Links and Resources

2. OGC WCS

The OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) defines an interoperable way of sharing regular grids. We will focus on the version of WCS 2.0. WCS 2.0 defines the Core specifications that have to be implemented by every WCS compatible server.

WCS 2.0 uses the coverage model of the GML Application Schema for Coverages. WCS 2.0 supports all coverage types supported
by Application Schema.

The core specifications can be extended to support:

• different data structure (different Format Encoding): GeoTiff, JPEG2000
• protocol binding or service subtypes (client-server communication protocols):

1. GET-KVP (Key-Value Pair): the HTTP Get protocol for sending key-value-pair encoded request and to receive XML metadata and binary coverage data
2. POST-XML: HTTP POST protocol for transferring XML data and binary coverage data
3. SOAP-XML: using the SOAP protocol for transferring XML data and binary coverage data

• WCS extensions: Web Coverage Service – Transactional (WCS -T) defines how to upload or modify a coverage on a server
• Usability extensions: supports multilinguality