July 28, 2010 -- Getmapping’s ‘WMS’ (Web Mapping Service) service is being used by Vtesse Networks to plan its optical fibre networking solutions. Getmapping aerial photography is streamed via a WMS feed over the Internet directly into Vtesse’s planning and asset management tool. Increasingly popular, WMS provides an efficient and cost effective way for organisations to access large datasets, reducing network overhead. With WMS there is no need to own manage or update the data which is supplied on demand via subscription.

“Aerial photography reveals so much more about the situation on the ground than a map ever can,” said Steve Roberts, from Vtesse Networks. “The WMS feed from Getmapping is an extremely efficient way of providing us with access to nationwide aerial photography. It enables our network planners to zoom in, locate and identify buildings, at a sub-postcode level. They can get a really good idea of the issues involved with bringing our optical fibre networks into clients’ buildings. Aerial Photography is now an integral part of our pre-planning as it can be streamed straight into our MapInfo GIS network planning and asset management tool. Our existing network, fibre routes and assets are overlaid onto the aerial photography or Ordnance Survey maps enabling us to carry out evaluation and pre-planning without a site visit.”

WMS is a standard protocol for streaming geo-referenced maps and imagery over the Internet to web based applications, GIS and CAD software. WMS feeds only load the imagery that a user actually needs to see rather than a whole dataset, which often results in lengthy load times or delays when panning and zooming. Aerial photography which is a large dataset can put a heavy strain on a network especially when it is being accessed by many users at the same time. Having an external source available through WMS reduces network load and the costs associated with data storage and management. In addition because Getmapping’s WMS service is supplied on a subscription basis, there are none of the costs associated with purchasing a national dataset.

Getmapping WMS feeds are available for aerial photography, and Ordnance Survey mapping. In the case of maps all the available scales are layered into one WMS feed. This means that the feed detects the level of zoom and displays the most appropriate scale of mapping only delivering the data required. For example, with Ordnance Survey mapping when fully zoomed in the WMS will display MasterMap, and then when zooming out, say from a building to a neighbourhood, it will display OS StreetView.