How to use Geodata Services

Interfaces

Map layers published in Geodata Services are provided with WMS, WFS and WMTS interfaces. You can use these interfaces with compatible desktop clients such as QGIS and ArcGIS - or web mapping libraries like OpenLayers or Leaflet.

Web Map Service (WMS)

The OpenGIS® Web Map Service Interface Standard (WMS) provides a simple HTTP interface for requesting geo-registered map images from one or more distributed geospatial databases. A WMS request defines the geographic layer(s) and area of interest to be processed. The response to the request is one or more geo-registered map images (returned as JPEG, PNG, etc) that can be displayed in a browser application. The interface also supports the ability to specify whether the returned images should be transparent so that layers from multiple servers can be combined or not.

Web Feature Service (WFS)

The Web Feature Service (WFS) represents a change in the way geographic information is created, modified and exchanged on the Internet. Rather than sharing geographic information at the file level using File Transfer Protocol (FTP), for example, the WFS offers direct fine-grained access to geographic information at the feature and feature property level.

Web Map Tile Service (WMTS)

This Web Map Tile Service (WMTS) Implementation Standard provides a standard based solution to serve digital maps using predefined image tiles. The service advertises the tiles it has available through a standardized declaration in the ServiceMetadata document common to all OGC web services. This declaration defines the tiles available in each layer (i.e. each type of content), in each graphical representation style, in each format, in each coordinate reference system, at each scale, and over each geographic fragment of the total covered area.

Bitcomp Oy, Yliopistonkatu 38, 40100 Jyväskylä, FINLAND, Tel. +358 400 731 127, firstname.lastname@bitcomp.fi