From david.fawcett at moea.state.mn.us  Mon Aug  2 08:10:36 1999
From: david.fawcett at moea.state.mn.us (Fawcett, David)
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1999 10:10:36 -0500 
Subject: NT installations of MapServer
Message-ID: <3E2112BBDA46D311824C00805F9FE4FF40AFDC@pca-ex03.pca.state.mn.us>

I am looking for examples of people successfully running an NT version of
MapServer.  I am interested in using MapServer (NT) on our site here at the
Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance, but I would like to talk to
some other NT users before attempting an install.

I have traded brief e-mails with Steve Lime and Chris Stuber.  Are there
other NT installs out there?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You, 

David Fawcett
Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance
651.215.0200
david.fawcett at moea.state.mn.us


From steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us  Mon Aug  2 08:20:47 1999
From: steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us (Stephen Lime)
Date: Mon, 02 Aug 1999 10:20:47 -0500
Subject: Question from a new user
Message-ID: <s7a5710f.061@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>

Piero: Sort of. You can do the query and center part real easy. Placing the
symbol can't be done yet. To do that you'd need the ability to define features
as part of a URL and that's not available in 3.2x. It is a planned for version
3.3. Really wouldn't be too big a hack to add it, but it will be much easier in
the new version (hopefully this month).

Steve

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us

>>> Pierluigi Vittori <piero at innova.it> 07/31 2:10 PM >>>
Hi all!
I have been using mapserver for a few days and have discovered how good it
works!
I am no GIS expert nor have I looked in depth into all mapserver features and
source code so it might be that my question is a simple matter of RTFM :))
I would like to perform a text search in the dbf file (i.e. for a specific
street in the map) and consequently center a new map on such a street together
with a symbol placed on it.
My question is: is it possible to do this with the present version of
mapserver? Do I need any extra coding?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Piero



From mapadm at polsl.gliwice.pl  Tue Aug  3 01:46:00 1999
From: mapadm at polsl.gliwice.pl (Grzegorz Myrda)
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1999 10:46:00 +0200
Subject: NT installations of MapServer
In-Reply-To: <3E2112BBDA46D311824C00805F9FE4FF40AFDC@pca-ex03.pca.state.mn.us>
Message-ID: <199908030842.KAA03742@zeus.polsl.gliwice.pl>

I use W95 version of MapServ, offline only for debug purposes (on- 
line version runs on HP-UX). However it works OK. 

Grzegorz 

>From: "Fawcett, David" <david.fawcett at moea.state.mn.us>
> I am looking for examples of people successfully running an NT version of
> MapServer.



From mapadm at polsl.gliwice.pl  Tue Aug  3 05:23:22 1999
From: mapadm at polsl.gliwice.pl (Grzegorz Myrda)
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1999 14:23:22 +0200
Subject: MapServ3.219 tip
Message-ID: <199908031219.OAA06520@zeus.polsl.gliwice.pl>

Hi,
I have found that, unlike in previous versions, shapefile directory 
must have read permissions for others. Otherwise getcwd (and 
MapServ) fails, at least at HP-UX.

Grzegorz


From bowenj at gaiaenv.com  Tue Aug  3 07:47:28 1999
From: bowenj at gaiaenv.com (Jim T. Bowen (GAIA Consultants Inc.))
Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 08:47:28 -0600
Subject: GIF created, but not displayed
Message-ID: <37A70100.1B92ED3C@gaiaenv.com>

Hi all,

Here is the short and sweet version of my problem (after *many* hours of
debugging map
files, html, etc.):

Problem:
* MapServer displays the temporary gif created, only if the layers are
raster-based

Results of Investigation:
* the map file seems ok...shp2gif works fine on the map file...creates
the gif to whatever directory I specify
* CGI parameters seem OK...changed only 'layer' manually in URL window
(I believe it is
not my HTML)
* tried many different layers (eliminating specific layer problem)
* followed Steve's example map file (eliminating map syntax)
* error message indicates I should contact root at localhost, not what is
in the mapserv.ini (temp dir is set properly; indeed, files are being
written there).  Here is the error message:

<begin snip>
Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was
unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, root at localhost and inform them
of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that
may have caused the error.

Premature end of script headers: /home/httpd/cgi-bin/mapserv
<end snip>


* FILES ARE BEING CREATED...they're just not displayed (unless they
contain only
raster-based layers)

Conclusions:
HELP!

Thanks in advance.


Cheers,
Jim 
 ___________________________________    GGG G   AAA      III    AAA     
|  Jim T. Bowen, M.Sc., Principal   |  G   GG     A       I       A     
|                                   | G     G    A A      I      A A    
|Suite 306,  822-11th Ave. S.W.     | G     G    A A      I      A A    
|Calgary, Alberta, Canada  T2R 0E5  | G         A   A     I     A   A   
|Ph: 403-571-7213  Fax: 403-571-7211| G   GGGG  A   A     I     A   A   
|_______bowenj at gaiaenv.com__________| G     G   AAAAA     I     AAAAA   
                                      G     G  A     A    I    A     A  
        http://www.gaiaenv.com         G    G  A     A    I    A     A
                                        GGGG  AAA   AAA  III  AAA   AAA


From bowenj at gaiaenv.com  Tue Aug  3 09:55:37 1999
From: bowenj at gaiaenv.com (Jim T. Bowen (GAIA Consultants Inc.))
Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 10:55:37 -0600
Subject: RE. Gifs created, but not displayed
Message-ID: <37A71F09.7CA6B39A@gaiaenv.com>

Hi all,

Many thanks to Steve for the fix.  Here's the poop, summed:


****Problem****
Gif images were created, but displayed only if layer types were
exclusively raster

****Solution****
The issue was with my fontset file.  I hardcoded in font paths and
filename in my map file.  This worked in 3.211, but not in 3.219.  I had
problems with my fontset file previously, so I just hardcoded (quick and
dirty fix) the font file.  

Legend items are not created for raster layers; therefore, the issue
*appeared* as if it were image related, but really was legend
related...ultimately fonts related.  It evaded me as the demo data set
contained no True type font examples and it had worked before (famous
last words).

I believe Steve is looking into handling a trap for this.


Cheers,
Jim
 ___________________________________    GGG G   AAA      III    AAA     
|  Jim T. Bowen, M.Sc., Principal   |  G   GG     A       I       A     
|                                   | G     G    A A      I      A A    
|Suite 306,  822-11th Ave. S.W.     | G     G    A A      I      A A    
|Calgary, Alberta, Canada  T2R 0E5  | G         A   A     I     A   A   
|Ph: 403-571-7213  Fax: 403-571-7211| G   GGGG  A   A     I     A   A   
|_______bowenj at gaiaenv.com__________| G     G   AAAAA     I     AAAAA   
                                      G     G  A     A    I    A     A  
        http://www.gaiaenv.com         G    G  A     A    I    A     A
                                        GGGG  AAA   AAA  III  AAA   AAA


From camerons at cat.org.au  Tue Aug  3 14:25:00 1999
From: camerons at cat.org.au (Cameron Shorter)
Date: Wed, 04 Aug 1999 07:25:00 +1000
Subject: Projections
Message-ID: <m11Bm6e-000QXBC@mailarray.mpx.com.au>

Hi,
I have just been given a .map file which contains the following:'

PROJECTION
"proj=utm"
"ellps=aust_SA"
"zone=56"
"south"
END

Unfortunately, it doesn't run, and I cannot find any documentation on how
to include PROJECTIONs or even if they are supported by mapserv.

Cameron Shorter
61.2.9901-1596 work.


From steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us  Tue Aug  3 15:04:15 1999
From: steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us (Stephen Lime)
Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 17:04:15 -0500
Subject: Projections
Message-ID: <s7a7211f.064@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>

In general, on-the-fly projections are experimental and using them is
discouraged for a number of reasons, speed is a big one. Several folks
are using them successfully though. Here's a quick tutorial.

COMPILING: MapServer by default is setup not to use on-the-fly projection
support. So, there are a couple of things you need to do to get it to work.

  1) nab the PROJ.4 cartographic projection library from the USGS (the
      URL is on the download page at the main MapServer site)

  2) compile it

  3) edit the Makefile in the MapServer distribution. look for the lines refering
      to PROJ and uncomment them (you may need to enter the location of 
      the PROJ.4 library and include files on your system)

USING: MapServer does nothing special and relies on PROJ.4 to handle
all the projection parameters. Within a map file you specify an output projection
for a map/application, and each layer can have an input projection section
specific to it. If no projection is defined for a layer then it is assumed to be
in the same system as the output system. If all data is in the same system
then you don't need the PROJ.4 library at all. Cameron's example projection
definition is most likely an output definition. Commonly you'd see unprojected
layers with the following definition indication that they're in lat/lon:

PROJECTION
"geographic"
END

Everything between the "PROJECTION" and the "END" are keywords for the
PROJ.4 library. So, to get stuff to work you'll need to read the manuals associated
with PROJ.4 (see the PROJ.4 ftp site). Note that there can be multiple input
projection definitions (1 per layer) and they could all be different, but there can
only be 1 output projection.

Again, study the PROJ.4 docs as they detail parameters and keywords.

Steve

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us

>>> Cameron Shorter <camerons at cat.org.au> 08/03 4:25 PM >>>
Hi,
I have just been given a .map file which contains the following:'

PROJECTION
"proj=utm"
"ellps=aust_SA"
"zone=56"
"south"
END

Unfortunately, it doesn't run, and I cannot find any documentation on how
to include PROJECTIONs or even if they are supported by mapserv.

Cameron Shorter
61.2.9901-1596 work.



From steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us  Thu Aug  5 13:27:14 1999
From: steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us (Stephen Lime)
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 15:27:14 -0500
Subject: New install
Message-ID: <s7a9ad5d.054@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>

Tom: You don't need ERDAS at all. ERDAS .gis files are usable with
the code included in the base distribution. There are a couple of 
potential gotcha's when building FreeType and LibTIFF. By default
both packages build shared versions of their libraries and these are
loaded when the mapserver is run. This can be a problem with some
web installs as the user the webserver is running as (eg. nobody) won't
be able to find the right libraries. For that reason I generally use static
versions. For LibTIFF that's no problem as both versions are built by
default. Assuming you're installing in /opt/TWWfsw remove all the libtiff.*
files except for libtiff.a from /opt/TWWfsw/lib. For FreeType you'll have 
to rebuild the package to get the static libs. cd to the FreeType directory
and type the following (again assuming installing in /opt/TWWfsw)

./configure --prefix=/opt/TWWfsw --enable-static --disable-shared

then do a make and a make install. Now you should be ready to build
the mapserver. Edit the Makefile and change the following lines:

TTF_LIB=-L./gdft -lgdft -lttf
TTF_INC=-I./gdft

to

TTF_LIB=-L./gdft -lgdft -L/opt/TWWfsw/lib -lttf
TTF_INC=-I./gdft -I/opt/TWWfsw/include

and

TIFF_INC=
TIFF_LIB=-ltiff

to

TIFF_INC=-I/opt/TWWfsw/include
TIFF_LIB=-L/opt/TWWfsw/lib -ltiff

Now do a make and things *should* build. Note that this assumes that there are some
directories called lib and include under /opt/TWWfsw. Once built you shouldn't need
any programming skills other than standard web/GIS stuff. Please let me/us know if
you need any help.

Steve

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us

>>> Tom Potter <Tom.Potter at mt.usda.gov> 08/05 2:07 PM >>>
I have been searching for a way to put soil maps and associated data
tables on the web.  It looks like MapServer might do the kinds of things
I want.  I am the State GIS Specialist with the USDA-NRCS in Montana.  I
have lots of experience with GIS software but have not done much
programming.  However, I am willing to spend some time to try it out.

I am running Solaris2.7 on an Ultra 2/200.  So far I have downloaded the
MapServer software, symbols, and demo.  I have acquired FreeType and put
it in /opt/TWWfsw, acquired tiff-v3.4beta037 and compiled it with gcc.
I also have ERDAS 8.3 on this system.  I have not been able to compile
the MapServer software.  I am not familiar with the variable syntax in
the Makefile and can not seem to make it find FreeType, GeoTIFF, and
don't know where to begin making the ERDAS connection.

Questions:
1.  Anybody willing to help this neophyte fix the Makefile and get this
compiled?
2.  Do I need a lot of programming skills to make this work?
3.  I'm willing to learn, what would be some good reference materials to
pick up some of these programming skills?

Thanks!

Tom Potter
State GIS Specialist
USDA-NRCS Montana
(406) 587-6968
Tom.Potter at mt.usda.gov 




From camerons at cat.org.au  Fri Aug  6 05:15:26 1999
From: camerons at cat.org.au (Cameron Shorter)
Date: Fri, 06 Aug 1999 22:15:26 +1000
Subject: atomising dbfadd shpadd operations
Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.19990806221526.007a2790@mail.optusnet.com.au>

Hi,

I'm now working toward a web based updating of mapserver shapefiles.

I notice that there are a few programs (dbfadd, shpadd, etc) in
ms_3.2/shapelib which I will probably use.  I don't suppose there is some
documentation for these programs floating around are there? :)

The one problem that I see is if an operator aborts an operation half way
through the updating of the .dbf and .shp files, and only one of the files
is updated, or it is partially updated.  Ie we need to ensure the updates
are done fully or not at all, or if the update only partially completes
then the database is corrected next time the database is accessed.

Has anyone addressed this problem before?

Cameron Shorter
61.2.9901-1596 work.


From steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us  Fri Aug  6 05:42:18 1999
From: steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us (Stephen Lime)
Date: Fri, 06 Aug 1999 07:42:18 -0500
Subject: atomising dbfadd shpadd operations
Message-ID: <s7aa91fb.004@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>

Cool. The utilities in shapelib were written by that packages author
and were indended as short, simple example of how one might use
his library. I don't believe there is any documentation other than
the code itself which I think is fairly well commented.

CGI programs, I think, are not affected by "stopping" the browser. The
web server doesn't kill the process, but just let's it finish. Lincoln Stein
wrote a bit of code that allowed C CGI programs to detect that condition
and bail gracefully. I've thought about adding it but haven't yet. I think
the package was called CGIabort. I'll see if I can find the link.

Another item to add to the transaction management piece is file locking.

I assume you're developing this as a separate piece of code rather than
as an integral piece of MapServer (as it currently sits)?

steve

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us

>>> Cameron Shorter <camerons at cat.org.au> 08/06 7:15 AM >>>
Hi,

I'm now working toward a web based updating of mapserver shapefiles.

I notice that there are a few programs (dbfadd, shpadd, etc) in
ms_3.2/shapelib which I will probably use.  I don't suppose there is some
documentation for these programs floating around are there? :)

The one problem that I see is if an operator aborts an operation half way
through the updating of the .dbf and .shp files, and only one of the files
is updated, or it is partially updated.  Ie we need to ensure the updates
are done fully or not at all, or if the update only partially completes
then the database is corrected next time the database is accessed.

Has anyone addressed this problem before?

Cameron Shorter
61.2.9901-1596 work.



From mapadm at polsl.gliwice.pl  Fri Aug  6 06:50:11 1999
From: mapadm at polsl.gliwice.pl (Grzegorz Myrda)
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 15:50:11 +0200
Subject: atomising dbfadd shpadd operations
In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.19990806221526.007a2790@mail.optusnet.com.au>
Message-ID: <199908061346.PAA10753@zeus.polsl.gliwice.pl>

Hi,
I made some experiments with "ShpAdd".
I compiled some code from MapServ and from Shapfile library 
utilities. The result is "ShpAdd.cgi" which is able to add point 
features (with database attrs) to the specified shapefile.
No undo (abort), no file locking, etc. It's only simple experimental 
program. 

Grzegorz


Date sent:      	Fri, 06 Aug 1999 22:15:26 +1000
To:             	mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
From:           	Cameron Shorter <camerons at cat.org.au>
Subject:        	atomising dbfadd shpadd operations

> Hi,
> 
> I'm now working toward a web based updating of mapserver shapefiles.
> 
> I notice that there are a few programs (dbfadd, shpadd, etc) in
> ms_3.2/shapelib which I will probably use.  I don't suppose there is some
> documentation for these programs floating around are there? :)
> 
> The one problem that I see is if an operator aborts an operation half way
> through the updating of the .dbf and .shp files, and only one of the files
> is updated, or it is partially updated.  Ie we need to ensure the updates
> are done fully or not at all, or if the update only partially completes
> then the database is corrected next time the database is accessed.
> 
> Has anyone addressed this problem before?
> 
> Cameron Shorter
> 61.2.9901-1596 work.
> 


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From steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us  Mon Aug  9 13:39:43 1999
From: steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us (Stephen Lime)
Date: Mon, 09 Aug 1999 15:39:43 -0500
Subject: load balancing across multiple machines
Message-ID: <s7aef646.061@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>

Greetings: I thought I'd share a simple script we've used here to balance
map making across a number of machines. The script, balance.pl, is a
short perl script that uses the UNIX 'rup' command and 'rpc.statd'. The
original script was made available by Chris Stuber of the US Census 
Bureau. In order to use it you need...

  1) 2 or more machines set up identically with respect to a particular
      MapServer application. By identical I mean that each machine
      needs to respond to the same MapServer request in the same way.
      This is easiest if the machines are exact copies of each other.

  2) rpc.statd needs to be running on each machine in the pool.

  3) Perl 5. 

Within the script you define a pool of machines, web server ports and
a few other things. The balance.pl script can be installed on one or
all of the machines depending on how you want to do things. In any
case, you replace calls to /cgi-bin/mapserv with /cgi-bin/balance.pl
and the script will hand off the actuall calls to the MapServer to the least
busy machine (based on 1 minute load average). If you're using a
master machine for balance.pl then the HTML templates need to 
explicitly refer to that machine for the next map:

<form name="mapserv" action="http://master.machine/cgi-bin/balance.pl">

if all machines have balance.pl then the following is fine:

<form name="mapserv" action="/cgi-bin/balance.pl">

You can see it working with the following application:

http://www.ra.dnr.state.mn.us/bwca/

Map/image building is spread across 4 machines, each with the balancing
script locally. Seems to work really well. Load averages are nearly identical.
Some machines are busier than others so the number of maps varies, but
that's what we're after. This approach makes more sense, to me anyway, then
a DNS round-robin approach, and is certainly cheaper than load balancing
hardware.

Bugs: If a machine in the pool goes down then 'rup' will wait 60 seconds for
it to respond. 

To do's:  Adding some sort of server weighting scheme should be pretty easy 
to do. Fixing the timeout issue on dead machines (Perl may have some RPC
modules that I haven't looked into yet).

Again, the credit for this goes to Chris - also any blame ;-). 

Steve


Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us

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From steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us  Mon Aug  9 14:12:44 1999
From: steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us (Stephen Lime)
Date: Mon, 09 Aug 1999 16:12:44 -0500
Subject: load balancing across multiple machines
Message-ID: <s7aefe1c.026@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>

Just one clarification. Server process that must be running
is rpc.rstatd (rstatd) not rpc.statd.

Steve



From bfraser at digitalscience.com  Tue Aug 10 07:37:08 1999
From: bfraser at digitalscience.com (Brent Fraser)
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 08:37:08 -0600
Subject: NT installations of MapServer
References: <3E2112BBDA46D311824C00805F9FE4FF40AFDC@pca-ex03.pca.state.mn.us>
Message-ID: <003c01bee33d$d45b3550$390002c0@servo>

David, (and others)

  I've successfully compiled and installed MapServer on
Windows NT 4.0.  I'm currently developing a web site
(it's not in production yet) using Microsoft's web server
IIS 4.0.  I've also implemented the mapping functions
as an ActiveX dll for use in Active Server Pages.  This
work is on hold until Steve gets further along with
MapScript.

  So far the only problem I've had is with cacheing of
images (and that was solved with a more unique
file naming method).

Brent

----- Original Message -----
From: Fawcett, David <david.fawcett at moea.state.mn.us>
To: <mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu>
Sent: Monday, August 02, 1999 9:10 AM
Subject: NT installations of MapServer


> I am looking for examples of people successfully running an NT version of
> MapServer.  I am interested in using MapServer (NT) on our site here at
the
> Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance, but I would like to talk to
> some other NT users before attempting an install.
>
> I have traded brief e-mails with Steve Lime and Chris Stuber.  Are there
> other NT installs out there?
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank You,
>
> David Fawcett
> Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance
> 651.215.0200
> david.fawcett at moea.state.mn.us
>



From steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us  Mon Aug 16 09:00:39 1999
From: steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us (Stephen Lime)
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 11:00:39 -0500
Subject: feature filtering by size
Message-ID: <s7b7ef5e.049@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>

There's one way to do that now. It takes a quite different approach. There
is a keyword called "MAXFEATURES" that allows you to define the maximum
number of features shown for a given layer. So if set to 50 only the first 50
shapes that are in bounds are actually drawn. Now, this only makes sense
if you're data is somehow sorted. There is a routine I wrote in the shapelib
directory called sortshp that will sort a shapefile in ascending or decending
order based on a numeric field. So with your lakes data if you sort based on
area in descending order, and draw say only 25 at a time you might get the
desired effect. There are benefits to this approach over a filter:

  - it's faster (there is no expensive filtering)
  - assuming your data isn't uniformly distributed (spatially or by size) you
    always get something from that layer displaying

This technique works well with cities sorted by population and other 
non-continuous datasets. There are benefits to filters as well. That's what 
classes are for, but regular expressions aren't well suited to numerical 
expressions like area > 10,000. Could count digits though so it is possible
using classes.

Hope this helps.

Steve

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us

>>> "Brent Fraser" <bfraser at digitalscience.com> 08/16 10:19 AM >>>
Steve,

  Have you considered adding functionality to Mapserver for
filtering features by size?

I'm using the drainage layer from DCW data to render lakes.
Unfortunately they don't have an attribute to classify them
into small, medium, large.  They do have area and perimeter
attribute, so I guess I could make multiple layer entries in
the map file.

  Any thoughts?

Brent

GeoAnalytic Inc.
1150 , 633 - 6th Avenue SW Calgary, AB T2P 2Y5
Tel:  (403)213-2700 Fax:  (403)213-2707
bfraser at geoanalytic.com 
www.geoanalytic.com 




From cshorter at optusnet.com.au  Mon Aug 16 13:21:31 1999
From: cshorter at optusnet.com.au (Cameron Shorter)
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 06:21:31 +1000
Subject: feature filtering by size
References: <s7b7ef5e.049@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>
Message-ID: <37B872CB.B7C52DE0@optusnet.com.au>

These extra features are great.  It would be great if this utility, as
well as the other utilities was covered in the documentation.

Cameron.

Stephen Lime wrote:
> 
> There's one way to do that now. It takes a quite different approach. There
> is a keyword called "MAXFEATURES" that allows you to define the maximum
> number of features shown for a given layer. So if set to 50 only the first 50
> shapes that are in bounds are actually drawn. Now, this only makes sense
> if you're data is somehow sorted. There is a routine I wrote in the shapelib
> directory called sortshp that will sort a shapefile in ascending or decending
> order based on a numeric field. So with your lakes data if you sort based on
> area in descending order, and draw say only 25 at a time you might get the
> desired effect. There are benefits to this approach over a filter:


From cshorter at optusnet.com.au  Tue Aug 17 05:32:14 1999
From: cshorter at optusnet.com.au (Cameron Shorter)
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 22:32:14 +1000
Subject: Projections and debugging web processes
Message-ID: <37B9564E.F95AA930@optusnet.com.au>

I have been trying to get projections working.  So far I have been able
to get shp2gif to draw map using my projections map file, but for some
reason it doesn't work when I call mapserver from the web for that
mapfile.  Mapserv does work for other non-projection map files.

Does anyone know:
1. Why shp2gif would work, but mapserv only produces a blank page.
2. How to attach a gdb to a web process.
3. Other ideas on debugging.

Cameron.


From steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us  Sun Aug 22 20:37:49 1999
From: steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us (Stephen Lime)
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 22:37:49 -0500
Subject: Projections and debugging web processes
Message-ID: <s7c07be1.077@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>

How are you initializing the web process? Are you sure intial extents are correct and are in the correct coordinate system? Everything should be in the maps projection. Individual layers are converted to that (if necessary) but no other coordinates. 

Does the demo work with that install or is this all new to this particular compiled version? 

Debugging web stuff ain't fun. If you're using apache (don't know about others) then you can just print to stderr and messages will show up in the logs.

Steve

<<< Cameron Shorter <cshorter at optusnet.com.au>  8/17  7:31a >>>
I have been trying to get projections working.  So far I have been able
to get shp2gif to draw map using my projections map file, but for some
reason it doesn't work when I call mapserver from the web for that
mapfile.  Mapserv does work for other non-projection map files.

Does anyone know:
1. Why shp2gif would work, but mapserv only produces a blank page.
2. How to attach a gdb to a web process.
3. Other ideas on debugging.

Cameron.



From cshorter at optusnet.com.au  Mon Aug 23 15:00:24 1999
From: cshorter at optusnet.com.au (Cameron Shorter)
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 08:00:24 +1000
Subject: Projections and debugging web processes
References: <s7c07be1.078@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>
Message-ID: <37C1C478.3F6A4827@optusnet.com.au>

I belive I have worked out how to debug mapserv.cgi.  I set up
environment variables and then run from the command line, and hence can
attach the gdb debugger.  Ie, in my .bashrc I set the following:

# Env variables for debugging mapserv
QUERY_STRING="map=%2Fhome%2Fbikeast%2Fcamerons%2Fbikeast_amg56.map&layer=onroad"
REQUEST_METHOD="GET"

export QUERY_STRING REQUEST_METHOD

----------------------------
My files are in lat/long coordinates and I want to convert them to
AMG56.

The mapfile works if I comment out all the projection data.

I have been using gdb to try and debug mapserv.cgi and compare it to
shp2gif.  The problem seems to be in msAdjustExtent, but I haven't
worked it out yet.  I will be doing more work on it over the next few
days (if you cannot give me a few hints in the meantime).

The mapfile I'm using is below:

----------------------------
#
# Start of map file
#
NAME BIKEAST
STATUS ON
SIZE 300 300
SHADESET /www/mapserv/ms_symbols/symbols/shade.sym
MARKERSET /www/mapserv/ms_symbols/symbols/marker.sym
LINESET /www/mapserv/ms_symbols/symbols/line.sym

# Lat Long coordinates
#EXTENT 151.203 -33.9247 151.286 -33.8405

# amg56 coordinates
EXTENT  333893.70 6244726.01 341410.96 6254194.63
#EXTENT 333893.70+6244726.01+341410.96+6254194.63

# Extent provided by Rob
#EXTENT 323912.333333 6229086.333333 350370.666667 6255544.666667
#EXTENT 323912.333333+6229086.333333+350370.666667+6255544.666667

UNITS KILOMETERS
SHAPEPATH "/home/bikeast/camerons/data"
IMAGECOLOR 255 255 255
PROJECTION
  "proj=utm"
  "ellps=aust_SA"
  "zone=56"
  "south"
END
INTERLACE off


LABELOVERLAP FALSE

#
# Start of web interface definition
#
WEB
  HEADER bikeast_header.html
  TEMPLATE bikeast.html
  MINSCALE 1
  MAXSCALE 1550000
END

#
# Start of reference map
#
REFERENCE
  IMAGE graphics/reference_base.gif
  #IMAGE
http://nccnsw.org.au/cgi-bin/csgi/broker/delivery_agent.pl?filename=/www/hosted/nccnsw/cgi-bin/csgi/broker/cache/930655471_13239_1.gif
  #EXTENT 151.203 -33.9247 151.286 -33.8405
  STATUS ON
  COLOR -1 -1 -1
  OUTLINECOLOR 255 0 0
END

#
# Start of legend
#
LEGEND
  KEYSIZE 18 12
  LABEL
    TYPE BITMAP
    SIZE MEDIUM
    COLOR 0 0 89
  END
  STATUS ON
END

#
# Start of scalebar
#
SCALEBAR
  IMAGECOLOR 255 255 255
  LABEL
    COLOR 0 0 0	
    SIZE SMALL
  END
  SIZE 350 5
  COLOR 255 255 255
  BACKGROUNDCOLOR 0 0 0
  OUTLINECOLOR 0 0 0
  UNITS MILES
  INTERVALS 5
  STATUS ON
END

#
# Start of layer definitions
#
LAYER
  NAME "topo25k"
  TYPE RASTER
  STATUS ON
  DATA topo25k.tif
  #OFFSITE 0

  PROJECTION
    Geographic
    "ellps=aust_SA"
  END
END # Layer

LAYER
  NAME onroad
  TYPE LINE
  STATUS ON
  DATA onroad
  TOLERANCE 5
  PROJECTION
    Geographic
    "ellps=aust_SA"
  END

  CLASSITEM "STATUS"
  CLASS
    NAME "Onroad - adopted"
    EXPRESSION "a"
    COLOR 0 0 255
    SYMBOL 1
  END

  CLASS
    NAME "Onroad - BIKEast"
    EXPRESSION "b"
    COLOR 0 255 0
    SYMBOL 2
  END

  CLASS
    NAME "Individual"
    EXPRESSION "i"
    COLOR 127 127 0
    SYMBOL 3
  END


  QUERY
    TEMPLATE onroad.html
  END
END # Layer

LAYER
  NAME offroad
  TYPE LINE
  STATUS ON
  DATA offroad
  TOLERANCE 5
  PROJECTION
    Geographic
    "ellps=aust_SA"
  END

  CLASS
    NAME "offroad"
    COLOR 255 0 0
    SYMBOL 1
  END

  QUERY
    TEMPLATE offroad.html
  END
END # Layer

LAYER
  NAME "blackspot"
  TYPE POINT
  STATUS ON
  DATA blackspot
  TOLERANCE 5
  PROJECTION
    Geographic
    "ellps=aust_SA"
  END

  CLASS
    NAME "blackspot"
    COLOR 255 0 0
    SIZE 0
  END

  QUERY
    TEMPLATE offroad.html
  END
END # Layer

END # Map File

Stephen Lime wrote:
> 
> How are you initializing the web process? Are you sure intial extents are correct and are in the correct coordinate system? Everything should be in the maps projection. Individual layers are converted to that (if necessary) but no other coordinates.
> 
> Does the demo work with that install or is this all new to this particular compiled version?
> 
> Debugging web stuff ain't fun. If you're using apache (don't know about others) then you can just print to stderr and messages will show up in the logs.
> 
> Steve
> 
> <<< Cameron Shorter <cshorter at optusnet.com.au>  8/17  7:31a >>>
> I have been trying to get projections working.  So far I have been able
> to get shp2gif to draw map using my projections map file, but for some
> reason it doesn't work when I call mapserver from the web for that
> mapfile.  Mapserv does work for other non-projection map files.
> 
> Does anyone know:
> 1. Why shp2gif would work, but mapserv only produces a blank page.
> 2. How to attach a gdb to a web process.
> 3. Other ideas on debugging.
> 
> Cameron.


From cshorter at optusnet.com.au  Mon Aug 23 23:40:19 1999
From: cshorter at optusnet.com.au (Cameron Shorter)
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 16:40:19 +1000
Subject: Projections and debugging web processes
References: <s7c07be1.078@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us> <37C1C478.3F6A4827@optusnet.com.au> <37C1E8D6.CBF84E06@socialchange.net>
Message-ID: <37C23E53.13D4AD1E@optusnet.com.au>

Thankyou Rob,
Changed units to meters and the projection worked!

Cameron.

Rob Atkinson wrote:
> 
> Suggestion:
> 
> try
> 
> UNITS METERS
> 
> rob
> 
> Cameron Shorter wrote:
> 
> > I belive I have worked out how to debug mapserv.cgi.  I set up
> > environment variables and then run from the command line, and hence can
> > attach the gdb debugger.  Ie, in my .bashrc I set the following:
> >
> > # Env variables for debugging mapserv
> > QUERY_STRING="map=%2Fhome%2Fbikeast%2Fcamerons%2Fbikeast_amg56.map&layer=onroad"
> > REQUEST_METHOD="GET"
> >
> > export QUERY_STRING REQUEST_METHOD
> >
> > ----------------------------
> > My files are in lat/long coordinates and I want to convert them to
> > AMG56.
> >
> > The mapfile works if I comment out all the projection data.
> >
> > I have been using gdb to try and debug mapserv.cgi and compare it to
> > shp2gif.  The problem seems to be in msAdjustExtent, but I haven't
> > worked it out yet.  I will be doing more work on it over the next few
> > days (if you cannot give me a few hints in the meantime).
> >
> > The mapfile I'm using is below:
> >


From cshorter at optusnet.com.au  Thu Aug 26 03:24:11 1999
From: cshorter at optusnet.com.au (Cameron Shorter)
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 20:24:11 +1000
Subject: Where is printsymbols utility
Message-ID: <37C515CB.72637C1A@optusnet.com.au>

The documentation on http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/symbolset.html refers
to a "printsymbols" utility, however the link is broken and I cannot
find it in the source directories.

Any ideas?

Cameron.


From bfraser at digitalscience.com  Thu Aug 26 07:13:59 1999
From: bfraser at digitalscience.com (Brent Fraser)
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 08:13:59 -0600
Subject: Where is printsymbols utility
References: <37C515CB.72637C1A@optusnet.com.au>
Message-ID: <000a01beefcd$3ff22300$390002c0@servo>

I think the name was changed to "sym2gif".  There is
a sym2gif.c file in the Mapserver source code.  Compile
it as a stand-alone exe (linking in the appropriate mapserver
functions).  It will create a gif file showing the symbols in
your symbol file:

Syntax: sym2gif [symbolfile] [cellx] [celly] [columns] [rows] [labels
ON/OFF] [outfile]

Brent

----- Original Message -----
From: Cameron Shorter <cshorter at optusnet.com.au>
To: mapserver <mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 1999 4:24 AM
Subject: Where is printsymbols utility


> The documentation on http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/symbolset.html refers
> to a "printsymbols" utility, however the link is broken and I cannot
> find it in the source directories.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Cameron.
>



From TBanister at SpaceImaging.com  Thu Aug 26 09:07:28 1999
From: TBanister at SpaceImaging.com (Banister Trevor)
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 10:07:28 -0600
Subject: Decimal degree units
Message-ID: <AEEF94298C10D311B5A000A024B359E1686C27@imager9.spaceimaging.com>

Is anyone using decimal degree units?
It looks like they aren't supported from the looks of map.h
enum ms_units {MS_INCHES, MS_FEET, MS_MILES, MS_METERS, MS_KILOMETERS};
I've gotten the shape files to work ok, but I have to fake a unit type which
throws off the legend and absolute zoom factor.
Any work arrounds? or should I start coding DD support?

Thanks.

Trevor

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From steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us  Thu Aug 26 09:26:52 1999
From: steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us (Stephen Lime)
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 11:26:52 -0500
Subject: Decimal degree units
Message-ID: <s7c5249a.058@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>

I'd love to see it supported, but have been unable to figure out an easy
way to account for changing measures as you move around. There is
no one conversion from DD to inches. It would be easy to figure an
average x cellsize value for a map, then one could figure out the dd to inches
conversion factor and with that you could calculate a scale. Scales are
rough to begin with as they are monitor dependent. MapServer uses a
pixels/inch value of 72 to generate scales.

To add DD support only 3 things have to change. 

  - add MS_DD to ms_units enumeration in map.h
  - change the lexer to recognize a DD keyword in mapfiles (edit mapfile.h, mapfile.c and maplexer.l)

I could do that easily. Rebuilding the lexer requires flex.

  - edit msCalculateScale function in mapscale.c to deal with the nuances of DD

Anyone got ideas/code to figure out DD to inches relationship depending on where
you are in the world?

The other workaround is to project your data on-the-fly using the Proj.4 library. A bit slower
as every coordinate is projected but it does work.

Steve

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us

>>> Banister Trevor <TBanister at SpaceImaging.com> 08/26 11:07 AM >>>
Is anyone using decimal degree units?
It looks like they aren't supported from the looks of map.h
enum ms_units {MS_INCHES, MS_FEET, MS_MILES, MS_METERS, MS_KILOMETERS};
I've gotten the shape files to work ok, but I have to fake a unit type which
throws off the legend and absolute zoom factor.
Any work arrounds? or should I start coding DD support?

Thanks.

Trevor




From TBanister at SpaceImaging.com  Thu Aug 26 10:58:03 1999
From: TBanister at SpaceImaging.com (Banister Trevor)
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 11:58:03 -0600
Subject: Decimal degree units
Message-ID: <AEEF94298C10D311B5A000A024B359E1686C2C@imager9.spaceimaging.com>

I'll try the PROJ.4 support, but I'm guessing that the performance hit will
kill me. Some of my maps have thousands of shapes on several layers.

I can live with some error at the edges of the map since that's true for
Geographic space in general, the further towards the poles you go the more
error in the map.

Here's some formulas that should do the trick.
(courtesy of Gene Dial, our GIS guru)

DX = Re * (Lon1 - Lon2) * PI / 180
DY = Re * (Lat1 - Lat2) * (PI / 180) * Cos( Lat)

Converting the other way:
180 * DX / (PI * Re) = (Lon1 - Lon2)
180 * DY / (PI * Re * cos(lat)) = (Lat1 - Lat2)

Re = radius of earth =
6,370,997 meters (average) * 254 inches/meter =
1,618,233,238 inches

Lat = (Lat1+Lat2)/2
PI/180 factors convert Lat and Lon from degrees to radians
DX = EW distance
DY = NS distance


Trevor

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Lime [mailto:steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us]
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 1999 10:27 AM
To: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu; TBanister at SpaceImaging.com
Subject: Re: Decimal degree units


I'd love to see it supported, but have been unable to figure out an easy
way to account for changing measures as you move around. There is
no one conversion from DD to inches. It would be easy to figure an
average x cellsize value for a map, then one could figure out the dd to
inches
conversion factor and with that you could calculate a scale. Scales are
rough to begin with as they are monitor dependent. MapServer uses a
pixels/inch value of 72 to generate scales.

To add DD support only 3 things have to change. 

  - add MS_DD to ms_units enumeration in map.h
  - change the lexer to recognize a DD keyword in mapfiles (edit mapfile.h,
mapfile.c and maplexer.l)

I could do that easily. Rebuilding the lexer requires flex.

  - edit msCalculateScale function in mapscale.c to deal with the nuances of
DD

Anyone got ideas/code to figure out DD to inches relationship depending on
where
you are in the world?

The other workaround is to project your data on-the-fly using the Proj.4
library. A bit slower
as every coordinate is projected but it does work.

Steve

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us

>>> Banister Trevor <TBanister at SpaceImaging.com> 08/26 11:07 AM >>>
Is anyone using decimal degree units?
It looks like they aren't supported from the looks of map.h
enum ms_units {MS_INCHES, MS_FEET, MS_MILES, MS_METERS, MS_KILOMETERS};
I've gotten the shape files to work ok, but I have to fake a unit type which
throws off the legend and absolute zoom factor.
Any work arrounds? or should I start coding DD support?

Thanks.

Trevor



From steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us  Thu Aug 26 11:30:39 1999
From: steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us (Stephen Lime)
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 13:30:39 -0500
Subject: Decimal degree units
Message-ID: <s7c54193.033@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>

Spatial indexing and/or tiling may help perfomance. MapServer supports
a ArcInfo Librarian type of a tiling scheme. Tiles are actually directories
with standardly names shapefiles in each directory. An index of tiles is
maintained as a shapefile and is searched first with resulting tiles processed
in turn. Works fine for drawing, but tiled query is not yet supported.

MapServer also supports simple grid based spatial indexing. There is a utility
called shpindex in the main distribution that will create an index for a given
shapefile. The algorithm uses a user defined grid (equally spaced) and assigns
shapes to one or more grid cells. These cells are then searched to identify
candidate shapes for query or rendering. A lot of work could be done to make
this process more efficient, but even as it is implemented now there are significant
performance gains to be had.

Yet another performance boost can come through the use of nested, multiresolution
versions of the same data. Displayed at different scales this can dramatically improve
performance. For example, you can use the ArcView avenue script (genfeat.ave) 
that uses Peuckers feature thinning algorithm to create thinned versions of particularly
dense datasets. Then you can trigger different versions at different scales saving
the real dense data for times when you're zoomed way in.

Thanks for the equations. I'll have a look and implement in 3.4 (which is coming
along nicely).

Steve

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us

>>> Banister Trevor <TBanister at SpaceImaging.com> 08/26 12:58 PM >>>
I'll try the PROJ.4 support, but I'm guessing that the performance hit will
kill me. Some of my maps have thousands of shapes on several layers.

I can live with some error at the edges of the map since that's true for
Geographic space in general, the further towards the poles you go the more
error in the map.

Here's some formulas that should do the trick.
(courtesy of Gene Dial, our GIS guru)

DX = Re * (Lon1 - Lon2) * PI / 180
DY = Re * (Lat1 - Lat2) * (PI / 180) * Cos( Lat)

Converting the other way:
180 * DX / (PI * Re) = (Lon1 - Lon2)
180 * DY / (PI * Re * cos(lat)) = (Lat1 - Lat2)

Re = radius of earth =
6,370,997 meters (average) * 254 inches/meter =
1,618,233,238 inches

Lat = (Lat1+Lat2)/2
PI/180 factors convert Lat and Lon from degrees to radians
DX = EW distance
DY = NS distance


Trevor

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Lime [mailto:steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us] 
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 1999 10:27 AM
To: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu; TBanister at SpaceImaging.com 
Subject: Re: Decimal degree units


I'd love to see it supported, but have been unable to figure out an easy
way to account for changing measures as you move around. There is
no one conversion from DD to inches. It would be easy to figure an
average x cellsize value for a map, then one could figure out the dd to
inches
conversion factor and with that you could calculate a scale. Scales are
rough to begin with as they are monitor dependent. MapServer uses a
pixels/inch value of 72 to generate scales.

To add DD support only 3 things have to change. 

  - add MS_DD to ms_units enumeration in map.h
  - change the lexer to recognize a DD keyword in mapfiles (edit mapfile.h,
mapfile.c and maplexer.l)

I could do that easily. Rebuilding the lexer requires flex.

  - edit msCalculateScale function in mapscale.c to deal with the nuances of
DD

Anyone got ideas/code to figure out DD to inches relationship depending on
where
you are in the world?

The other workaround is to project your data on-the-fly using the Proj.4
library. A bit slower
as every coordinate is projected but it does work.

Steve

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us 

>>> Banister Trevor <TBanister at SpaceImaging.com> 08/26 11:07 AM >>>
Is anyone using decimal degree units?
It looks like they aren't supported from the looks of map.h
enum ms_units {MS_INCHES, MS_FEET, MS_MILES, MS_METERS, MS_KILOMETERS};
I've gotten the shape files to work ok, but I have to fake a unit type which
throws off the legend and absolute zoom factor.
Any work arrounds? or should I start coding DD support?

Thanks.

Trevor



From cshorte2 at csc.com  Thu Aug 26 16:25:49 1999
From: cshorte2 at csc.com (cshorte2 at csc.com)
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 09:25:49 +1000
Subject: Decimal degree units
Message-ID: <852567DA.00016870.00@csc.com>

> I'll try the PROJ.4 support, but I'm guessing that the performance hit will
> kill me. Some of my maps have thousands of shapes on several layers.

Rob Atkinson did some work on performance of PROJ.4 and reckoned it added 20% to
30% to the total processing time.

Cameron.




From rob at socialchange.net  Thu Aug 26 17:20:04 1999
From: rob at socialchange.net (Rob Atkinson)
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 10:20:04 +1000
Subject: Decimal degree units
References: <852567DA.00016870.00@csc.com>
Message-ID: <37C5D9B4.400145E9@socialchange.net>



cshorte2 at csc.com wrote:

> > I'll try the PROJ.4 support, but I'm guessing that the performance hit will
> > kill me. Some of my maps have thousands of shapes on several layers.
>
> Rob Atkinson did some work on performance of PROJ.4 and reckoned it added 20% to
> 30% to the total processing time.
>
> Cameron.

FYI: This was on a shapefile about 20Mb in size, with highly detailed polys. Maybe
the fixed overheads of file IO are significant.
Having a memory resident server rather than a CGI would be the single biggest
performance boost I think.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Atkinson                                                rob at socialchange.net
Director                                                        Mob 0419 202 973
Social Change Online Pty Ltd                                Ph  +61 (2)9557 6500
http://online.socialchange.net                              Fax +61 (2)9519 8940




From bfraser at digitalscience.com  Thu Aug 26 18:55:56 1999
From: bfraser at digitalscience.com (Brent Fraser)
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 19:55:56 -0600
Subject: Decimal degree units
References: <852567DA.00016870.00@csc.com> <37C5D9B4.400145E9@socialchange.net>
Message-ID: <001101bef02f$56f10dc0$500202c0@cghh1.ab.wave.home.com>

  I've made mapserv a memory resident component  using Windows NT,
ActiveX and Active Server Pages.  And I use PROJ4 to project on the
fly.  But as Steve pointed out in a previous email, the most significant
tuning thing you can do is shapefile indexing.  Tile the shapefiles (if
they aren't already) and make an index shapefile for them.

  Also, selectively display shapefiles based on scale if you've got a
couple of different scales of data (eg 1:1m DCW, and Tiger).

Brent Fraser

----- Original Message -----
From: Rob Atkinson <rob at socialchange.net>
To: <cshorte2 at csc.com>
Cc: <mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 1999 6:20 PM
Subject: Re: Decimal degree units


>
>
> cshorte2 at csc.com wrote:
>
> > > I'll try the PROJ.4 support, but I'm guessing that the performance hit
will
> > > kill me. Some of my maps have thousands of shapes on several layers.
> >
> > Rob Atkinson did some work on performance of PROJ.4 and reckoned it
added 20% to
> > 30% to the total processing time.
> >
> > Cameron.
>
> FYI: This was on a shapefile about 20Mb in size, with highly detailed
polys. Maybe
> the fixed overheads of file IO are significant.
> Having a memory resident server rather than a CGI would be the single
biggest
> performance boost I think.
>
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
> Rob Atkinson
rob at socialchange.net
> Director                                                        Mob 0419
202 973
> Social Change Online Pty Ltd                                Ph  +61
(2)9557 6500
> http://online.socialchange.net                              Fax +61
(2)9519 8940
>
>
>



From steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us  Thu Aug 26 20:46:54 1999
From: steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us (Stephen Lime)
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 22:46:54 -0500
Subject: Decimal degree units
Message-ID: <s7c5c3ff.015@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>

You're correct on the server issue. The mapscript piece should allow for use with mod_perl which may help significantly in some cases. I wish there was a single server API one could deal with. The more recent versions of the code have had a number of impediments to server API implementations removed so this should be much easier to do now.

Steve  

<<< Rob Atkinson <rob at socialchange.net>  8/26  7:30p >>>


cshorte2 at csc.com wrote:

> > I'll try the PROJ.4 support, but I'm guessing that the performance hit will
> > kill me. Some of my maps have thousands of shapes on several layers.
>
> Rob Atkinson did some work on performance of PROJ.4 and reckoned it added 20% to
> 30% to the total processing time.
>
> Cameron.

FYI: This was on a shapefile about 20Mb in size, with highly detailed polys. Maybe
the fixed overheads of file IO are significant.
Having a memory resident server rather than a CGI would be the single biggest
performance boost I think.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Atkinson                                                rob at socialchange.net
Director                                                        Mob 0419 202 973
Social Change Online Pty Ltd                                Ph  +61 (2)9557 6500
http://online.socialchange.net                              Fax +61 (2)9519 8940





From imap at chesapeake.net  Sat Aug 28 01:47:12 1999
From: imap at chesapeake.net (imap at chesapeake.net)
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 04:47:12 -0400
Subject: Decimal degree units
References: <852567DA.00016870.00@csc.com> <37C5D9B4.400145E9@socialchange.net> <001101bef02f$56f10dc0$500202c0@cghh1.ab.wave.home.com>
Message-ID: <37C7A210.EC36A8DC@chesapeake.net>


Brent, Hi... Along these lines, have you tried to index shapefiles
under WinNT?   I have never been able to get shpindex to work
while compiled with MSC6.0.  No errors or anything, but when I
index a shapefile, that layer no longer displays at all.
I was just wondering if you had actually gotten this to work.

Thanks,

-Chris (imap at chesapeake.net)


Brent Fraser wrote:
> 
>   I've made mapserv a memory resident component  using Windows NT,
> ActiveX and Active Server Pages.  And I use PROJ4 to project on the
> fly.  But as Steve pointed out in a previous email, the most significant
> tuning thing you can do is shapefile indexing.  Tile the shapefiles (if
> they aren't already) and make an index shapefile for them.
> 
>   Also, selectively display shapefiles based on scale if you've got a
> couple of different scales of data (eg 1:1m DCW, and Tiger).
> 
> Brent Fraser
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Rob Atkinson <rob at socialchange.net>
> To: <cshorte2 at csc.com>
> Cc: <mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, August 26, 1999 6:20 PM
> Subject: Re: Decimal degree units
> 
> >
> >
> > cshorte2 at csc.com wrote:
> >
> > > > I'll try the PROJ.4 support, but I'm guessing that the performance hit
> will
> > > > kill me. Some of my maps have thousands of shapes on several layers.
> > >
> > > Rob Atkinson did some work on performance of PROJ.4 and reckoned it
> added 20% to
> > > 30% to the total processing time.
> > >
> > > Cameron.
> >
> > FYI: This was on a shapefile about 20Mb in size, with highly detailed
> polys. Maybe
> > the fixed overheads of file IO are significant.
> > Having a memory resident server rather than a CGI would be the single
> biggest
> > performance boost I think.
> >
> > --
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
> > Rob Atkinson
> rob at socialchange.net
> > Director                                                        Mob 0419
> 202 973
> > Social Change Online Pty Ltd                                Ph  +61
> (2)9557 6500
> > http://online.socialchange.net                              Fax +61
> (2)9519 8940
> >
> >
> >


From bfraser at digitalscience.com  Mon Aug 30 08:11:49 1999
From: bfraser at digitalscience.com (Brent Fraser)
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 09:11:49 -0600
Subject: Decimal degree units
References: <852567DA.00016870.00@csc.com> <37C5D9B4.400145E9@socialchange.net> <001101bef02f$56f10dc0$500202c0@cghh1.ab.wave.home.com> <37C7A210.EC36A8DC@chesapeake.net>
Message-ID: <023e01bef2fa$0027d9b0$390002c0@servo>

Chris, (and all),

  I haven't tried the shapefile indexing using shpindex
(my comments in the original email weer about the
tiling method supported by mapserver), but I'll have
a look at it this week...

Brent

----- Original Message -----
From: <imap at chesapeake.net>
To: Brent Fraser <bfraser at digitalscience.com>
Cc: <mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu>
Sent: Saturday, August 28, 1999 2:47 AM
Subject: Re: Decimal degree units


>
> Brent, Hi... Along these lines, have you tried to index shapefiles
> under WinNT?   I have never been able to get shpindex to work
> while compiled with MSC6.0.  No errors or anything, but when I
> index a shapefile, that layer no longer displays at all.
> I was just wondering if you had actually gotten this to work.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Chris (imap at chesapeake.net)
>
>
> Brent Fraser wrote:
> >
> >   I've made mapserv a memory resident component  using Windows NT,
> > ActiveX and Active Server Pages.  And I use PROJ4 to project on the
> > fly.  But as Steve pointed out in a previous email, the most significant
> > tuning thing you can do is shapefile indexing.  Tile the shapefiles (if
> > they aren't already) and make an index shapefile for them.
> >
> >   Also, selectively display shapefiles based on scale if you've got a
> > couple of different scales of data (eg 1:1m DCW, and Tiger).
> >
> > Brent Fraser
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Rob Atkinson <rob at socialchange.net>
> > To: <cshorte2 at csc.com>
> > Cc: <mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu>
> > Sent: Thursday, August 26, 1999 6:20 PM
> > Subject: Re: Decimal degree units
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > cshorte2 at csc.com wrote:
> > >
> > > > > I'll try the PROJ.4 support, but I'm guessing that the performance
hit
> > will
> > > > > kill me. Some of my maps have thousands of shapes on several
layers.
> > > >
> > > > Rob Atkinson did some work on performance of PROJ.4 and reckoned it
> > added 20% to
> > > > 30% to the total processing time.
> > > >
> > > > Cameron.
> > >
> > > FYI: This was on a shapefile about 20Mb in size, with highly detailed
> > polys. Maybe
> > > the fixed overheads of file IO are significant.
> > > Having a memory resident server rather than a CGI would be the single
> > biggest
> > > performance boost I think.
> > >
> > > --
> >
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ------
> > > Rob Atkinson
> > rob at socialchange.net
> > > Director                                                        Mob
0419
> > 202 973
> > > Social Change Online Pty Ltd                                Ph  +61
> > (2)9557 6500
> > > http://online.socialchange.net                              Fax +61
> > (2)9519 8940
> > >
> > >
> > >
>



From steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us  Tue Aug 31 09:56:13 1999
From: steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us (Stephen Lime)
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 11:56:13 -0500
Subject: Administration Tools
Message-ID: <s7cbc2ee.051@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>

One of the biggest missing pieces with MapServer are application
administration tools- mapfile, symbol set and web authoring. Anybody
out there interested in working on something like this? I'm thinking
Tk/Tcl, java or whatever. Could even be converters that would let
you build things in existing desktop systems (eg. mapinfo or arcview)
and write MapServer config files. I'm swamped with 3.3 work but could
help on admin stuff a little. Please let me know if you're interested and
we can persue forming a working group or something.

Steve

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us



From steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us  Tue Aug 31 09:46:23 1999
From: steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us (Stephen Lime)
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 11:46:23 -0500
Subject: GIF Format Issues
Message-ID: <s7cbc0a2.033@smtp.dnr.state.mn.us>

Greetings: At sometime in the near future a switch from LZW GIF to something
else, PNG, JPEG or non-LZW GIF will be necessary. Unisys, the LZW patent
holder, requires that software using it's compression technology be licensed. GD,
the free GIF graphics library used within the MapServer uses LZW. GD was
written well before all of these legal happenings and it's unclear what Unisys' stance
on older software is. New versions of GD support PNG only so it's clear how those
authors feel.

To make MapServer useful as OpenSource the reliance on LZW to end. GD 2.0 
looks very promising with support for PNG (up to 24bit), JPG and hopefully a non-LZW
GIF format, but I've seen no timetable for a 2.0 release.

Anyone got any comments or ideas?

Steve
 

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us



From TBanister at SpaceImaging.com  Tue Aug 31 12:12:02 1999
From: TBanister at SpaceImaging.com (Banister Trevor)
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 13:12:02 -0600
Subject: GIF Format Issues
Message-ID: <AEEF94298C10D311B5A000A024B359E1686C3C@imager9.spaceimaging.com>

The move toward PNG and/or JPEG would be welcome. The 256 color palette can
be restricting. JPEG offers a Q factor which allows site developers to trade
off file size (which equals transmit time) for file quality. It would be a
big benefit to allow the Q factor to be changed in the map URL giving high
bandwidth web visitors a beautiful, high Q factor image, and low bandwidth
users a faster, lower Q factor image.

My concern is that maps tend to have a lot of high frequency components (red
road cutting through a white background). These components don't look so
great with lossy compression schemes like JPEG.  PNG's lossless compression
fixes this, but old browsers (< version 4) can't see PNG. PNG also has
support for 48 bit images which gives you 3 16 bit RGB channels or 4 12 bit
RGBA channels. 

Support for both would be great. Given the choice I'd vote for PNG
  

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
Trevor Banister, Sr. Application Designer
Space Imaging
12076 Grant Street
Thornton, CO 80241
Phone: (303) 254-2175 Fax: (303) 254-2211
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
Good
Fast
Cheap
Pick any 2



-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Lime [mailto:steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us]
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 1999 10:46 AM
To: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
Subject: GIF Format Issues


Greetings: At sometime in the near future a switch from LZW GIF to something
else, PNG, JPEG or non-LZW GIF will be necessary. Unisys, the LZW patent
holder, requires that software using it's compression technology be
licensed. GD,
the free GIF graphics library used within the MapServer uses LZW. GD was
written well before all of these legal happenings and it's unclear what
Unisys' stance
on older software is. New versions of GD support PNG only so it's clear how
those
authors feel.

To make MapServer useful as OpenSource the reliance on LZW to end. GD 2.0 
looks very promising with support for PNG (up to 24bit), JPG and hopefully a
non-LZW
GIF format, but I've seen no timetable for a 2.0 release.

Anyone got any comments or ideas?

Steve
 

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us


From cshorte2 at csc.com  Tue Aug 31 16:06:46 1999
From: cshorte2 at csc.com (cshorte2 at csc.com)
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1999 09:06:46 +1000
Subject: Administration Tools
Message-ID: <852567DE.007EF33E.00@csc.com>

> One of the biggest missing pieces with MapServer are application
> administration tools- mapfile, symbol set and web authoring. Anybody
> out there interested in working on something like this? I'm thinking
> Tk/Tcl, java or whatever. Could even be converters that would let
> you build things in existing desktop systems (eg. mapinfo or arcview)
> and write MapServer config files. I'm swamped with 3.3 work but could
> help on admin stuff a little. Please let me know if you're interested and
> we can persue forming a working group or something.

Count me in.  As mentioned before, I want to be able to add/modify/delete
elements to/from shapefiles from a web front end.

The web front end can be written in either javascript or java.

There is already the makings of server code to add an element, but none
to modify or delete, which will require restructuring on the database
somehow.  Ie, if you want to extent a road so that it has more points,
then the size of the road element will increase, which means that it
will not fit into the previous road element size in the .shp file.

Should we:
1. Completely rebuild the .shp file?
2. Add the new element to the end of the .shp file, and just change the
index to the .shp file.  This will lead to a situations where the index
file will be in a different order to the shape file:

.shx -> .shp
1 -> 1
2 -> 2
3 -> 5
4 -> 4
5 -> null

>From reading the ERSI shapefile spec it seems that this isn't allowed.

3. Something else.

Cameron Shorter.