New GiS for History site

[Ben Loh]

>>P Kishor wrote:
>>We definitely have not optimized our connection yet, but at
>>least in the midwest US and western US, I've generally been able to
>>get responses around 3 seconds or less.  On the other hand, we also
>>occasionally get really long hangs.
>
>Nothing but the hangs here.

D'oh!


>>I think it's because mapserver
>>is taking so long to generate the overly complex maps, but this is
>>our next big challenge.
>
>Do you really need any overly complex map when just showing the
>overview? The very first view, that of the entire country, need not be
>very complex. You should make liberal and judicious use of MAXSCALE
>(or whatever the syntax is... have forgotten most of .map files),
>querying and drawing complex geometries only when zoomed in.

Yes, very true.  We're hoping to get simplified shape files from 
another source soon.  My admittedly shaky understanding is that the 
technique here is to swap between the complex and the simple shape 
files based on the scale, yes?  Or is there actually a way to have 
mapserver simplify the shape file on the fly?


Regards,

Ben

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