OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS)

Web Coverage Service (WCS)

1) Overview

The OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) supports electronic retrieval of geospatial data as "coverages" – that is, digital geospatial information representing space/time-varying phe-nomena. This document specifies the WCS core; every implementation of a WCS shall adhere to this standard. This standard thus defines only basic requirements. Extensions to the core will define extensions to meet additional requirements, such as the response encoding. Indeed, additional extensions are required in order to completely specify a WCS for implementation. A WCS provides access to coverage data in forms that are useful for client-side rendering, as input into scientific models, and for other clients. The WCS may be compared to the OGC Web Feature Service (WFS) [4] and the Web Map Service (WMS) [5]. As WMS and WFS service instances, a WCS allows clients to choose portions of a server's information holdings based on spatial constraints and other query criteria.

2) Download

Document
2.0	OGC® WCS 2.0 Interface Standard - Core  OGC® WCS 2.0 Interface Standard- Core: Corrigendum (2.0.1)
1.1.0	OpenGIS Web Coverage Service (WCS) Implementation Specification
1.0.0	OpenGIS Web Coverage Service (WCS) - Processing Extension (WCPS)

Schemas

wcs-1_0_0.zip

wcs-1_1_x.zip

wcs-2_0_0.zip

wcs-2_0_1.zip

3) Operations

Operation	Description
GetCapabilities	Retrieves a list of the server’s data, as well as valid WCS operations and parameters
DescribeCoverage	Retrieves an XML document that fully describes the request coverages.
GetCoverage	Returns a coverage in a well known format. Like a WMS GetMap request, but with several extensions to support the retrieval of coverages.

4) Reference

• http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wcs

• http://schemas.opengis.net/wcs

• http://mapserver.org/ogc/wcs_server.html

• http://docs.geoserver.org/stable/en/user/services/wcs/reference.html