[Gdal-dev] vector to raster conversion

[Frank Warmerdam]

Brian Marchand wrote:
> Hello,
> 
>  
> 
> I know there are many GIS savvy people on this list and I was wondering 
> if anyone knew of any vector to raster conversion code that is floating 
> around. My interest is in converting elevation data stored in shape 
> files to any elevation raster format supported by GDAL.

Brian,

I assume what you have is contour and possibly breakline information?  Or
is it point elevations?  Building a decent raster DEM from contours and
breakline information is not a trivial process.  I worked on some algorithms
for it at PCI but I am not aware of anything directly available built on GDAL.
You could use commercial software, like PCI.  I also think there may be a
decent contour to raster program in GRASS but I am not sure.

If you just have point data, any point interpolator would likely do, such as
the one in OpenEV mentioned by Tyler.

MapServer is good for a variety of rasterization issues, but it isn't an
interpolator.

Best regards,

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