[gdal-dev] Curve support in OGR

[Andreas Neumann]

Hi all,

I am sure this topic is coming up once in a while. I wonder what the 
take is on curve support in the OGR feature model.

Most formats we use now support curves, but our favorite translation 
engine does not. For curve support I currently have to use FME.

These are the formats/databases we use:

Postgis (Geodata Warehouse)
Oracle Spatial (production system for survey data, linked to Autodesk 
Topobase)
dxf/dwg (file exchange)
SVG (presentation format)
sdf (used for Mapguide)

Most of our survey data contains circular arcs, some datasets also 
contain splines.

I know that curve support in Postgis is somehow limited, but each 
release improves a bit on it and the list of curve-aware operators is 
growing:
http://postgis.refractions.net/documentation/manual-svn/ch08.html#PostGIS_Curved_GeometryFunctions

If OS GIS wants to further penetrate in Switzerland it has to be able to 
deal with curves (at least circular arcs) since they are used all over 
the place.

Of course we are willing to partially help to finance such a development 
(hopefully with some others) if the OGR developers are interested in 
adding curve support and can offer an estimate on how much it would cost 
to implement this (at least on the core and for selected formats).

Thanks,
Andreas