Saturday 6 April 2019

Is there an exhaustive, searchable catalog of all GIS web services (e.g. OGC WMS/WFS, REST, SOAP)?


Many of us have struggled to get a list of GIS services that are available on the internet. Specifically map services that expose OGC based interfaces like WMS, WFS or Web Service interfaces like REST, SOAP etc.


For instance, just for oceanic and marine data there are several online catalogs such as
1) FDGC
2) NOAA NowCoast
3) IMO Mest
4) NASA


If you start with weather, transportation, demographics, agriculture, this list becomes huge!


These sites are not easy to use, don't have the most updated info and don't have a good taxonomy/ classification of services towards easy discovery of such services.



Is there a better attempt out there to create an exhaustive, searchable catalog of all such services? I would like to know their usage rights, free or pay etc. Uptime, performance etc. would also be nice to know.



Answer



If you're thinking of something like a Google for GIS web services then you might want to check out OWS Search Engine.



OWS Search Engine looks for web sevices implementing OGC specifications such as WMS, WMTS, WFS, WCS, WPS, SOS, SAS, SPS and CSW. Additional information about these standards are available on the OGC web site.



If you really want a list then be sure to check Skylab Mobilesystem's list though it is by no means exhaustive and it only covers WMS servers.


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