[Gdal-dev] OGR: TIGER/Line polygons

[Frank Warmerdam]

Curt, WE7U wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Oct 2004, Curt, WE7U wrote:
> 
> 
>>Is there a chance that OGR will support TIGER/Line polygons at some
>>point?  For that particular file format it looks like I'll have to
>>do a lot of special coding just to get to the polygons, due to TIGER
>>having represented them as polylines instead.  Seems OGR should hide
>>the implementation details of various file formats from me, but in
>>this case it doesn't.

Curt,

There is no real plan to implement polygon assembly within the TIGER/Line
driver.  I'm not really adverse to having this happen, but it is critical
that it be done in a way that can be easily disabled as it was a design
goal that the TIGER/Line code be able to defer polygon assembly to later
stages in the FME processing pipeline when used in FME.  And Safe Software
funded all the TIGER/Line work.

I don't forsee having the time to do tiger polygon assembly myself within
the driver in the near future.  I have provided scripts (assemblypolygon.py)
that shows how it can be done as a utility translation step.

> And while I'm at it, what's the expected timeframe for integrating
> the OGR API into the GDAL API?  Does it make sense for me to be
> writing to the OGR API right now?  Will the OGR API go away at GDAL
> integration time?

There is no established timeline for OGR being more tightly integrated
into GDAL.  I would hope it would happen within a year, but that is by
no means certain.

Most of the OGR API will remain but code dealing with the OGRDriver, using
TestCapability() or possibly some interactions with the datasource and layer
classes will change a bit.  All the stuff from OGRFeature down will be
completely unchanged.

My goal is that most OGR applications can be migrated to the new API with
little or no source changes.

Best regards,

-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
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and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent