[Mapserver-dev] Re: 3.7 and native image rendering support

[Frank Warmerdam]

Steve Lime wrote:
> Frank: What would you think about loosing all native raster support in favor
> of OGR? The only obstacle I see is the EPPL7 support but perhaps that could
> be added to OGR. It's a pretty straight forward format I think. I'm just
> thinking that simplifying the configuration options, not to mention the code
> maintenance, is a good idea at this point.

Steve,

I think this makes sense from a maintenance point of view, but I am concerned
that it makes it impossible to built a light version of mapserver with
raster input support.

I am thinking we should move the EPPL7 format into GDAL and then blow away
all format support except for PNG and GIF done using GD (pseudocolored only),
with world files.  Furthermore I think we should only use these drivers if
GDAL is not enabled, and we would need to better clarify the limitations
of the non-GDAL drivers.

In particular, I would like to get rid of the existing TIFF driver which
has some significant flaws, and often gets used instead of GDAL.

I have cc:ed this to the developers list to see if anyone else has an
opinion on the importance of a "light" option for MapServer.

Best regards,

-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent