1.3.5. Free Mapservers

There are several mapservers that are free to use. We here list you two of them:

UMN Mapserver

"MapServer is an Open Source development environment for building spatially-enabled internet applications. [...] MapServer excels at rendering spatial data (maps, images, and vector data) for the web." (UMN MapServer)
MapServer was originally developed at the University of Minnesota (UMN) in cooperation with NASA and the Minnesota Depatement of Natural Resources.

The UMN WebServer features:

• A multitude of raster and vector data formats
  • JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF / GeoTIFF, etc. (full list)
  • ESRI shapefile, GML, PostGIS, Interlis, etc. (full list)
• OGC Web Specifications
  • WMS, WFS, SLD, GML, WCS, Filter Encoding, WMC, SOS
• On the fly projection

The following GetCapabilities request returns the XML-file where you find all information about the available layers (You already used this URL in the GetCapabilities chapter of this unit). Use a text editor if you want to view the file "mswms_gmap" (best with Oxygen or UltraEdit).

http://www2.dmsolutions.ca/cgi-bin/mswms_gmap?SERVICE=WMS&VERSION=1.1.1&REQUEST=getcapabilities

QGIS mapserver

"QGIS mapserver is an open source WMS (1.3.0 and 1.1.1) implementation with advanced cartographic features." (QGIS mapserver)
It was originally developed at the Instiute of Cartography at ETH Zurich.

The QGIS mapserver features:

• Enhanced WMS (Web Map Service) via HTTP GET. Supports GetCapabilities, GetMap, GetStyle, GetFeatureInfo and custom styling with Styled Layer Descriptor (Supported standards: WMS 1.3.0, WMS 1.1.1, and SLD 1.0.0).
• SOAP via HTTP POST. Compatible with the ORCHESTRA and SANY Service Oriented Architecture.
• Native configuration with SLD. User friendly map symbolisation with QGIS Desktop and PublishtoWeb plugin.
• Cartographic extensions to SLD (diagrams, patterns and custom symbols with Scalable Vector Graphics). Exchange of cartographic rules with the GetStyle operation.

The following GetCapabilities request returns the XML-file where you find all information about the available layers:

http://karlinapp.ethz.ch/fcgi-bin/qgis_map_server/europa_diagram/qgis_map_serv.fcgi?SERVICE=WMS&Version=1.3.0&REQUEST=GetCapabilities

Demis Mapserver

Demis is an OpenGIS Web Map Server that contains world map data. The following GetCapabilities request returns as well the GML-file that contains all information about the available layers.

http://www2.demis.nl/mapserver/request.asp?request=GetCapabilities&version=1.0.0

Other Mapservers

The following link lists servers which can be accessed publicly.

List of OGC WMS Services