[mapserver-dev] Re: [OSGeo-Announce] Autodesk announces third major donation to opensource community

[Frank Warmerdam]

Bob Basques wrote:
> All,
> 
> Ok,
> 
> So, what's the desired path to take for integrating the AutoDESK
> projection LIBs with MapServer?  Are there plans to integrate the CS_Map
> lib complete, or convert the data to proj.4 or ????
> 
> I've been waiting for this for a long while now, ever since ADE came out
> (original AutoCAD Map) since there are no Standardized projections for
> counties and below (That I've come across) this is a fairly big deal.
> 
> Just wondering what others are thinking on the topic.

Bob,

There has been a bit of discussion of providing a PROJ.4 compatible API
to CS-Map which would make it possible to use CS-Map in PRO.4 based
applications but I'm not sure when that might happen.

The actual MapServer interface to PROJ.4 is pretty narrow, and hidden behind
a bunch of MapServer projections functions (msProjectPoint(), etc).  So it
wouldn't be too hard to use CS-Map direction (as a build option) as long as
it is practical to pass coordinate system definitions as strings which I
believe is the case.

The downside is that I'm not aware of any developer who wants this bad enough
to work on it.  For me it is mildly interesting, but not enough so to pursue
it on my own.

Is this something you would like to work on?  I'd certainly be willing to help
a bit, being fairly familiar with projections stuff in MapServer.

Best regards,
-- 
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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    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org