[GRASS-dev] Re: discussion: replacing ps.map

[Dylan Beaudette]

On Tuesday 03 April 2007 03:53, Glynn Clements wrote:
> Jachym Cepicky wrote:
> > > While you can fill areas (including stroked paths) with arbitrary
> > > patterns, those patterns won't be oriented to follow the path. If you
> > > want complex line styles, you generally have to do most of the work
> > > yourself.
> >
> > "Myself" means to edit the resulting Post Script file(?).
>
> I mean that the application has to draw styled lines using a sequence
> of primitives. E.g. if you want a double line (#1000 on p39), you have
> to draw two lines, with the correct offsets. If you want arrows, you
> have to place and draw each arrow-head.
>
> IOW, you can't just set a style which the "stroke" operator will then
> apply to a path. With the built-in line-stroking operation, the style
> is limited to a combination of colour (or fill pattern), dash pattern,
> caps, and joins. Any fill pattern is applied without reference to the
> line's alignment or orientation.

I know that there has been considerable effort to make all of these things 
possible in GRASS-- if we do not go the route of using GMT as the hard-copy 
rendering engine, perhaps we can learn something from their postscript 
rendering and styling code...?

just a thought

-- 
Dylan Beaudette
Soils and Biogeochemistry Graduate Group
University of California at Davis
530.754.7341