[MS4W-Users] MS4W in Tile Server mode?

[Stephen Woodbridge]

On 3/3/2013 8:54 PM, Evans, James R Civ USAF ACC 84 RADES/SCZE wrote:
> Hey thanks for the reply.  That gives me plenty to work on this week.
> So, if I installed MS4W, did MapCache come with it?  I don't see a
> separate download for it.  Also, are you indicating to me that the
> "tile server" mode in the documentation for MS4W is just not up to
> this? Thanks, James

Hi James,

I will defer to Jeff on the specifics of what is packaged in the MS4W 
downloads as I'm primarily a Linux user.

So mapcache is a new generation of tile cache management that runs as an 
apache module and talks to mapserver or any WMS server for the 
generation of tiles. What it is really great at is that it:

1. manages a single cache of tiles
2. exposes that cache under many configurable protocols
3. can be pre-seeded or seeded as you go
4. it also has lots of cool features like it can combine tiles into a 
single image or it can merge multiple layers into a single tile request.
5. and some other features

Regarding the old "tile server" mode, that was an experiment, that was 
deprecated and obsoleted by mapcache. So depending on when things get 
packaged and are available in MS4W, I would definitely plan on using 
mapcache.

Here is a map that I built in mapserver that uses mapcache, this is on a 
linux box, but it should give you and idea of what is possible.

http://imaptools.com:8080/demo/tiger-demo2.html

Best,
   -Stece


> -----Original Message----- From:
> ms4w-users-bounces at lists.maptools.org on behalf of Stephen
> Woodbridge Sent: Sat 3/2/2013 7:44 PM To:
> ms4w-users at lists.maptools.org Subject: Re: [MS4W-Users] MS4W in Tile
> Server mode?
>
> On 3/2/2013 8:36 PM, James_in_Utah wrote:
>
> James,
>
> Here is a rough outline of how you would to this:
>
> 1. create a mapfile for mapserver to read your jp2 files and render
> them in jpeg or png format. This has to be setup as WMS.
>
> 2. configure mapcache for the tiles you want and use the mapserver
> wms as the source. Configure the demo service also for testing.
>
> Then you should be able to go to http://yourserver/mapcache/demo
>
> This mapcache will populate the cache on the fly as you request tiles
> or you can run the seeder to precache the tiles. When you request a
> tile from mapcache it will serve the tile if it exists or it will
> create it and store it in the cache and serve it up.
>
> There should be documentation and examples on the mapserver.org
> site.
>
> -Steve W _______________________________________________ MS4W-Users
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