KML output format?

[Kralidis,Tom [Burlington]]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: UMN MapServer Developers List 
> [mailto:MAPSERVER-DEV at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On Behalf Of Frank Warmerdam
> Sent: 04 January, 2007 2:04 PM
> To: MAPSERVER-DEV at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-DEV] KML output format?
> 
> Steve Lime wrote:
> > I was thinking of something like this in a more general 
> sense, that is 
> > being able to return a set of features from a query (even 
> selection by 
> > bbox is really just a form of a query) through an OGR 
> driver. That way 
> > you could support creating KML, Shapefiles or whatever OGR supports 
> > via MapScript, the CGI, WMS or WFS.
> > 
> > I don't think concentrating on just WMS, or just KML makes 
> good sense.
> 
> Steve,
> 
> I do think a "package feature data in OGR supported file 
> format" would be interesting.  But it will be fairly hard to 
> do since different vector formats have a variety of quirky 
> format specific issues.  I would think this would be a new 
> "class" of outputformat if we did it this way.
> 
> One thing to keep in mind is that generic OGR output will 
> mostly not be able to capture any representation information 
> while for KML output I think we can, and likely will want to 
> apply mapserver's styling as far as practical.  In this 
> regard, it would be more like doing an SVG, or flash output format.
> 
> 

I think one issue is that KML can carry style along with features,
linkages, etc.

Having said this, I don't see KML as a "data" format, but as a packaging
format (similar to an OWSContext document).

..Tom