[mapserver-dev] GSoC UTFGrid Project

[Daniel Morissette]

On 13-07-08 1:55 PM, thomas bonfort wrote:
>
> A *very strong* +1 at writing your own agg code. There is going to be
> so very little overlap between the rgba and int32 renderers that it's
> not worth going into the pain of making mapagg.cpp do both.
>


I should feel better in light of such a strong position, but 
unfortunately, I fear that going down that road we're going to end up 
duplicating most of mapagg.cpp in maputfgrid.c. To avoid that 
duplication of code I sure wish there was a way to treat rendering using 
int32 ids just as a special case of rgba rendering (is encoding ids as 
rgba quadruplets really that bad an idea?).

What I envision down the road for utfgrid is not a second class output 
driver that ignores most symbology options, but a fully featured driver 
that properly handles vector symbols and labels as real shapes with an 
outline (and not just square boxes), dash lines, line ends, etc.

When we look at a map at small scale, ignoring those rendering details 
is not a problem, but I can already hear complaints that when people 
zoom in and the symbols or labels become larger, the huge invisible box 
around the point symbols/labels prevents the ids of the other underlying 
features from getting through, same with dash lines, line ends and other 
rendering details.

Maybe I should not worry about full support and just keep it simple...

-- 
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/
Provider of Professional MapServer Support since 2000