wms - How do I create a mapserver config file for tiles downloaded from WMTS service?

I have downloaded Austria official map tiles from http://www.basemap.at/index_en.html using the provided offline downloader tool. Tiles are stored in my hard disk with paths similar to ///.png .

I now need to create a .map configuration file for mapserver, however all I have is the GetCapabilities result from the provider: http://www.basemap.at/wmts/1.0.0/WMTSCapabilities.xml .

Being new to GIS, I am unsure about whether I can manually create a MapServer .map file from scratch based on the GetCapabilities information, or if there is any tool or approach I shall use.

What is the preferred approach to create a .map file for a given set of downloaded raster tiles?

Answer

Current QGIS .MAP export plugin (RT MapServer Exporter) was difficult to install on Windows 64 bit and yet, the resulting MAP file does not suit my needs.

The solution for me is to:

1) Downloaded tiles using the tool in the Basemap.AT page. Ensure you enable the checkbox in order to generate the .pgw files, which define the geographical location of each .png tile.

2) From the downloaded tiles, for each zoom level (in directories named '1', '2', '3'...), created a "tileindex" shape file (.shp) that indexes the tiles for that level. This is done using the gdaltindex tool:

gdaltindex 1.shp `find 1 -name '*.png'`
gdaltindex 2.shp `find 2 -name '*.png'`
...

3) Mapserver can use these shape files to serve a map. I manually constructed the map file. You need to define several levels and play with the MAXSCALEDENOM and MINSCALEDENOM on each level to show the appropriate tileset at the correct scale (I defined scale levels by looking at the original tileset metadata).

The resulting MapServer configuration file (.MAP) contains layers that look like:

  [...]


  LAYER # Main
    NAME         city_geoland
    TYPE         RASTER
  END # Main

  LAYER
    NAME city_geoland_5
    TYPE RASTER
    TILEINDEX "5"

    TILEITEM "LOCATION" 
    MINSCALEDENOM 8735659

    METADATA
      WMS_TITLE "City Area Basemap Level 5"
      WMS_ABSTRACT ""
      WMS_SRS "EPSG:3857"
    END 
  END  


  LAYER
    NAME city_geoland_6
    TYPE RASTER
    TILEINDEX "6"
    TILEITEM "LOCATION" 
    MAXSCALEDENOM 8735659
    MINSCALEDENOM 4367830

    METADATA
      WMS_TITLE "City Area Basemap Level 6"

      WMS_ABSTRACT ""
      WMS_SRS "EPSG:3857"
    END 
  END 

  [...]