Mar 26 2006

WMS layers: My Top Ten

Published by perrygeo at 8:25 pm under GIS Tutorials, WMS

Web Mapping Services (WMS) are not always my prefered option for accessing data; relying on a remote server to generate a pretty picture of the data is hardly a substitute for having the raw data in hand. But for many cases, I just need a decent looking basemap image and don’t want to download gigabytes of data, especially if that data is updated frequently.

Software like GeoServer and Mapserver are making it easier to publish data via WMS and the number of WMS servers is surely growing… but how do you find them? There is no central registry for WMS servers but efforts like the refractions research ogc survey, mapdex and a few google tricks are making it easier to find data distributed via WMS. After many hours digging through WMS services to find the ones that suite my mapping needs, I’ve come across a number of gems that I use time and time again. Hopefully this will inspire some others to share their secret stash of WMS servers!

(Update: Anything Geospatial has a great link to a well-organized WMS server list for public use. Nice. )

You should be able to provide the online resource URL to your favorite WMS client software (my personal choice is openjump) and the client should display the list of layers available from that service.

If you’re contructing WMS URLs “by hand” or in a browser, you can do a capabilities request (the online resource URL with service=WMS?request=GetCapabilities appended to it) which will return an XML document describing the available layers, image formats, projections,etc. Take a look at the image src for any of the thumbnails below to see how the map request is constructed.

  1. TerraServer Digital Raster Graphic (DRG): USGS Topo Quads
    Online Resource URL : http://terraservice.net/ogcmap.ashx?
    Layer Name : DRG

  2. TerraServer Digital Ortho Photo Quads (DRG): Black and white aerial photos for the US
    Online Resource URL : http://terraservice.net/ogcmap.ashx?
    Layer Name : DOQ

  3. NASA Landsat Imagery
    The Landsat mosaic is available in fase color (default) or in natural color (style=visual) as shown below.
    Online Resource URL : http://onearth.jpl.nasa.gov/wms.cgi?
    Layer Name : global_mosaic

  4. 45-minute Weather Radar Images (NEXRAD Base Reflectivity).
    Since this is a dynamic data source, the image below may look really boring (ie blank) if there’s no storms over the Continental US.
    Online Resource URL : http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/wms/nexrad/n0r.cgi?
    Layer Name : nexrad-n0r-m45m

  5. USGS National Landcover
    The 30-meter natial landcover dataset. USGS is nice enough to provide a legend, of course.
    Online Resource URL : http://gisdata.usgs.net/servlet/com.esri.wms.Esrimap?ServiceName=USGS_WMS_NLCD&
    Layer Name : US_NLCD

  6. USGS National Elevation - Shaded Relief
    Online Resource URL : http://gisdata.usgs.net:80/servlet/com.esri.wms.Esrimap?servicename=USGS_WMS_NED&
    Layer Name : US_NED_Shaded_Relief

  7. USGS Reference Maps
    Online Resource URL : http://gisdata.usgs.net:80/servlet/com.esri.wms.Esrimap?servicename=USGS_WMS_REF&
    Layer Names : States,County,Roads,Route_Numbers,Streams,Federal_Lands

  8. Life Mapper
    Besides the standard WMS paramters, some services can take extra parameters in order to render a map. In this excellent service, LifeMapper requires that you provide the species name and it will render maps of known species locations and modelled distributions. Here’s an example of the distribution of Black Bear (ie. Ursus americanus) over central california
    Online Resource URL : http://www.lifemapper.org/Services/WMS/?ScientificName=Ursus%20americanus&
    Layer Names : Species Distribution Models,Political Boundaries,Species Data Points

  9. MODIS Daily Satellite Imagery
    Online Resource URL : http://wms.jpl.nasa.gov/wms.cgi?
    Layer Names : daily_terra, daily_aqua

    Terra Aqua
  10. SRTMPlus 90 Meter DEM
    The image below doesn’t make for a very good basemap OR a very good DEM for analytical purposes since all the values are scaled to an 8-bit color depth. However, JPL also offers this layer as an integer (16bit) GeoTIFF (Use format=image/geotiff and styles=short_int), so this can be a valuable way to quickly grab a DEM for a given region.
    Online Resource URL : http://wms.jpl.nasa.gov/wms.cgi?
    Layer Names : srtmplus
If you’d like to view these layers interactively, here’s a mapserver application which “cascades” the above WMS layers through a single interface. If you’re interested in setting up these layers in a mapserver application, check out the WMS Mapfile for some examples.

15 Responses to “WMS layers: My Top Ten”

  1. # Emilio Mayorgaon 27 Mar 2006 at 10:47 pm

    Thanks for the WMS resources. I was more intrigued with the mapserver app at the end. Very nice, very clean code! I can see that it uses/adapts the Landview framework (and I read Steve Lime is about to release an upgraded version of it). Any plans to make it more visible and available?

    Anyways, I’ve enjoyed your blog entries. It’s also fun to see MapServer/OS GIS types associated with NCEAS, too; I was in a working group there a few years ago (biogeochemistry) and had a blast.

  2. # Brian Davenhallon 28 Mar 2006 at 8:56 am

    Very cool! Love the Mapserver application for demonstrating how these types of services work. Thanks for sharing.

  3. # Matton 29 Mar 2006 at 11:50 am

    Great reference! This certainly saves a few steps in locating reliable WMS layers. As the others have said, the mapserver app is sweet. Thanks for the info.

  4. # GeoLabs » Top 10 WMS layerson 29 Mar 2006 at 5:53 pm

    […] Matt at PerryGeo lists his top 10 wms layers followed by an interactive mapserver client demo of the layers. Check it out here: […]

  5. # Vector One » Web Mapping: Are You Caught In The Dust?on 30 Mar 2006 at 2:08 am

    […] This occurred to me as I read PerryGeo today. Matt Perry hiot a nail on the hit by identifying that WMS Services are not all that simple to understand. It is not so much a matter of their not working as much as understanding how they connect and what WMS is all about. […]

  6. # Jody Garnetton 30 Mar 2006 at 4:03 am

    Also note that uDig has a search tab backed by a database populated by recommendations and simple google searches. And you can drag and drop a WMS GetCapabilities URL onto udig, from a browser or the result of a search.

    So can I ask you to please make the links in the article “clickable” that way uDig users can quickly see what you are talking about :-)

  7. # noivon 30 Mar 2006 at 5:51 am

    Well, ExploreOurPla.net has a nearly complete list of public WMS servers (http://exploreourpla.net/?page_id=31) and only a single click is needed to load a layer into Google maps and check it out.

    My favorite layer is definetly Daily Terra from NASA which provides updates every 24 hours, here you’ll see Cycloon Larry towarding Australia 11 days ago: http://exploreourpla.net/?page_id=19&geoLink=999&lat=-17.70&lon=151.17&alt=1048576&sid=242&mid=661314&&mpt=2006-03-19

  8. # Paulon 30 Mar 2006 at 9:31 am

    Been trying these out in ArcMap - can’t get the doqq one to work though…

  9. # amyon 19 Apr 2006 at 7:21 am

    That URL for TerraServer didn’t work for me. Try:

    http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ogccapabilities.ashx?

  10. # Frank Hanssenon 25 Jul 2006 at 12:49 am

    Hi!

    Nive site- good work! I am looking for a WMS supplied with topographic maps for the Serengeti area in Tanzania, Africa.
    Could anyone please let me know if such a service(s) exists?

    Best regards Frank

  11. # Tim Schaubon 06 Nov 2006 at 4:46 pm

    Though there are a number of these lists popping up, I decided to put together a site that allowed for searching and syndication of results. Your top ten are there - with the exception of lifemapper.org (has a few minor conflicts with the WMS spec) and the NLCD data. Still working out the kinks, but you can make use of it as is:

    http://wms-sites.com/search?SearchableText=shaded+relief

    (Spatial searches coming soon.)

  12. # Chris Kaijageon 16 Mar 2007 at 3:40 am

    If any one is looking for GIS vector data for East Africa especially Tanzania, which are from the sources of scale 1:50,000 topo map series and 1:2500 for the urban areas.
    please contact me see what i have in store or what I can digitize for you. You can specify the area in UTM of geographic coordinates and expect to recive data in the soonest.
    my contact email is kaijage7@yahoo.co.uk or christopherk@resolute-ltd.com.au

  13. # walaa'on 15 May 2007 at 10:52 pm

    nice work actually i need more information on how to build a wms server with mapnik i read ur essay about it but it didn’t work for me something is not working
    a quick respond will be highly appreciated coz i’m using mapnik in my graduation project and the time factor is very important
    thanks alot

  14. # yannoon 08 Jun 2009 at 6:41 am

    I am on the search for wms servers containing all sorts of data layers. I feel inspired by your selection but perhaps would you be able to extend it on sources that cover western and central europe?

  15. # Oleon 16 Aug 2009 at 3:00 am

    Great reflection on what you can do with WMS!
    For a WMS servers and services covering data in central Europe, please refer to http://labs.alta4gis.de/voyagergis

    Ole

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