Integrate topographic data for free
With a new free data service, GIS users are able to integrate topographic background information in any desktop or WebGIS application. Only requirement is the ability of the application to integrate a standardized WMS. The new service is offered by the new company mundialis from Bonn.
The developers of mundialis, which are specialized in open source applications, used several free data sources for their new data service. For the global topography, a 450 meter resolution raster dataset was used by the Shuttle-Radar-Topography-Mission (SRTM) from 2000. Additional ASTER data with a resolution of 30 meter is covering Germany. To add information about places, OpenStreetMap data was used.
As a result, a free topographic basemap can be used by every GIS user, covering the whole world with additional higher resolution for Germany. This addition shows the possibility of adding higher resolution data for different areas in the future – depending on the demand or particular requirements from customers.
The new service shows an example of the potential of combining remote sensing and WebGIS – which is the main business idea of mundialis.
The new topographic WMS can be integrated with the URL http://ows.mundialis.de/services/service?service=wms&request=getCapabilities. Topographic and OSM data will be updated separately: the road data is brought up to date every two weeks – this is not required for the topography, as by experience geologic processes are still slower than road constructions.