Welcome to Map Suite™ World Map Kit WMS Server from ThinkGeo, a full-featured World Map Kit server that makes it easy for any Microsoft .NET developer to quickly and efficiently set up their own Web Map Service that includes map data covering the entire world – plus enhanced street-level detail of the United States and Canada. Using this WorldMapKit deployment SDK, even developers inexperienced in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can start serving rich, professional-grade maps in minutes.

The purpose of this guide is to help you quickly get started publishing your own Web Map Service (WMS) that covers the entire world, using the default “Key System”. Like any new software, there is some learning to be done along the way.

How do we start to build up a Map Suite World Map Kit WMS Server with world map data included? The best way is to make a demo with it.

(For the purposes of this guide, let's assume we have installed Map Suite World Map Kit WMS Server 7.0 to the default folder: “C:\Program Files\ThinkGeo\Map Suite WorldMapKit Server 7.0”)

Please navigate to the default installation directory “C:\Program Files\ThinkGeo\Map Suite WorldMapKit Server 7.0\WorldMapKitServer\WorldMapKitServer”, and open Web.config as shown in the file list below:

Within Web.config, focus on the AppSetting module to change the configuration for the WorldMapKit data directory and the path of the image cache folder. See the screenshot of the relevant lines below:

NOTE: The “RequireSingedUrl” module is used to set whether we apply the default “License Strategies” to your map server. If the value is “true”, your map server will support two kinds of users: those with a “Free accout” to get your map images with a watermark embedded in them, and those who have a “Premium account” that lets them request images without a watermark. If the value is “false”, all users can access your map server without any license limits.

Save and close Web.config, then open “Control Panel” → “Administrative Tools” → “Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager”. In our example, we are using IIS version 7.5.7600.16385, as you can see in the following screenshot:

Right-click on the “Default Web Site” to open the management menu, and then click the “Add Application…” item. When the “Add Application” dialog appears, configure it as shown in the screenshot below:

NOTE: You can also manage the permissions for the server by right-clicking on “Default Web Site” and choosing “Edit Permission…” and then adding the group or user names that you want to be able to access the server.

Now, all of the settings for your own World Map Kit WMS Server have been configured. Please click the “Browse” link on the right side panel of IIS Manager, and the World Map Kit plugin management page will be shown in your web browser:

Click the “Preview” link to display the map in a temporary window as shown in the screenshot below. This gives you a visual representation of how the maps served by your WMS will look as it is currently configured.

You can also preview the detailed capabilities of your own world map server by clicking the “View Capabilities” link. The capabilities of your server will be displayed as XML in your browser, as seen in the screenshot below. These settings can be changed by modifying the capabilities file “WorldMapKitWmsHandlerCapabilities.xml” that is located in “C:\Program Files\ThinkGeo\Map Suite WorldMapKit Server 7.0\WorldMapKitServer\WorldMapKitServer\CapabilitiesXml”.

To change the default watermark on each map tile, please navigate the installation folder “C:\Program Files\ThinkGeo\Map Suite WorldMapKit Server 7.0\WorldMapKitServer\WorldMapKitServer\Images” and find the image “watermark.png”. See the figure below:

Replace this file with the image of your choice, making sure that the new image still has the same name “watermark.png”. Here is the image we used for this example:

Now, in order to see your new watermark, you need to restart the website. This is because we cache the watermark image in the application for maximum performance.

Browe the “WorldMapKitServer” application again and display the the preview page to see the watermark on your maps.

Once your World Map Kit WMS Server is set up, two kinds of license strategies, “Free” and “Premium”, will take effect. In other words, there are two ways you can serve maps to your users. One way is for free users who aren't required to have any license information, in which case you include a watermark on your map images. The other way is for premium users, in which there are no watermarks on the maps. The Free version is very easy to understand, but the Premium version is a little complex, so let's clarify it now.

The first thing to understand is that the Premium license strategy uses a “key system” to control access to your map server. Premium users will connect to your server using a special key that identifies their access type as Premium.

• If your server is consumed by a web application or website, your premium customers should register their Regex URI as the key. In this way, the key will be available all the URIs that match with it. For instance, let's say that your premium customer has registered the Regex URI below:

(^\s*)(http|https)\://[[a-zA-Z0-9\-]]*[\.]*(thinkgeo)[[\.\w]]+[/\w\.]+/?([[a-zA-Z0-9\:\-\._\?\,\'/\\\+&%\$#\=~]])*[[^\.\,\)\(\s]]\s*$

The following URLs are then covered:

1. http://maps.thinkgeo.com/web/
   
2. http://websamples.thinkgeo.com/
   
3. http://geocodersamples.thinkgeo.com/web/
   
4. http://routingsamples.thinkgeo.com/web/
   
5. http://maps.thinkgeo.com/WmsServer.axd?key1=value1&key2=value2
   

• If your server is consumed by a desktop application, a private key and a “Client Id” are required when accessing your World Map Kit server. You need to provide the private key to the customer after they have registered a valid “Client Id”.

All of the license information is stored in two .txt files. The first file, “Domain.txt”, is for domain information registered by web users. The other file, “UserClients.txt”, is for the “Client Ids” and “Private Keys” that are used by Desktop users. These files are located in “C:\Program Files\ThinkGeo\Map Suite WorldMapKit Server 7.0\WorldMapKitServer\WorldMapKitServer\App_Data”.

• NOTE: Both of these .txt files are cached for 30 minutes by default (a duration that you can change in the Web.config file). This means that when you make changes to these files, you need to restart your map server for the changes to take effect immediately. Otherwise, your users will have to wait untill the cache has expired for their new credentials to become active.**

You have now explored the basics of using Map Suite World Map Kit WMS Server on your own server! If you have further questions about using the product, please visit the Map Suite World Map Kit support forum.