[Gdal-dev] vector to raster conversion

[Brian Marchand]

Frank,

I'm interested in the contour case. In thinking about the problem I
realized it wasn't trivial which is why I was hoping there was some
software or an algorithm out there already.  I imagine that picking a
good raster cell size would be difficult enough then it seems like you
would have to identify the field definition that gives you get the z
value. You could prompt for that so that wouldn't be so bad. Then
filling in between the contour lines, yikes! I'll check into GRASS.
Since I'm not GIS educated, I'm wondering if this is covered in any text
books that anyone is aware of. 

Thanks for your help

Brian

-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Warmerdam [mailto:warmerdam at pobox.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 12:32 PM
To: gdal-dev at remotesensing.org
Subject: Re: [Gdal-dev] vector to raster conversion

Brian Marchand wrote:
> Hello,
> 
>  
> 
> I know there are many GIS savvy people on this list and I was
wondering 
> if anyone knew of any vector to raster conversion code that is
floating 
> around. My interest is in converting elevation data stored in shape 
> files to any elevation raster format supported by GDAL.

Brian,

I assume what you have is contour and possibly breakline information?
Or
is it point elevations?  Building a decent raster DEM from contours and
breakline information is not a trivial process.  I worked on some
algorithms
for it at PCI but I am not aware of anything directly available built on
GDAL.
You could use commercial software, like PCI.  I also think there may be
a
decent contour to raster program in GRASS but I am not sure.

If you just have point data, any point interpolator would likely do,
such as
the one in OpenEV mentioned by Tyler.

MapServer is good for a variety of rasterization issues, but it isn't an
interpolator.

Best regards,

-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------
------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam,
warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent


_______________________________________________
Gdal-dev mailing list
Gdal-dev at remotesensing.org
http://remotesensing.org/mailman/listinfo/gdal-dev