WMS can be a great source for map imagery, but many servers are vastly under powered. Also, most WMS servers render your map request on demand, which can take time and reduce the performance of an application, such as TrueNorth, using them as a data source.
TileServers on the other hand can be blazingly fast because all of the imagery is pre-rendered and only needs to be sent to the requesting application, often in smaller chunks. The application can then cache these tiles, reducing the need to re-request them, and improving speed even more.
Today, in the interest of performance, we demoed TrueNorth reading tiles from MapServer’s MapCache which can take a WMS and convert it into a TMS. This results in much improved stability, and speed in TrueNorth.
Locally cached tiles from Province of BC WMS Server
Setting up MapServer is not automated and won’t be part of a regular install of TrueNorth, but is a possibility for users who need access to advanced datasets, and high-speed performance.