[mapserver-dev] plugin renderer support status update

[Brent Fraser]

> thomas bonfort wrote:
>> hi Steve(s)
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 16:30, Steve Lime <Steve.Lime at dnr.state.mn.us>
>> wrote:
>>> A nice Christmas present indeed! You'll have to let devs know how we
>>> can help.
>> I've got a miriad of questions that would need answering. I'm hoping
>> this can be a topic of the code sprint as I feel they would be best
>> addressed without having to go through the lag of email.
>> For now, it might be a good idea to ask ourselves about the future of
>> the pdf/svg output in future releases, as the current drivers seem to
>> have fallen behind and lack maintanance. There has been some talking
>> about dropping pdflib for another pdf backend: any update on this? I
>> also have the feeling that adding a native kml outputformat would be a
>> trifle with the plugin approach.
>
> Well regarding futures ... I'm not sure if your changes get us any
> closer to good quality print output, but it might from what I saw on the
> pdf output you generated. Print is an issue that comes up repeatedly on
> the list and most people that gotten anything useful to work have had to
> jump through all kinds of hoops to get there doing things like gaint
> image files, alternate mapfiles designed specifically around print
> output, etc. I understand that there is more to the printed map than
> just the map image, but we certainly need to be able to product a high
> quality map rendering as a starting point.
>
> -Steve W

Assefa and I (or others interested in PDF) haven't yet talked in detail
about the pdf output enhancements, but it's my intent to focus on using
the Haru pdf library (instead of the current PDFLib-lite), and implement
at least some of my to-do list for v5.4:

	Add font embedding for labels
	Allow setting of paper size (and scaling) - PAPER_SIZE_X, PAPER_SIZE_Y,
OUTPUTSCALE
	Check symbol (and text) positioning
	Check text size
	Allow 24-bit png (and other 24-bit formats?), quality for jpeg
	Use fontset datapaths (instead of re-parsing font list file)
	Add msEmbedScalebarPDF, Legend support
	Check rending of all ms layer types (esp. POLYLINE)
	Make default PDF fonts available.  FORMATOPTION to map font names?
	Switch to AGG for rendering raster.  Or allow OutputFormat spec?
	Use PDFlib virtual files to load PNG from mem
	Add coord bounds check macro
	Update PDF output section of OUTPUTFORMAT doc
	Add WMS support
	Handle a filled label background

So far Haru looks as capable as PDFLib-lite, with the exception of that it
handles only a few font types.  It would be useful to be able to use
plugin techniques to select the pdf rendering library.  And of course the
Cairo library along with pdf support looks very interesting.

Brent Fraser