transformation (e.g. projection) and formatting

Our ToDo List

Enable ISO8601 extended date format parsing Enhance tiling to support:
o o

filtering based on tile attributes specification of band/bands as an attribute

Alter GDAL/MapServer interface to support key WCS features (multi-band raw mode) Update MapServer compilation process Developed interface to process WCS requests via the MapServer CGI program
o

GetCapabilities/DescribeCoverage/GetCoverage

Spatial/Temporal Tiling
Mechanism to organize and present a large volume of data using a single MapServer layer definition Has utility beyond immediate WCS needs, for example for access control Simplifies development of client applications Potential performance benefits May be cumbersome to setup

Tiling Example: Multiple Images

shape polygon 1.img 2.img 3.img polygon polygon polygon 4.img 5.img 6.img location 1.img 2.img 3.img 4.img

polygon
polygon

5.img
6.img 7.img 8.img 9.img

7.img

8.img

9.img

polygon polygon polygon

Tiling Example: Single Image, Temporal Bands

NDVI_03.img
May June July August shape polygon band 1 date 2003-05 location NDVI_03.img

polygon
polygon polygon

2
3 4

2003-06
2003-07 2003-08

NDVI_03.img
NDVI_03.img NDVI_03.img

Development Status
Elements of WCS (e.g. tiling) is enabled in 4.2 release, beta WCS support is now available in 4.3 development version Requires GDAL and Proj.4 Supports GetCapabilities, DescribeCoverage and GetCoverage

Enabling WCS
Very similar to enabling WMS and WFS Define WCS specific metadata elements

GDAL can discover some values (e.g. resolution) Optionally, these values can be hardcoded

Set the layer DUMP attribute If necessary, structure image data appropriately using new tiling capabilities

LAYER NAME "ndvi" STATUS OFF TYPE RASTER METADATA wcs_label "North Central US MODIS-based NDVI Images for 2002" ows_srs "EPSG:26915 EPSG:4269 EPSG:4326" ows_extent "159707 4597895 1400207 5501395" wcs_resolution "500.0 500.0" wcs_formats "GEOTIFF_INT16" wcs_nativeformat "raw binary" wcs_timeposition "2002-001,2002-033,,2002-193" wcs_timeitem "imgdate" LAYER END NAME "ndvi_idx" DUMP TRUE TYPE TILEINDEX TILEINDEX 'ndvi_idx' DATA "mod13" END END

An Example

Demo Application
MODIS Download Facility Run the demo...

Future Enhancements
Non-temporal range subsetting

Via TILEINDEX layers Via raster cell values

Automatic metadata discovery XML encoded requests Support for multiple spatial interpolation methods True support of ISO8601 date formats WCS client support Oh yeah, need to write documentation

Questions?