Patent ID: 8130245

Claim:
A system of processing map images, comprising: a Web Mapping Service (WMS) for storing map images; and a WMS proxy operative with the WMS that receives from a client a request for a map image for display at the client, said WMS proxy further comprising a distributed two-tier cache that stores map tiles, a tile broker module that converts the request for the map image into a series of requests for obtaining map tiles, wherein said tile broker module is operative for returning cached map tiles if they already exist within the cache and retrieving map tiles from the WMS if map tiles are not returned from the cache; and a tile building module operative for building a map image at the WMS proxy from the map tiles in a requested format and resolution and displaying the map image at the client without resampling at the client, wherein the tile building module is configured to resample each map tile into a requested tile format and at a requested tile resolution before building the map image from the map tiles.