This web page is using Leaflet
to display maps which are created on-the-fly by ERDDAP's
Web Map Server (WMS) version 1.3.0.
The control on the left of the map lets you zoom in (+) or out (-).
The control on the right manages the layers.
You can select different values for the data variable's dimension(s):
ERDDAP's Web Map Service (WMS) lets you request an image with data plotted on a map.
WMS
is an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)
and ISO (19128)
standard for "the
creation and display of registered and superimposed map-like views of information that come
simultaneously from multiple remote and heterogeneous sources."
See the
list
of datasets available via WMS at this ERDDAP installation.
Three Ways to Make Maps with WMS
In theory, anyone can download, install, and use WMS client software. Some clients are:
ArcGIS and
uDig.
To make a client work, you would install the software on your computer.
Then, you would enter the URL of the WMS service into the client.
For example, in ArcGIS (not yet fully working because it doesn't handle time!), use
"Arc Catalog : Add Service : Arc Catalog Servers Folder : GIS Servers : Add WMS Server".
In ERDDAP, this dataset has its own WMS service, which is located at
https://coastwatch.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/wms/miamicurrents/request?
(Some WMS client programs don't want the ? at the end of that URL.)
See the
list
of datasets available via WMS at this ERDDAP installation.
In practice, we haven't found any WMS clients that properly handle dimensions
other than longitude and latitude (e.g., time), a feature which is specified by the WMS
specification and which is utilized by most datasets in ERDDAP's WMS servers.
You may find that using
Make A Graph
and selecting the .kml file type (an OGC
standard) to load images into Google Earth provides
a good (non-WMS) map client.
See the
list
of datasets with Make A Graph at this ERDDAP installation.
Web page authors can embed a WMS client in a web page. For the map above, ERDDAP is using
Leaflet, which is a very versatile WMS client.
Leaflet doesn't automatically deal with dimensions other than longitude and latitude
(e.g., time), so you will have to write JavaScript (or other scripting code) to do that.
(Adventurous JavaScript programmers can look at the Souce Code for this web page.)
Another commonly used JavaScript WMS client is
OpenLayers.
A person with a browser or a computer program can generate special WMS URLs. For example,
In practice, it is easier, more versatile,
and more efficient to use this dataset's
Make A Graph web page
than to use WMS for this purpose.
See the
list
of datasets with Make A Graph at this ERDDAP installation.