The terms WMS and WMTS may sound scary to people who are not very familiar with computers. But no worries: It’s pretty easy to use them and knowing their strengths is of great advantage for mapping and even for course setting.

So, what exactly is WMS and WMTS?

WMS (Web Map Service) and WMTS (Web Map Tile Service) are interfaces for retrieving geodata as raster data over the internet. More and more of these services are available today.

• A WMS is calculated on the server side and delivers one image per request.
• A WMTS delivers tiles that have been pre-renderd on the server side, and cached on the client side. This will reduce waiting time for the data and bandwith.

In OCAD, you can load WMS/WMTS as a background map. To do so, choose the WMS / WMTS command from the Background Map menu.

Typical layers are e.g. official cadastral surveys, topographic maps, aerial images, but also protected areas or forest reserves. All these data can contain useful information for your map project.

Therefore, you can easily update maps or add additional information to it with WMS/WMTS. In the example below, we connected a WMS from swisstopo and displayed a layer to show Forest Reserve Areas on a map.

Also, you can set courses on a WMS / WMTS layer. A step-by-step guide can be found in our OCAD Wiki.