| York County is a volunteer participant in the NC OneMap and USGS National Map programs. This program allows York County to collaborate with other governments within the region by sharing map or geographic information on the Internet. The State of North Carolina and the United States Geologic Survey (USGS) have been working together with local governments in the Charlotte region toward the National Map initiative established by President Bush. This program will not replace or overshadow the importance of our existing GIS Online, but instead extend and build upon existing capabilities to establish a regional and even national presence.
Benefits of participating in this program include: integration of GIS data from multiple communities and jurisdictions in the York County area; opportunities to address regional issues and problems; better informed government decisions based on regional data; and enhanced coordination among federal, state and local governments due to the seamless map integration when tapping data sources.
The NC OneMap program makes a data connection via the Internet to the county’s GIS Online server. By building upon existing infrastructure the County Staff have established, this program furthers the dissemination of information all can use through GIS technology.
What is WMS? What are WMS Services?
The York County OGC (Open GIS Consortium) Web Map Service (WMS) is an Internet-based service designed to provide on-line WMS compliant mapping access to York County(~)s base layers. By using this service, anyone may have access to our most current and accurate base data for rendering customized maps. To construct maps from WMS layers, websites that combine WMS services are required or software such as ESRI ArcCatalog can be used. The NC OneMap website is one such example.
Why adopt OGC Interfaces?
WMS is an OpenGIS Consortium interface (protocol) for Web Mapping Servers. An interface is a standard for open communication between heterogeneous computer systems. Other familiar protocol examples are HTTP or TCP/IP.
The Open GIS Consortium (OGC) is a not-for-profit, international consortium whose many members work to make GIS an integral part of information systems of all kinds. Operates a Specification Development Program that is similar to other Industry consortia (W3C, OMG, etc.).
Also operates an Interoperability Program (IP), a partnership-driven engineering and testing program designed to deliver proven specifications into the Specification Development Program.
OGC interface specifications are open, freely downloadable documents that can be applied and tested widely. Commercial and non-commercial software can support these interfaces for interoperability and information exchange.
Adopting common service interfaces lets solutions use the same software to connect to systems back-ended by different GIS vendor solutions.
York County Participates in both the USGS National Map and the North Carolina OneMap programs. The County shares GIS data by making map services available. The NC OneMap and USGS National Map program requires that the map services be available through Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) compliant Web Map Service (WMS).
WMS Services:
Building Footprints
Corporate (City) Limits
Tax Parcels
Street Centerline
County Zoning
Orthophotos (2000)
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