MapServer


MapServer is an open-source development environment for building spatially enabled internet applications, built in the C language, and is widely known as one of the fastest Web mapping engines available. It can run as a CGI program or via MapScript which supports several programming languages. MapServer can access hundreds of data formats, any raster or vector format supported by GDAL, and reprojections on-the-fly are handled by PROJ. MapServer was originally developed by Steve Lime, then working at the University of Minnesota — so, it was previously referred to as "UMN MapServer", to distinguish it from commercial "map servers"; today it is commonly referred to as just "MapServer", and is maintained by the MapServer Project Steering Committee. MapServer was originally developed with support from NASA, which needed a way to make its satellite imagery available to the public.
WWW Official Site𝕏 mapserver_osgeo

Timeline

MapServer has had an important role in Web mapping history. The following is a summary of its evolution:
  • 1994: UMN awarded with NASA/ForNet funding to support web-based delivery of forestry data.
  • 1997-07: MapServer 1.0, Developed as Part of the NASA ForNet Project. Grew out of the need to deliver remote sensing data across the web for foresters.
  • 1998-07: MapServer 2.0 released as final ForNET deliverable; added reprojection support.
  • 1999: UMN makes MapServer an open source project.
  • 2000-06: MapServer 3.0 was developed as part of the NASA TerraSIP Project. This is also the first public, open source release of UMN MapServer.
  • 2001-06: MapServer 3.2 released with MapScript 1.0, like CSS, adds layout flexibility.
  • 2002-06: MapServer 3.5 was rewritten, and added support for PostGIS and ArcSDE. Version 3.6 adds initial OGC WMS support.
  • 2003-07: MapServer 4.0, adds 24bit raster output support and support for SWF.
  • 2005-04: MapServer 4.6, adds support for SVG.
  • 2007-09: MapServer 5.0 released, introducing Anti-Grain Geometry graphics library.
  • 2011-05: MapServer 6.0 released, adds support for opengl & KML output, with 5.6.X as stable versions.
  • 2012-11: MapServer 6.2 released, adds support for INSPIRE services. Released along TinyOWS and MapCache.
  • 2013-09: MapServer 6.4 released, adds CMake support, contour rendering, layer geometry transformations.
  • 2015-07: MapServer 7.0 released, adds heatmap layers, WFS 2.0 support, and layer-level character encoding.
  • 2018-07: MapServer 7.2 released, adds MVT support, support for multi-line comments in the mapfile, and Python 3 support for MapScript.
  • 2019-05: MapServer 7.4 released, adds PHP 7 MapScript support through SWIG, and initial PROJ 6 API support.
  • 2020-05: MapServer 7.6 released, adds full support for PROJ 6 API, adds connection options in mapfile, and special character support in mapfiles on Windows.
  • 2022-09: MapServer 8.0 released, adds native FlatGeobuf support, OGCAPI: Features support, new config file for MapServer, and PHP native MapScript removed, in place of PHPNG MapScript.
  • 2024-07: MapServer 8.2 released, adds OGC API Features support, GitHub repository restructuring, and secures regex validation.
  • 2025-01: MapServer 8.4 released, adds build support for PCRE2 library, new COMPOSITE.COMPOP blending operations, and CONNECTIONTYPE RASTERLABEL.
  • 2025-12: MapServer 8.6 released, adds automatically generated index page to deployments, allow additional query parameters for OGCAPI: Features.