Mapserver Kick start for newbies :)

I met many mapserver enthusiasts (esp students) who wants to see a map quickly by using mapserver. All though mapserver has an abundance in terms of docs and tutorials, I never found a sinlge straightway solution which can help you to do this :

AIM: Write your first map file, and see the rendered map on the browser.

I suggest few easy steps to show a map using your shapefile. Remember YOU WILL HAVE TO WRITE ONE AND ONLY ONE MAPFILE. nothing else :)

Steps:

a. Download ms4w(For windows). Else install FOSS for Linux
b. Open a notepad (or anyother text editor). Write your first map file which will look like this:


MAP
NAME "mapfilename" #write your map file name here
STATUS ON
SIZE 512 512
imagetype png
SHAPEPATH "/ms4w/data" #path where you kept your shapefiles
EXTENT 68.1271 6.75621 97.4023 37.0675
#(extent of shapefile. you can get this info by using arcgis, qgis, etc)
FONTSET "C:\ms4w\YourDirectory\fonts.txt"
PROJECTION
'proj=longlat' #projection
'ellps=WGS84' #ellipsoid
'datum=WGS84' #surface of the earth
'no_defs'
END
DEBUG ON
CONFIG "MS_ERRORFILE" "C:\Temp\mapserver.log"

OUTPUTFORMAT
NAME png
DRIVER "GD/PNG"
MIMETYPE "image/png"
IMAGEMODE RGB
EXTENSION "png"
END

WEB
IMAGEPATH "/ms4w/YourTempDir/tmp/"
IMAGEURL "/tmp/"
END

LAYER
NAME "your_layer_name"
DATA "/ms4w//data/shapefileName" #name of your shapefile
TYPE POLYGON
STATUS ON
PROJECTION
'proj=longlat' #projection
'ellps=WGS84' #ellipsoid
'datum=WGS84' #surface of the earth
'no_defs'
END #projection
CLASS
Name 'your_class_name'
COLOR 0 0 0
OUTLINECOLOR 0 0 0
STYLE # thick outline (could use a circle symbol with size too)
OUTLINECOLOR 255 218 185
WIDTH 2
ANTIALIAS FALSE
END #style
END # Class
END # Layer

END#map end



3. Save this map file (eg. test.map) in ms4w/apache/cgi-bin/
4. On command line, run this command:
C:\ms4w\apache-install.bat
C:\ms4w\apache-restart.bat
5. Open up a browser (IE,Opera,FF) and write this url :

http://localhost/cgi-bin/mapserv.exe?map=test.map&layers=your_layer_name&mode=map


Thats all !! You will see a map rendered using the shapefile you wished.

Reading Recommendations:
1. Mapserver
2. OpenLayers
3. PostGIS
4. Mapserver tutorial

MADEIRA GPS

MADEIRA GPS, a company that started in 2005, with a simple project in mind: Deliver PDA-based navigation, with autorouting, for Madeira Island's tourism. We've achieved that goal and more... Since then our company evolved to provide full fleet management solutions and is currently making business as far as Brasil. All thanks to PostgreSQL and, of course, PostGIS.

All our geographic data (maps) is stored with PostGIS and it serves hundreds of requests per minute providing street name resolution for vehicles locations.

We used OpenJump as our preferred application to edit our geo-data. This application, combined with the PostGIS plugin, capable of reading/writing to/fro PgSQL DBs, proved to be a 'killer' combination.

Why did we choose PostGIS? Simple enough:
-Power
-Robustness
-Effectiveness
-Extendability
-Speed
-Free

Globexplorer

GlobeXplorer provides web services access to satellite and aerial imagery over the internet. GlobeXplorer manages relationships with dozens of source imagery providers and then provides simple web access to a multi-terrabyte unified collection of images.

GlobeXplorer clients range from individual end-users with Web Map Server (WMS) clients to consumer-oriented web portals serving millions of hits a day. This high-load, high-volume environment requires a very reliable technical solution that scales up efficiently to support millions of requests per day.

The GlobeXplorer (GX) architecture does not store imagery inside the database itself, but uses the database to store metadata about available imagery. The GX middleware handles incoming image requests by first querying the database to determine image availability, then retrieving the actual images from storage and delivers them to the client. So, each image request generates one or more database hits on the database metadata.