Directory Structure for Map Services

• Check out the TIGERweb API directory at:  tigerweb.geo.census.gov/arcgis/rest/services/TIGERweb
• All TIGERweb Decennial map services will remain in the /Census2010 directory.
• For more information visit: //tigerweb.geo.census.gov/tigerwebmain/TIGERweb_restmapservice.html

GeoServices REST Specification

The GeoServices REST Specification provides a way for Web clients to communicate with geographic information system (GIS) servers through Representational State Transfer (REST) technology.

The specification is

• A proven and easy to understand method for a broad range of clients and applications to request map, feature, attribute, and image information from a GIS server.
• A JSON-based, REST-ful specification that will make the GIS server instantly usable by thousands of developers working in popular client-side development environments with the ArcGIS Web mapping APIs for JavaScript™, Flex™, Silverlight®, iOS®, and Android™.

Use of the GeoServices REST Specification is subject to the current Open Web Foundation Agreement. The Open Web Foundation (OWF) is an independent non-profit dedicated to the development and protection of open, non-proprietary specifications for web technologies. Terms and conditions of the OWF Agreement are subject to change without notice.

Deocumentation / specifications for this service are owned and maintained by ESRI and can be downloaded by esri.com/opengeoservices . Here is a current link.

Excerpt from ESRI Documentation:

Introduction

The GeoServices REST Specification provides a standard way for web clients to communicate with geographic information system (GIS) servers through Representational State Transfer (REST) technology. Clients issue requests to the server through structured URLs. The server responds with map images, text-based geographic information, or other resources that satisfy the request. Although the GeoServices REST Specification was originally built to communicate with Esri's ArcGIS® Server product, the specification has been opened such that developers can expose the GeoServices REST Specification request structure from other back-end GIS servers or processes.

Why Implement the GeoServices REST Specification?

The GeoServices REST Specification offers a simple way for applications to request  map, feature, attribute, and image information from a GIS server. Developers who adopt the GeoServices REST Specification are choosing a proven implementation that has been widely deployed and exercised in the field and that exposes server-side resources to a broad range of clients and applications. They are also choosing a JSON-based, REST-ful specification that will make the server instantly usable by thousands of developers working in popular client-side development environments with the ArcGIS web mapping APIs for JavaScript™, Flex™, Silverlight®, iOS®, and Android™, all of which are powered by the GeoServices REST Specification.

How Do I Implement the GeoServices REST Specification?

To implement the GeoServices REST Specification, developers architect the back-end server to respond to specifically structured REST requests in an expected way. For example, if someone issues a request to the server to export a map image, such as //<mapservice-url>/export?bbox=-127.8,15.4,-63.5,60.5, the server should return a map image with a lower left coordinate of (-127.8, 15.4) and an upper right coordinate of (-63.5, 60.5). How the server generated the image is not so important as the fact that it responded in an expected way when issued a URL whose structure followed the GeoServices REST Specification.

The full GeoServices REST Specification is described in this document. Developers can choose how much or how little to implement. For example, if geocoding or geoprocessing operations are not exposed by the GIS server, developers may not need to implement the Geocode Service or GP Service piece of the specification.

For questions about the GeoServices REST Specification, contact opengeoservices@esri.com