Labels that follow streets - like Google maps

[Erv McNally]

Hi Steve,

I think this would be fantastic. I've been struggling with naming
streams and railroads and getting them to look decent. I've been
leaning towards using a point file and angling and labeling streams at
set locations so I can control where and how the labeling occurs so it
looks decent... which most of the time, would leave me with no names
when zoomed in.

At least if street naming were done, it would be a step in a positive
direction.

Thanks for your efforts,
Erv


> -----Original Message-----
> From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Stephen Woodbridge
> Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2005 10:23 AM
> To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Labels that follow streets - like Google
> maps
>
> Hi all,
>
> I love the way Google maps label their streets. The labels bend to
> follow the streets. What kind of interest is there from the community
> for this type of enhancement?
>
> I suppose that ideally the developers would like the GD folks or the
> Freetype folks to implement this, but it seems like about 2 years since
> I originally brought it up. There is at least one bug that covers this:
>
> http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=206
> (this bug should probably be split into two separate items)
>
> I think that "label follows" should be raised in priority because the
> MapText project has gone away, and this would be a very good feature to
> have in mapserver. I'm not sure I would "spline" the label, as that is
> NOT what other implementations are doing and spline math is Way more
> complicated than plunking down characters that are aligned with the
> various street segments.
>
> So, in an effort to gage the community interest in this and hopefully
> get a developer to champion this cause, make yourself heard.
>
> -Steve W.
>