NASA World Wind Plugin- wmsInterface


Introduction

wmsInterface allows users to connect to OGC compatible WMS servers and view their imagery in the exciting 3D environment of World Wind.

An easy structured interface leads the user through the tasks of registering, inspecting, configuring and displaying servers and maps.

Currently wmsInterface gives you access to more than 200 servers with thousands of maps.

Versions

  • 2006-??-?? - (0.4) very stable release with search functions, bookmarks and better GUI
  • 2005-09-16 - New serverlist with 260 entries.
  • 2005-09-14 - (0.3) Initial pre alpha binary with some missing functions, but works.

Screenshot
Screenshot

Quickstart

  • Download and install NASA World Wind
  • Download the Zip and extract the contents into the plugins folder of World Wind.
  • This will create a subfolder ‘wmsInterface’ with 5 files. Then start World Wind and select load/unload.. from the Plug-ins menu.
  • Activate the plugin with the new wmsInterface button in the toolbar. Choose the server W_Customweather and press Register.
  • Wait a second or two. Mark the entry that appears in listbox and press -> Inspect
  • Expand Capabilities and Layer: Custom Weather Map Server, scroll down. Select Layer: conture_pressure Press -> Edit Layer
  • Use the scratch pad and navigate to a point of interest.
  • Press -> Add/Update Layer
  • Now World Wind starts retrieving and displaying pictures from server.

User Info

wmsInterface lets you combine different maps to achieve more visual information. Example: a grey map and a low resolution map result in high resolution colored map. You will be able to use near realtime maps together with highly detailed satellite maps. More info you’ll find in the World Wind Central forum thread.

For Developers

wmsInterface was developped using #Develop from icSharpnet. It is written in VB.NET and compiled to binary. The code interface with used classes from World Wind is here.

Licence

The license allows basically educational but no commercial use or any derivs. In any case you are advised to inform yourself about intellectual properties of your map provider. This licence affects in no way these properties.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License.

To view a copy of this license, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

or send a letter to:

Creative Commons
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford
California 94305
USA.

noiv, cologne 2005

Who is using wmsInterface?

Till now there are several thousands downloads from different sources counted. You can met more users at the wmsInterface thread of NASA World Wind forum or visit the web page of the DMAP Team which is part of the the Naval Research Laboratory’s (NRL) Mapping Branch.

Register a Server

All available servers are in a text file called wmsServerList.txt, You can edit it with notepad or Excel. Each line consists of a key + tab + url.

The key has to be unique in this file and the url should work in a web browser. Comments are allowed and start with ‘#’.
At start wmsInterface loads this list. Pressing Register will retrieve the capabilities from selected file and save it as xml file in the data folder.

Depending on internet connection and file size, it may take a while. There are some servers with 1MB files and larger. More time is needed to Register All:). Registering all servers may stop WW from rendering and other strange things may happen, but stay patient.
The listbox gives easy access to servers once registered. If a server updates and adds a new map, you can refresh it by deleting and re-register the server.

If you would like to change key used in the textbox at the top of dialog.
You can open the downloaded xml file with your prefered xml editor. Use options to define a path to executable.

Inspect Server

Here you can browse the capabilities tree and search for useful layers. wmsInterface tries to detect layers with valid attributes such as SRS = EPSG:4326 and Name = … .

Service node offers information regarding the service of map provider. Look here to find contact addresses. Attention: watch for Fees and Access Constraints to fulfil any licence or other legal restriction.

You have to selected a valid node to enable the -> Configure button.

Configure Layer

definitions

  • Layer - Key composed of layer and ‘@’ servername. Use it to reference a special layer, if you want to report bugs at the forum.
  • ServerGetMapUrl - URL of server e.g. http://maps.customweather.com/image….
  • CurImageFormat - use jpeg for small file sizes, gif and png for transparency

directories

  • LogoFilePath - e.g. D:\World\..\..\wmsInterface\wmsInterface.png
  • CacheFilePath - e.g. D:\World\..\..llite_10km@W_Customweather

visual operation - define here how your layer is displayed

  • ZeroLevelTileSizeDegrees - depends on map extend, between 0.001 and 28, defines altitude World Wind starts loading
  • NumLevels - resolution of map, good values are betweeen 4 (Satellite) and 13 (Orthophotos)
  • DistanceAboveSurface - use 100 for one layer, 150 for next on and so on. All standard maps of World Wind have distance of 0/Zero or less.
  • TerrainMapped - use terrainaccessor with map
  • Opacity - value between 0 and 255(opaque)
  • IsTransparent - provides transparency for gif/png formats
  • DestinationBlend - DirectX operation (not implemented yet, select from Layer properties menu instead)
  • SourceBlend - DirectX operation (not implemented yet, select from Layer properties menu instead)

spatial dimensions - max extends of requested map

  • North < = 90
  • South >= -90
  • West >= -180
  • East < = 180

World Wind needs them

  • TileSize - dimension of tiles requested
  • BoundingBoxOverlap - unknown

Links

  • Display - loads preview from server. You won’t see maps smaller then 4 pixel.
  • Browse - opens Browser to display preview (good for error catching)
  • Navigate - navigates World Wind to the center of the map

Buttons

  • Inspect Server - go back to select another layer from server
  • Add/Update Layer - to update World Wind with the new layer

Why there are Errors?

  • Computer is misconfigured.
  • OS is closed source.
  • HDD is too small for all maps.
  • Modem is not switched on.
  • Router does not find a DNS Server
  • Internet provider is popular.
  • Too many viruses and worms alive.
  • Map server is busy.
  • Too many users online.
  • The programmer get distracted while coding.
  • No software without errors.
  • We are all human.

Many Thanks

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