Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Services
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) developed the Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS) specifications to facilitate the interoperability of geospatial data.
A WMS produces an image (e.g. PNG, JPG) of geospatial data which can be queried to return a simple attribute set. A WFS delivers all the geospatial data in XML format and allows more complex querying of a dataset.
OGC Web Services give clients access to our data without having the dataset stored locally. Using a specially structured http request, clients can call a dataset (eg. coastline, roads, geological units) into an application such as an online web portal or a GIS application.
National geoscience datasets
- WMS details
- XML capabilities (This WMS serves over 170 layers of geospatial data)
National topographic datasets
Geological Web Services
Topic contact: feedback@ga.gov.au Last updated: December 13, 2012
