[GRASS-dev] Scale display in GRASS Monitor

[Markus Neteler]

On Thu, Sep 28, 2006 at 04:18:07PM +0100, Glynn Clements wrote:
...
> I can see the point in having a scale printed on paper maps where
> people actually measure distances on the map using dividers and a
> ruler. I doubt that people do this with a monitor (dividers probably
> aren't particularly kind to the surface of the monitor, and d.measure
> is likely to be easier to use).

I am still convinced that a map scale is an essential ingredient of
a map. Since there are much less paper maps nowadays, geographers
like me (certainly also non-geographers) expect to see a scale
also in a GIS.

If you look at data of an area which you don't know, a map scale
is a great help to better understand the visual representation.
I also doubt that people start to measure on screen but this was
not asked at all. It is a great help to immediately understand if you
zoomed to 1:10000 or 1:1mio (since d.zoom doesn't tell anything about the
current scale). Especially with vector data, the map scale is often
not obvious (while it is much easier to grasp with (shaded) DEM).

The idea of using a d.barscale activation switch in gis.m does not
solve the problem for us command line junkies.

Markus