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Web Feature Service (WFS)

  • Reference work entry
Encyclopedia of GIS

Synonyms

Geographic markup language; GML; WFS; Web map service; WMS

Definition

The Web Feature Service (WFS) is an interface specified by the Open GIS Consortium (OGC) that allows for the exchange of geographic data across the Web. It defines the rules for requesting and retrieving geographic information using the Hyper Text Transmission Protocol (HTTP). The interface describes the data manipulation operations on geographic features. Extensible Markup Language (XML) -based Geographic Markup Language (GML) is used for exchange of information. It should be noted that WFS supports the vector data model.

Historical Background

The Open GeoSpatial Consortium, Inc (OGC) has been instrumental in the formulation of the Web Feature Service. OGC is an international industry consortium of companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. Regarding Web Services, OGC has specified web interfaces based on...

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Recommended Reading

  1. OpenGeoSpatial Consortium (OGC) specification on Web Feature Service (http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wfs): According to the OGC website, (http://www.opengeospatial.org), OGC is a non-profit, international, voluntary consensus standards organization that is leading the development of standards for geospatial and location based services. It provides technical documents that detail agreed-upon interfaces or encodings which when implemented by software developers will ensure that the resulting components work together coherently

  2. Web Mapping Illustrated by Tyler Mitchell (O'Reilly Series, 2005). This book explains how to find, collect, understand, use, and share mapping data, both over the traditional Web and using OGC-standard services like WFS and WMS

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  3. Beginning MapServer: Open Source GIS Development by Bill Kropla (Apress Publications, 2005). This book shows the use of OGC-standard services in MapServer, one of the popular development platforms for integrating mapping technology into Internet applications

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  4. http://www.en.wikipedia.org: This collaborative web-based, free content encyclopedia project is a good resource to see information on WFS brought together. It provides additional links for further investigation

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Abhinaya Sinha

Authors
  1. Abhinaya Sinha
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Shashi Shekhar (McKnight Distinguished University Professor) (McKnight Distinguished University Professor)

  2. Management Science and Information Systems Department, Rutgers Business School Newark and New Brunswick Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA

    Hui Xiong (Assistant Professor) (Assistant Professor)

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag

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Sinha, A. (2008). Web Feature Service (WFS). In: Shekhar, S., Xiong, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of GIS. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35973-1_1479

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