[GRASS-dev] future of thematic mapping in GRASS

[Moritz Lennert]

Using the occasion of #2522 [1] (BTW I agree with these changes), I 
would like to launch a discussion on the future of thematic mapping in 
GRASS (post grass7). I think we need a general discussion about what 
exactly is still needed. Several elements were included directly into 
d.vect (variable size of symbols and widths of lines, width-, size- and 
rgb-column). I actually think that maybe a more efficient approach in 
the long run might be to use these elements for thematic mapping of 
vectors. Something like this:

  * use v.class to define classes; extend to allow writing class 
attribution to attribute table
  * use an extended v.colors or a new v.colors.classes to define colors 
for classes, possibly using [2]
  * use d.vect to display all of this
  * use a new d.legend.vector to display legend info (including class 
frequencies).

Python scripts could be used to bind these modules together.

What do you think ?

Moritz


[1] http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/2522
[2] http://colorbrewer2.org/