The Lewiston-Auburn area has new orthophotography from Spring
2006 that I have published as an ArcGIS Server service. When adding a GIS
Server add http://gis.auburnmaine.gov/arcgis/services.
I think that should work. I will check with Jim Ward to see if I can
publish Lewiston’s the same way. I also have the 2007 USDA NAIP
published as a service for our area.
Jessica
Hanscom
Geospatial Database Manager
City of Auburn, Maine
60 Court Street
Auburn, ME 04210
From: Maine GeoLibrary
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Daniel Coker
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 9:00 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: WMS serving of images from the portal.
seems like an excellent way to leverage existing hardware and
create some press for the Board.
-dan
From: Maine GeoLibrary
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Smith, Michael
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 12:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: WMS serving of images from the portal.
Hi everyone,
Considering
the heavy agenda next week, I doubt there is time for another item, so I want
to put this out to everyone via email.
A continuing
cost problem with GIS in the State is the storage of the now-vast library of
orthophotos. I have been in limbo deciding how to address it until I saw
the FY 10/11 rates for OIT database hosting. Although they include new
detail on a data warehouse rate, the cost would actually increase slightly in
FY10/11 over what it already is - $110,000 a year. The reason the cost is
so high is because the data are stored in a database, which is far more
expensive than file-based storage. I was waiting to see if the rate
dropped at all before searching out alternatives.
MEGIS
continues to receive additional aerial photos which we do not have the money to
serve out via ArcSDE, including the 2007 1m USGS photos, the NAIP 2007 data, and
the Bradstreet photos from Cumberland County (and soon also York County).
One other
way to do this is to use file-based web mapping services (WMS) to serve out the
imagery. I can use the open-source MapServer software to do this, with
little difficulty, but the hardware is not currently available to do so.
I suggest that as an alternative we look at using the portal server(s) to do
this. This would create publicly-available WMS of basic GIS data and the
orthophotos. WMS can be consumed by just about any GIS software.
This would also help raise the level of recognition of the Board, because the
Board would be providing a very useful and important service to the public, in
conjunction with MEGIS. MEGIS would provide the staff to create the
services, and in return the Board provide the (already paid for) hardware.
As far as
the hardware goes, that is an area I'm rather familiar with, and I can say that
the portal is a very small app requiring very little resource. It
currently is running on an 8-core server with almost 4GB of RAM. There
would be far more than enough horsepower to run WMS services alongside.
At this
time, this is only a possibility that I wish to explore with the Board.
There are a few other options I'm looking at for hosting WMS, and still a few
conversations with the state stakeholders about the WMS approach. But I
would like your feedback about this idea.
**********
Michael Smith
State GIS
Manager
Maine Office of
GIS