Summary of built in functionality of the BGIS Web Map Service

The BGIS Web Map Service is configured using XML based on Java Server Pages.

It uses FOUR servers, a MS SQL Database and SDE server, an ARC IMS server running JSP code under a Java Servlet container (Servlet Exec) which coordinates activities and a download ZIP server. Various help facilities and metadata reside on our Content server.

The following is a general list of pre-built functionality on the BGIS website. Note that this is not a complete or final list of the capability of the site. New features are regularly added to the source code based on enhancement requests from the user community.

  1. Geoprocessing capability (buffer, intersect, contains, etc.)
  2. Projection capabilities (coordinate conversion routines).
  3. Save and restore a user's session.
  4. Support for multiple toolsets.
  5. Button and tool bar with built-in tools that can be included in your site
    1. Zoom to full extent
    2. Zoom to previous extent
    3. Display index map. Index map refreshes automatically when extent changes and can be clicked to reposition the map.
    4. Create printable map at specific scale in Adobe PDF format.
    5. Send the map to yourself or someone by e-mail.
    6. Drill-down identify tool to display information from all visible layers.
    7. Identify tool to display information about active layer.
    8. Buffer identify tool to display information within a distance of a point.
    9. Zoom in using mouse click or rectangle.
    10. Zoom out by mouse click.
    11. Pan (recenter) by mouse click or dragging the map.
    12. Measure distance tool drawing multiple segment lines.
    13. Measure area tool drawing a polygon.
    14. Location tool adding marker and geographic position text to the map.
    15. User markup tools. Draw a point, line, polygon, box or add a grid or text to the map.
    16. Clear tool to remove user markup.
    17. Extract tool for saving features to a local shapefile, GML file, or Excel spreadsheet.
    18. Upload routines to display data in local shapefiles or GML files.
  6. Auto-generated help from XML text associated with tools and tabs.
  7. Feedback link to send an e-mail message to the site administrator.
  8. Advanced layer control.
    1. Layers grouped into nested folders.
    2. Legend graphics in layer list.
    3. Independently controlled visibility of a layer's labels.
    4. Display order independent of drawing order.
    5. Folder controls, all on, all off.
    6. Support for radio folders where only one layer can be on at a time.
    7. Layers can be hidden from user control.
    8. Virtual layers, layers organized into a group that appears as one layer.
    9. Metadata for layers or layer groups.
    10. Scale dependent layers.
    11. User restrictions preventing the user from changing visibility of a layer.
    12. Automatically refresh option.
  9. Advanced identify and selection routines.
    1. Automatic default report for queryable layers.
    2. Acetate layers are queryable like any other.
    3. Drill down identify report to show information from all visible layers.
    4. Field aliases or alternate display titles.
    5. Fields can be hidden from default reports.
    6. Fields containing URLs automatically hyperlinked.
    7. Extract selected records to shapefile, GML or Excel format.
  10. Map limits can be set (maximum extent, minimum scale, etc.)
  11. Real-time coordinate display when user moves mouse over the map.
  12. North arrow on map, automatically angled.
  13. Scalebar on map, configurable units.
  14. Map centre coordinates printed on map in desired coordinate system.
  15. Scale display in status bar.
  16. Zoom to user-entered scale.
  17. Copyright message on map.
  18. Display legend information
  19. Extensible find location routines.
    1. Zoom to latitude / longitude position.
    2. Zoom to UTM position.
    3. Bookmarks, save and restore a location extent.
    4. Zoom to place name from extents saved in database.
    5. Find by a layer's attribute value.
    6. Easy to add more, defined in XML.
  20. Predefined themes or views that can be opened by the user.