WFS stands for Web Feature Service. It is a standard protocol developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) for serving and exchanging geospatial feature data over the internet. Unlike WMS, which serves map images, WFS focuses on retrieving and manipulating individual geospatial features, such as points, lines, and polygons, along with their attributes.
Key aspects of WFS include:
Server: The WFS server is responsible for storing and serving geospatial feature data. It allows clients to retrieve, query, create, update, and delete individual features or collections of features.
Client: The client application or software interacts with the WFS server to access, query, and manipulate geospatial feature data. Clients can range from web browsers and GIS software to custom-built mapping applications.
Feature Data: WFS servers host datasets consisting of geospatial features. These features represent real-world objects or phenomena and can be associated with attributes that provide additional information about the features.
GetFeature Operation: The primary operation in WFS is the GetFeature operation. It allows clients to request specific features from the server based on criteria such as spatial extent, attribute values, or spatial relationships. The server responds with the requested feature data, which can be used for visualization, analysis, or other purposes.
Transactional Support: WFS supports transactional operations, such as Create, Update, and Delete, allowing clients to modify feature data on the server. This enables data editing and maintenance capabilities, making WFS suitable for collaborative data management workflows.
Feature Encoding Formats: WFS supports various feature encoding formats, including GML (Geography Markup Language), GeoJSON (JSON-based format), and Shapefiles. These formats define the structure and syntax for representing geospatial features and their attributes in a standardized way.
WFS provides interoperability and standardization for accessing and manipulating geospatial feature data across different platforms and applications. It enables seamless integration of geospatial data from multiple sources and allows for data exchange and synchronization between systems. WFS is commonly used in applications such as data sharing, spatial data infrastructures (SDI), spatial data services, and collaborative geospatial workflows.