Page 1 of 15 An evaluation of the suitability of three open source map servers for setting up a geospatial thematic web service by Wiafe Owusu-Banahene and Serena Coetzee, Centre for Geoinformation Science, Department of Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology, University of Pretoria Abstract Setting up standards based geospatial thematic web service requires specific standards that can be used to create web based thematic maps and a map server that adheres to those specific standards. The objective of this research is to evaluate the ease of setting up a geospatial thematic web service in three open source web map servers, namely MapServer, GeoServer and QGIS Server. In the context of an ongoing research that seeks novel ways of enriching geospatial thematic web services with semantic and cartographic capabilities, this paper shows a procedure used in selecting one of the state-of-the art tools, in this case a map server, needed to set up a geospatial thematic web service. In this paper, the three web map servers were assessed according to the following criteria: ease of installation, ease of cartographic workflow, support for various versions of WMS standards, level of support for WMS 1.3.0, types of input data that can be used, level of support for SLD and SLD extensions, adherence to standards and quality of the user documentation. We reviewed literature, defined cartographic workflow, designed and implemented a procedure for evaluating each criterion. We present the results of comparing the web map servers. Installation is easiest in MapServer and GeoServer. Cartographic workflow in GeoServer appears attractive. MapServer supports more WMS versions. MapServer supports more input data. GeoServer documents support for more SLD extensions. GeoServer shows greater adherence to WMS and SLD standards. MapServer and GeoServer ranks highest in terms of documentation. Keywords thematic maps, WMS, web map server, web service, cartographic workflow, SLD, standards Introduction A web map server is one of the main components required in order to set up a geospatial web service. In order to set up standards based geospatial web service dedicated to publishing thematic maps, referred to in this paper as Geospatial Thematic Web Service (GTWS), there is a need to identify specific standards that can be used to create web based thematic maps. Besides knowing the specific, standards, it is crucial to choose appropriate map server that adheres to those specific standards. The question is which map server is suitable for setting up a GTWS? This paper attempts to provide a methodology that can be extended to answer this suitability question. We test the proposed methodology with results from comparison of three map servers against Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Map Service (WMS) and Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD). The objective of this paper is to evaluate the ease of setting up a geospatial thematic web service in three open source web map servers, namely MapServer, GeoServer and QGIS Server. There is an ongoing research that seeks novel ways of enriching GTWSs with semantic and cartographic capabilities in a dynamic and open manner. One of the main objectives of this ongoing research is to select state-of-the art tools required to set up a GTWS. This paper is placed within the context of this main objective, that is, to identify and select a state-of- the-art web map server suitable for a GTWS. We focus on open web map servers since their source codes are open and therefore allow us to modify them when the need arises. There have been ongoing attempts to test the performance of open source web map servers. We do not intend to test the performance of these web map servers nor run compliance tests. We aimed to do a qualitative assessment under default settings of the web map servers according to the following criteria: ease of installation, ease of cartographic workflow, support for creating web maps using standards, level of support for output formats, quality of web maps based on output formats, level of support for styling, types of input data that can be used, adherence to OGC standards and quality of the user documentation. We present our results based on the aforementioned criteria. It is worth noting that the maps presented in this paper show the quality of web maps that each web map server can produce. Their level of support for styling as presented in this paper gives an indication of their potential to create web based thematic maps. We used a definition of cartographic workflow in the case of OGC’s WMS from [1] as the process of setting up WMS, loading, exporting or publishing spatial data into a map server through to visualising the same spatial data in the form of an image or other format as advertised by the service in its GetCapabilities response. In other words, we are interested in comparing the simplest procedure that could be followed, for example, by someone who is not familiar with any of the three map servers (i) loading or publishing data to a WMS, (ii) make appropriate GetCapabilities and GetMap requests from a Web browser in order to visualise an image or other WMS response type (such as XML).