Add shapeObj.DouglasPeuckerSimplifier() in MapScript?

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Daniel Morissette wrote:
> We have a need to simplify (generalize) some shapefiles and we'll 
> probably do that by hacking a local copy of MapScript to add a 
> shapeObj.DouglasPeuckerSimplifier() that calls GEOS' 
> DouglasPeuckerSimplifier() function.
> 
> Should we consider integrating this new method in MapServer for 5.0? I 
> realize that generalizing data is a bit off-topic for MapServer, I'm 
> sending this to find out whether others think this belongs in MapServer 
> or not.
> 
> Daniel

I think that exposing GEOS api via mapscript makes sense. A big part of 
working with mapserver is being able to prep the data that you will 
ultimately serve. I think mapscript is a great way to do this. People 
that are already working with mapserver/mapscript could use it to do a 
variety of tasks in this area without having to download and learn other 
tools. I do not think exposing these apis in mapscript should impose a 
lot of additional baggage on mapserver other than documenting them.

The other option might be to look at adding it to ogr or looking at a 
separate project to focused on building an opensource variant of 
something like fme, which is probably outside the scope of your 
immediate needs, but might be an interesting project none the less.

-Steve W