[mapserver-dev] pdf output development?

[Brent Fraser]

Hi All,

  I've been investigating some enhancements to make the pdf output more suitable for printed map production.  So far, aside from some minor bug fixes, I've coded a few new FORMATOPTIONS in my local copy of mappdf.c to allow more user control over the placement and scale of the map on the page:

  OUTPUTFORMAT
    NAME pdf
    MIMETYPE "application/x-pdf"
    DRIVER pdf
    FORMATOPTION "PAGE_WIDTH=612"           # (font points)  8.5 inches wide (72 points per inch)
    FORMATOPTION "PAGE_HEIGHT=792"          # (font points)  11 inches tall
    FORMATOPTION "MAP_MARGIN_LEFT=144"      # (font points)  2 inches to the right
    FORMATOPTION "MAP_MARGIN_BOTTOM=144"    # (font points)  2 inches up from the bottom of the page
    FORMATOPTION "SCALEDENOM=50000"         # 1:50,000 scale when printed
  END

Here's a sample of the output (using the HARU pdf library): http://139.142.13.163/Download/Mapserver/topo2_enh_scale3.pdf

And I've been able to compile Thomas Bonfort's Cairo-based work on Windows XP/VC++ to produce: http://139.142.13.163/Download/Mapserver/topo2_cairo.pdf (note that my modifications for scale and placement have not been applied to this).

It seems like there's been a renewed interest in pdf output lately, so I'm wondering how to proceed with development.  Should we allow a choice of PDF renderers (Cairo, PDFlib-lite, Haru) at compile-time/run-time?  Re-implement PDFlib/Haru following "plugin" method of the Cairo implementation?  Leave them separate for now and see how much PDF-output interest there is in the Mapserver user community?

Opinions welcome...

Thanks!
Brent Fraser