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

[Kjell Are Refsvik]

On 7. juli. 2008, at 23.54, Dane Springmeyer wrote:
>> ...Well, given my completely newbie status as a GIS/Geodata user, I  
>> am very grateful for your patience, explaining these things to me.
>>
>
> no problem. Please do consider consulting the mailing lists of the  
> specific software that you are using as well.

Sorry about the lack of background info.

I am on a MacOS X 10.5.2 and have downloaded the latest version of  
Perl and Python and all the dependencies needed to run the gdal package.

As mentioned earlier, my goal is to set up a basic workflow to do a  
mashup between shapefiles that I have, and geodata inside jpeg files  
collected with a garmin gpx file and injected using gpsbabel.

As a non-programmer, and short on time, I am really hoping to be able  
to tie together existing software (like txt2shp.py) and do some easy  
basic shell-scripting to get this to work.

Going into this, I was hoping that I would come across some sort of  
swiss army knife style software (like exiftool or gpsbabel) that would  
let me add mashup-data to an existing shapefile and convert files to  
web-compliant formats. Seems like

> ...
> Okay. Well that graphic is nice and simple. However, getting there  
> through automation will be not be as easy as using Qgis to layout  
> you map graphics and then exporting them into another design program  
> like Scribus, Inkscape, or the GIMP to do your photo layout.

Darn. I seem to be forced into setting up a complete map server to do  
this? Automation is kinda the whole deal of this part of my thesis.

For those of you wondering what the purpose of all of this is, my  
thesis is about exploring technical challenges and opportunities as  
they related to digital photographs. As the implementation goes, the  
argument behind not simply using a classic Google Maps mashup has to  
do with longevity/preservation and the fact that I want to make web  
publishable albums that tries to relate to as simple/few/standard  
elements as possible to be accessible far into the future.

> I'm assuming that you want to do this with desktop based tools.

Yes.

> If you are up for installing apache

already a part of my Mac OS X installation.

> then you could utilize a variety of web based toolkits to automate  
> the generation of the map graphic and the photo layout. I'd look  
> into Openlayers and Geoserver (in addition to Mapserver and Mapnik),  
> and any web framework with a powerful templating engine like django.

Hm... Sounds like an extensive solution that requires a lot of work. I  
would love to know more about how accessible these technologies are. I  
am just afraid that I am looking at 4-8 weeks of installing and  
figuring out how these solutions work, only to find out that I need to  
learn Python and Ruby to get it to work?

Yes. I know what you're saying (and I am always telling myself - don't  
shy away from something just because it looks complicated, but I am  
really hoping to finish my thesis in september :-), and my coding this  
solution is simply icing on the cake in terms of the weight it carries  
in my thesis.

> If you want to stick to the desktop Mapserver and Mapnik do have the  
> ability to create map graphics on the command line, but it's not as  
> simple as automating the conversion of a shapefile to png. You need  
> to style and label your shapefile data of points along with basemap  
> data. Therefore you will be looking to render multiple layers into a  
> single raster png.  Shp2img of the mapserver project or a the use of  
> mapnik python bindings will be able to do this without resorting to  
> installing and setting up a webserver, but you'll still need to  
> create a MAPFILE that defines the styling and labeling.

Great. So any estimate on the time needed to get to grips with these  
things?

> ...
> No, shp2img needs a MAPFILE as input (the mapfile points to your  
> shapefile(s) - or other datasources - and tells mapserver how to  
> render them):
>
> http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/docs/reference/utilityreference/shp2img

I see. So basically - no way around installing a mapserver then :-)

> I'd recommend looking into the QGIS "Export to mapserver" plugin as  
> well.

OK.

> Mapnik can use an XML based MAPFILE, but has no command line utility  
> to generate a png from the MAPFILE, but simple script examples can  
> be found here:
>
> http://trac.mapnik.org/wiki/XMLGettingStarted#Step2

OK. On to install the mapserver then, and to read up on the supplied  
url.

>>>
>>> Dane
>>
>> Any idea on the complexity in getting the above scripting to work?
>>
>
> Not too complex, but you will need to read up on how to create a  
> MAPFILE.

Will dive in and see what happens.

Kjell Are


>
>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Kjell Are Refsvik
>> Norway
>>
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