A Web Map Service (WMS) is an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard that allows users to remotely access georeferenced map images via secure hypertext transfer protocol (HTTPS) requests.
DE Africa provides two types of maps services:
Web Map Service (WMS) – A standard protocol for serving georeferenced map images over the internet that are generated from a map server using data from a GIS database. It is important to note that with a WMS, you are essentially getting an image of geospatial data (i.e. JPG, GIF, PNG file). While this has its uses, it is an image only, and therefore does not contain any of the underlying geospatial data that was used to create the image.
Web Coverage Service (WCS) – A standard protocol for serving coverage data which returns data with its original semantics (instead of just pictures) which may be interpreted, extrapolated, etc., and not just portrayed. Essentially, a WCS can be thought of as the raw geospatial raster data behind an image. Using a WCS, you can pull the raw raster information you need to perform further analysis.