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Table Of Contents

Web Map Service (WMS)

A fundamental component of the web map (and likely the simplest to understand) is the map
image. The Web Map Service (WMS) is a standard protocol for serving georeferenced map
images generated by a map server.
In short, WMS is a way for a client to request map images from a server. The client sends a
request to a map server, then the map server generates an image based on parameters passed
to the server in the request and finally returns an image.
The source material from which the image is generated need not be an image. The WMS
generates an image from whatever source material is requested, which could be vector data,
raster data, or a combination of the two.

Web Map Service (WMS)

Sample WMS request
Other WMS requests
More Information

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(WFS) (wfs.html)

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(../_sources/geoserver/wms.txt)

About Boundless
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open source software
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for internet mapping and

geospatial application
development. We are dedicated
to the growth and support of
open source software.

License
This work is licensed under a
Creative Non CommercialCommons Attribution-Share
Alike 3.0 United States License
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this material, but we ask that
you please retain the Boundless
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A diagram showing how a WMS turns data into a map image
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Sample WMS request

The following is a sample WMS request, rendered as a HTTP GET request (with line breaks
added for clarity) to a hosted GeoServer instance:
http://suite.opengeo.org/geoserver/wms?
SERVICE=WMS&
VERSION=1.3.0&
REQUEST=GetMap&
LAYERS=usa:states&
SRS=EPSG:4326&
BBOX=24.956,-124.731,49.372,-66.97&
FORMAT=image/png&
WIDTH=600&
HEIGHT=255

nc-sa/3.0/)

While the details of the WMS protocol are beyond the scope of this course, a quick scan of this
request shows that the following information is being requested:
Server details (a WMS 1.3.0 request)
Request type (a WMS GetMap request)
Layer name (usa:states)
Projection (EPSG:4326)
Bounding box (in this case, latitude/longitude coordinates)
Image properties (600x255 PNG)
If you paste the request into a browser, the result would be:

An image generated by a WMS request

Other WMS requests

A WMS request can ask for more than just a map image (GetMap).
An example of another such request is a request for information about the WMS server itself.

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The request is called GetCapabilities, and the response is known as the capabilities
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us/)

The capabilities document is an XML response that details the supported image formats, us/)
projections, and map layers being served by that WMS.
The following is a WMS GetCapabilities request given to the same WMS used above:
http://suite.opengeo.org/geoserver/wms?
SERVICE=WMS&
VERSION=1.3.0&
REQUEST=GetCapabilities

If you want, you can paste this request into a browser to see the result.

More Information
For more information, please see the OGC site on the Web Map Service protocol at
http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wms
(http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wms).

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