NAME

       tile4ms - create a tile index Shape data set for use with MapServer's TILEINDEX feature

SYNOPSIS

       tile4ms [ metafile tilefile [-tile-path-only] | -h]

DESCRIPTION

       tile4ms  creates  a  tile  index  Shape  data set for use with MapServer's TILEINDEX feature. The program
       creates a Shape data set of rectangles from extents of all the Shape data sets listed  in  metafile  (one
       Shape  data  set  name per line) and the associated DBF with the filename for each shape tile in a column
       called LOCATION as required by mapserv.

       Note: Similar functionality can be found in the GDAL commandline utilities ogrtindex ⟨http://
       www.gdal.org/ogrtindex.html⟩  (for  vectors)  and  gdaltindex  ⟨http://www.gdal.org/gdaltindex.html⟩ (for
       rasters).

       tile4ms creates a Shape data set containing the MBR (minimum bounding rectangle) of  all  shapes  in  the
       files provided, which can then be used in the LAYER object's TILEINDEX parameter of the mapfile.  The new
       filed created with this command is used by MapServer to only load the files associated with  that  extent
       (or tile).

OPTIONS

       metafile
              INPUT file containing list of shapefile names.  (complete paths 255 chars max, no extension)

       tilefile
              OUTPUT shape file of extent rectangles and names of tiles in tilefile.dbf

       -tile-path-only
              Optional  flag.  If specified then only the path to the shape files will be stored in the LOCATION
              field instead of storing the full filename.

       -h     Display usage information

EXAMPLE

       Short Example

       Create tileindex.shp for all tiles under the /path/to/data directory:

              cd /path/to/data
              find . -name "/*.shp" -print > metafile.txt
              tile4ms metafile.txt tileindex

       Long Example

       This example uses TIGER Census data, where the data contains files divided up by county  (in  fact  there
       are  over  3200  counties,  a very large dataset indeed). In this example we will show how to display all
       lakes for the state of Minnesota. (note that here we have already converted the  TIGER  data  into  Shape
       format,  but  you  could  keep  the data in TIGER format and use the ogrtindex utility instead) The TIGER
       Census data for Minnesota is made up of 87  different  counties,  each  containing  its  own  lakes  file
       ('wp.shp').

       1.  We  need  to  create the 'meta-file' for the tile4ms command. This is a text file of the paths to all
           'wp.shp' files for the MN state. To create this file we can use a few simple commands:

              find -name *wp.shp -print > wp_list.txt

           The newly created file might look like the following (after removing the full path):

              001\wp.shp
              003\wp.shp
              005\wp.shp
              007\wp.shp
              009\wp.shp
              011\wp.shp
              013\wp.shp
              015\wp.shp
              017\wp.shp
              019\wp.shp
              ...

       2.  Execute the tile4ms command with the newly created meta-file to create the index file:

              tile4ms wp_list.txt index
                Processed 87 of 87 files

       3.  A new file named 'index.shp' is created. This is the index file with the MBRs of all  'wp.shp'  files
           for  the  entire state, as shown in Figure 1. The attribute table of this file contains a field named
           'LOCATION', that contains the path to each 'wp.shp file', as shown in Figure 2.

           Figure 1: Index file created by tile4ms utility ⟨http://mapserver.org/_images/tile4ms-view.png⟩

           Figure 2: Attributes of index file created by tile4ms utility ⟨http://mapserver.org/_images/
           tile4ms-attributes.png⟩

       4.  The final step is to use this in your mapfile.

           • LAYER object's TILEINDEX - must point to the location of the index file

           • LAYER  object's  TILEITEM  -  specify  the name of the field in the index file containing the paths
             (default is 'location')

           • do not need to use the LAYER's DATA parameter

           For example:

              LAYER
                NAME 'mn-lakes'
                STATUS ON
                TILEINDEX "index"
                TILEITEM "location"
                TYPE POLYGON
                CLASS
                  NAME "mn-lakes"
                  STYLE
                    COLOR 0 0 255
                  END
                END
              END

       When you view the layer in a MapServer application, you will notice that when you are zoomed into a small
       area of the state only those lakes layers are loaded, which speeds up the application.

SEE ALSO

       shp2img(1), shptree(1), shptreetst(1), shptreevis(1), sortshp(1)

                                                28 February 2020                                      tile4ms(1)