[GRASS-user] new symbol, support for RGB color labels and text rotation

[Hamish]

Hi,

I just added a few bits and pieces to ps.map and the labeling system.

- added a new symbol: extra/n_arrow1, based on the 'd.barscale -n'
  north arrow head by Huidae Cho. (see attached ps.map screenshot)
  more symbol info at  http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/IconSymbols

- ps.map's text instruction can now rotate the text

- ps.map's text instruction now supports full RGB color triplets

- v.label, d.labels, and ps.map labels now support full RGB color
  triplets for labels, and allow wider borders

- v.label will now use the vector map's name if not specified

- d.labels now supports border widths.
  !! the default width is 1.0, which can lead to ugly rotated boxes.
  Use a width of 0 if you want nice clean boxes with d.labels on xmons.
  Sorry, it's due to the way R_line_width() goes, not much I can
  do about it without removing the functionality in d.labels.

- [dev] I added some helper functions in d.paint.labels/color.c for
  working with RGBA_Color structs. Maybe these should be made into
  lib/ fns? If so, some peer review & better fn names would be nice.
  http://freegis.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/grass6/display/d.paint.labels/color.c


FWIW, here are the ps.map instructions used in the screenshot. The ring
is just the circle symbol placed concentrically with the north arrow.
The map info box is constructed using the rectangle, scalebar, and text
instructions.

ps.map -r out=test.ps << EOF
scale 1:100000
geogrid 2 m
  color grey
  numbers 2
  end
#...
scalebar s
  where 2.4 5.8
  length 4000
  segment 4
  end
text 13.5% 16.5% meters
  background white
  end
text 13.5% 27% SCALE: 1:100,000
  background white
  end
rectangle 3.4% 14% 24% 31%
  fcolor white
  width 0.5
  end
#...
point 11.9% 48%
  symbol extra/n_arrow1
  rotate 4.4
  fcolor black
  size 15
  end
text 11.5% 53.5% N
  rotate 4.4
  end
point 11.9% 48%
  symbol basic/circle
  fcolor none
  size 35
  end
end
EOF


If we add x% y% placement to the scalebar instruction those can be
scripted into little helper tools for auto-generation.


FWIW2, I still support the writing of a wxPython GUI frontend to write &
run ps.map scripts. I think the task isn't hard, just tedious. (PDF as a
save option would be nice too, could convert behind the scenes if the
right tools are present)  The PS driver is nice and all, but the d.*
modules just aren't as pretty as ps.map, and the PS driver still has some
rendering issues. With GRASS 7 maybe the PS driver gets much nicer, I'd
put off discussing the dropping of ps.map until then. The two only
conflict for mindshare so little reason to drop it early IMO.

e.g. when d.* can recreate something as nice as this new cartography
screenshot by Willem van Mierlo, we'll talk :)
  http://grass.itc.it/screenshots/cartography.php
  (the page will show up on the server in the next hour or two)

(disclosure: ps.map couldn't make that either; two ps.map outputs were
merged with transparency in the GIMP. This was because PostScript doesn't
support vector area transparency. Apparently PDF 1.4+ does ....)


Hamish
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