Hi, I've been playing around a little with Google Maps, and spurred by a post on mapserver-users I sat down a built myself a WMS front for the two satellite imagery layers on Google Maps. It's not complete yet, as it only throws xml formatted exceptions. And I would like to include other layers too.
I've opened the two imagery layers succesfully in both MapInfo Pro 7.5 and 7.8, but as other clients may support other "dialects". Please let me hear of any experiences. Layer 1 consists of circa 3 by 3 degree tiles, layer 2 of 1� by 1� degre tiles. And it's flattened at higher latitudes, just as Earth appears from geostationary orbit. The server URL to enter into MIPro is as follows: http://www.gispro.dk/googlemaps_wms.php?service=wms&version=1.1.1 Don't try and display the whole world, as the server script in that case needs to fetch a humongous number of 64K tiles (8192 for layer 1, four times as many for layer 2), and my ISP do enforce a 30 second script timeout. Instead create a TAB without displaying it right away, and include it in mappers with zoom layering on. Max. zoom of 1000 km seems adequate for layer 1, half for layer 2. Feel free to play with it. If anyone's interested in hosting it on his own server (with longer timeout/higher traffic volume), send me an email. And finally the disclaimer: this is provided as-is. If I need to pull the script due to complaints about excessive traffic or some other issue, I will do so without warning. However, I will submit a post here if it comes to that. And any issues concerning the legality of use of Google Maps resides solely with the end-user. Best regards/Med venlig hilsen Lars V. Nielsen GisPro, Denmark http://www.gispro.dk/
