MapServer Tutorial

Section 1: Static Maps and the MapFile

Take a vector dataset. Any vector datatype supported by GDAL. We can use MapServer to display that shapefile on a web browser. Look...
Example 1.1 - A map with a single layer

We can display the same shapefile repeatedly. We can display the polygon attributes on one LAYER and and the line attributes on another...
Example 1.2 - A map with two layers

And we can select which parts of the shapefile to display. We do this using the CLASS object...
Example 1.3 - Using classes to make a "useful" map

We can also label our maps...
Example 1.4 - Labeling layers and label layers

Or add raster data such as satellite images, aerial photographs, or shaded reliefs...
Example 1.5- Adding a raster layer

We can reproject our data from just about any projection to just about any... Yeah, check it out!
Example 1.6 - Projection/Reprojection

And we can use layers from other map servers on the internet (as long as they are WMS servers)...
Example 1.7- Adding a WMS layer

MapServer can output to various formats such as PDF and GeoTIFF.
Example 1.8 - A different output format

MapServer not only generates static maps, it can also create interactive maps...
Example 1.9- The difference between map and browse mode


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