Hi Steve, WMS-Time support is my obvious suggestion for your situation.
Check out http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/docs/howto/wms_time_support for setting up inside Mapserver and also http://geoservices.cgdi.ca/mapbuilder/demo/timeSeries/index.html for an example of a "pseudo-animation" mapbuilder client which seems to fit your requirements quite well.
Regards, Chris Quoting Stephen Davies <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Greetings. I need to be able to present a series of maps for "time lapse" display. The PostgreSQL database behind the mapserver application in question contains both geometry and time-based attribute values and the map file currently used to display the data uses layers, filters and classes to colour geometries according to current attribute values. The idea is to somehow capture the images showing the geometry states at, for example, noon each day for the past month and then use javascript to display those images as a "movie" similar to those provided by many weather bureaux. I have tried doing it simply by pausing in the browser between repaint requests but there is too much variability between browsers and - in particular - between broadband and dialup users. I know I could achieve the objective by writing a PERL or Java program to emulate a browser, retrieve the output image name and ignore the output but wondered if there were a simpler method such as invoking mapserver in map mode from a shell. Any suggestions and/or advice would be most welcome. Cheers and thanks, Stephen Davies -- ======================================================================== This email is for the person(s) identified above, and is confidential to the sender and the person(s). No one else is authorised to use or disseminate this email or its contents. Stephen Davies Consulting Voice: 08-8177 1595 Adelaide, South Australia. Fax: 08-8177 0133 Computing & Network solutions. Mobile:0403 0405 83
