[mapserver-users] Question generated by the Topo thread

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Ed, Steve, et al,

The topo thread got me to wondering if mapserver handles shape files
with the polygon net with Z-values or measurement values? 

And if so how does it render them.

You could define a sun location in the config file then take the angle
between the sun and the facet normal as the intensity of the facet and
generate shaded backgrounds very effiently (ie not much math involved).
This would generate very nice looking 3D effects.

If would be more compute intensive to generate topo elevation lines on
the fly, but these could be pre-computed ans saved into shape files,
based on the polygon net files.

The same thing could be done for native DEM support.

This has probably already been discussed, I should probably check the
archives.

-Steve