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Pictometry XML/SOAP Web Services is a server-side solution that allows software developers to include Pictometry images and functionality into their products.

Because they use the XML/SOAP protocol, Pictometry XML/SOAP Web Services can provide access to Pictometry images and functionality, regardless of the platform and language.

Pictometry XML/SOAP Web Services does not provide a User Interface (UI). Instead, it provides a set of functions that can be called to provide images and other results to an application, which in turn presents the information to a user.

There are also several run-time parameters available that affect various aspects of the Web Services.

Connections

These Web Services provide a state-driven interface to Pictometry images and functionality. This means that an application needs to make a connection request to the Web Services before making other requests, and it needs to disconnect from the Web Services when those services are no longer needed.

Pictometry XML/SOAP Web Services can support one or more connections from a single source or from multiple sources.

The life span of a connection depends on the frequency of activity over that connection. Idle connections can time out. The timeout period is defined by Windows Internet Information Services (IIS) and Web Services configuration parameters.

Units, Coordinate Systems, and Search Parameters

There are two units of measure that you can set for each connection:

-   Distance units (such as feet, meters, and miles) for spatial measurements.

-   Angle units (such as degrees and radians) for angular measurements.

When you set either of these units of measure, measurements are converted to the desired units before results are returned.

You can also set the geographic coordinate system for each connection, causing the information sent to and from the Web Services to be transmitted in that coordinate system.

These Web Services also include many search parameters that you can set on a per-connection basis. These search parameters can filter and sort search results according to your users’ needs.

Warehouses, Searching, and Images

Pictometry XML/SOAP Web Services can support requests involving multiple warehouses. For example, you can retrieve a list of configured warehouses and you can search multiple warehouses for images.

Your users/applications can search an Image Warehouse for images. The web service will return a list of search results from that warehouse. (The exact search results will depend on the search parameters.) The search results returned contain information necessary to retrieve thumbnail images, entire images, or parts of images.

Pictometry XML/SOAP Web Services provide an image-retrieval feature that saves bandwidth. Although you can retrieve an entire image from a warehouse, this is usually not necessary; most users do not view an entire image at the same time.

Typically, retrieving an entire image is not desirable because it wastes network bandwidth, delivering more data than is needed. Pictometry XML/SOAP Web Services address this issue by making it possible to retrieve only that portion of an image that will be shown to the user.

Coordinate Conversion

These Web Services provide functions that allow the conversion of locations between a specific geographic coordinate system and points (pixel location) on an image, and back again.

You can use these functions to overlay geographic data, such as street centerlines, on the retrieved images. Additionally, Web Services can convert locations between two different geographic coordinate systems.

Measurement Tools

Pictometry XML/SOAP Web Services provide the means to measure distance, height, elevation, and bearing on images. This functionality extends the usefulness of Pictometry images by allowing Web Services developers to provide more than just "pretty pictures" to their end users. For example, end users could look at a building and measure its height, width, and depth; or they could look at an empty field and determine the elevation of various parts of that field.

Network Environment

The following diagram illustrates the Pictometry Web Services environment.

Requirements

To use Pictometry XML/SOAP Web Services, you need a machine running IIS version 5.0 or later and Microsoft ASP.NET 1.1 (part of the .NET 1.1 distribution). You’ll need a minimum of 7.5 MB of disk space for installation. Memory requirements and run-time disk requirements depend on the demand that will be placed on NIW. Microsoft Server 2003 is the recommended operating system.