OGC Web Services

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc (OGC) is a standards organization leading the development of geospatial and location based services. The OGC has adopted a number of specifications, some of which are used by the IEM. This page lists these services.

Some items of note:

1. All of these services are available via https:// connections.
2. There are four DNS aliases for the website to allow web browers to make many simultaneous requests against these services.
   
   1. mesonet1.agron.iastate.edu
   2. mesonet2.agron.iastate.edu
   3. mesonet3.agron.iastate.edu
   4. www.mesonet.agron.iastate.edu

Tile Map Service (TMS)

This service makes for easy integration with web mapping applications like Google Maps, OpenLayers, and ESRI JS API.

Bing Maps

The folks at Microsoft Bing Maps group have kindly created two examples using their javascript framework.

Single Tile Layer: example

Animated Tile Layer: example

ESRI JS API

Here is an example using the ESRI JS API. This was contributed by Derek Swingley.

Google Maps

The following is example code that works with version 2 of the Google Maps API:

var tileNEX = new GTileLayer(null,null,null); 
tileNEX.getTileUrl = function(tile,zoom) {
   /* Include date at the end as a cachebuster */
   return "https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cache/tile.py/1.0.0/nexrad-n0q-900913/"
   + zoom + "/" + tile.x + "/" + tile.y +".png?"+ (new Date()).getTime(); 
};
tileNEX.isPng = function() { return true;};
tileNEX.getOpacity = function() { return 0.5; }


var layer4=[G_NORMAL_MAP.getTileLayers()[0],tileNEX]; 
var custommap4 = new GMapType(layer4, G_SATELLITE_MAP.getProjection(), "Nexrad", G_SATELLITE_MAP);
map.addMapType(custommap4);

Here is an example for Google Maps v3.

OpenLayers v2

Here is an example for OpenLayers and assumes your map projection is in spherical mercator. Or check out this self contained and fully functional openlayers example.

function get_my_url (bounds) {
    var res = this.map.getResolution();
    var x = Math.round ((bounds.left - this.maxExtent.left) / (res * this.tileSize.w));
    var y = Math.round ((this.maxExtent.top - bounds.top) / (res * this.tileSize.h));
    var z = this.map.getZoom();

    var path = z + "/" + x + "/" + y + "." + this.type +"?"+ parseInt(Math.random()*9999);
    var url = this.url;
    if (url instanceof Array) {
        url = this.selectUrl(path, url);
    }
    return url + this.service +"/"+ this.layername +"/"+ path;

}
var n0q = new OpenLayers.Layer.TMS(
        'NEXRAD Base Reflectivity',
        'https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cache/tile.py/',
        {layername      : 'nexrad-n0q-900913',
        service         : '1.0.0',
        type            : 'png',
        visibility      : true,
        getURL          : get_my_url,
        isBaseLayer     : false}
);
/* you'd then add n0q to your map object */

OpenLayers v3

Here is a self contained example for OpenLayers v3.

var tms = new ol.layer.Tile({
            title: 'GOES East IR Satellite',
            visible: false,
            source: new ol.source.XYZ({
                    url : '/cache/tile.py/1.0.0/goes-east-ir-4km-900913/{z}/{x}/{y}.png'
            });

Other Tile Map Services

The nexrad-n0r-900913 is the layer name and represents the "current" composite base reflectivity. Here are other TileCache services provided by the IEM. These are all TMS for spherical mercator.

Web Map Service (WMS)

A WMS defines a protocol for web based retrieval of geodata in raster map format. If you are interested in the capabilities XML file, simply add "VERSION=1.1.1&REQUEST=GetCapabilities&SERVICE=WMS&" to the URI string.

Web Feature Service (WFS)

A WFS is a service that provides geodata as simple features in Geography Markup Language (GML).