TIGER Mapping
Service
The "Coast to
Coast" Digital
Map Database.
Current Status and Future Plans
The pilot of the TMS project is complete, and is represented by the services
available on this site. Here is a brief feature list (as of TMS version 2.1):
Street-level detail for the entire United States.
Counties and States for the entire United States
Cartographic design, including color, fills, and line styles, all
able to be altered by the arbitrary scale.
Users can turn individual layers on and off. This is not yet integrated
into the map browser, though.
Open interface to images (through mapgen
script), allowing any user to request maps directly to inline in other documents.
Map Browser interface, allowing users
to view and browse the map database.
Markers can be placed on the map by geographic coordinates (lat/lon). In fact,
if a Web publisher has a series of points to display, this can be done with a
marker file
Creation of a legend/scale box, as a separate image.
Reverse Coordinate Decoding, allowing a user to send a pixel coordinate
(x,y) from the map and get the associated real-world coordinate. This makes
interactive map-based applications using this service viable.
Integration of a US
Gazetteer, allowing users to search for a place, county, or zip code to display.
Basic labelling of places, using a unique formula to determine relative
importance of cities for selection. (v1.3)
Creation of thematic maps based on 1990 Census Statistical data. (v2.0)
The following is a list of features that we would have like to have added to the service. However, the project is no longer funded and the code enhancements and maintenance are not possible at this time.
WWW interface to the coordinate decoder, so other web developers can build
interactive applications similar to the Map Browser.
Improve Performance
Better labelling, including major highways.
Address Geocoding
Placing markers on map by street address
Replacement of GD routine with faster drawing routines
Finish/Improve Statistical Mapping features
Important Note:
During the past few years, the TMS servers have been generating 150,000 to 350,000
maps per day. The map server application is extremely CPU and I/O intensive and we are using as much compute resource as we can muster to provide
this service to the public. We were given a little funding in FY '95 and we
purchased 2 machines which were quickly pushed to the limit.
The plans for code enhancement were not funded this year and we are
limping along with our 2.1 release. Over the life of the project, we have
collected a ton fan email from all kinds of users (Thank you!), but we have
not gotten enough internal support to keep the momentum going. Basically
there is no funding to make enhancements to the map server code. We
are now in a minimal maintence mode. There are still many bugs and the
problems, which may take a while to fix (if at all).
![[TMS]](/tms.gif)
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