[OSGeo-Discuss] Call for help: GDAL and txt2shp.py

[Kjell Are Refsvik]

On 7. juli. 2008, at 19.26, Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote:

> On 4-Jul-08, at 2:40 AM, Kjell Are Refsvik wrote:
>
>>> - they will be your best friends soon.
>>
>> I am not completely sure how these two specific programs from the  
>> gdal package relates to the challenge of outputting a png from 2  
>> shapefiles (map and legend).
>
> ogrinfo can be used to give a report on the type of coordinates  
> being used in your shapefile.  You can 'cd' into the directory of  
> your shapefiles and then type:
> ogrinfo yourshapefilename.shp -so -al
>
> This should give you a short report.  When asking for help you can  
> include this report and others will see more information about your  
> dataset without having to download it.

Splendid. Thanks.

> gdalinfo operates a similar way but for images and rasters.  This  
> may not apply to you at the moment.

Right.

> You can read more about these tools and more in chapter 3 of my book:
> http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596008659/
>
> Fortunately some of these examples are included in the free online  
> chapter at http://oreilly.com/catalog/webmapping/chapter/ch03.pdf !  
> (around book page 30)
>
> Hope this helps.  Enjoy,
> Tyler

I am learning new thing with every new email, yes. Thank you for the  
reference to your book.

It looks increasingly like I have to dive in to the workings of the  
geoserver to be able to output png files of a mashup between my  
geotagged images and my maps.

Having participated once in a OpenStreetMap mapping session, I wonder  
if OSM is run on top of GeoServer and could be used together with i.e.  
OpenLayer to do what I want? Still - downloading and installing  
everything needed, seems laborious compared to a simple conversion  
from shapefile to png.

Any particular reason why a simple conversion between shapefile and  
png seems so cumbersome to do via a simple program accessible through  
the command-line?

Hm... Not sure I am out of the woods yet, as a png seems a long way off.

Kjell Are