7. Use of WCS in MapServer#

WFS publishes vector data service on the Web, while for raster data service, OGC formulates WCS (Web Coverage Services, network coverage service). The raster data set obtained through WCS service is called overlay, where the coverage is generally raster data, but also includes TIN and so on. The data returned by the WCS service can be used as input parameters for analysis and modeling operations. This is in sharp contrast to the OGC WMS service, which only returns pictures of the data.

There is no built-in support for WCS in the front-end libraries Leaflet and OpenLayers. If you are a service / data provider and the coverage data is two-dimensional, you can consider the WMS that provides the data at the same time. If you are not a service provider and you have only one WCS endpoint to use, you will not be able to write your own code. Similarly, if you have multidimensional coverage and want to provide two-dimensional data, you have to do the same. Examples can be found on the Internet.