[mapserver-users] Scale

[Thorsten Fischer]

Am Sam, 2002-03-09 um 16.31 schrieb Peter:

> is it possible to give the user the exact scale? I mean this one: 1 : 
> 10.000 not that stuff with a distance...

I would like to ask another question in relation to this; please bear
with me, as I am not a geographer (IANAG in the future, as I am using
this every two questions I ask ;)

'Scale' is a rather confusing term for me when it comes to display maps
on a screen. I feel too lazy to check mapserver's source code to see how
it is done there, so: how is it calculated? Pixels are quite useless,
because a pixel has different sizes depending on the size of the screen
and the screen's resolution. Saying that a map is scaled 1:100000 on my
desktop will be different to the 1:100000 on my laptop; and mapserver
does not know anything about the resolution of the target screen.

Any hints?


tia,

thorsten

-- 

Thorsten Fischer        thfischer at mapmedia.de

---------------------------------------------------------
MapMedia - Kartographie und raumbezogene Informationssysteme
Am Borsigturm 42
13507 Berlin
Deutschland
http://www.mapmedia.de tel: +49 (0)30 43032102
---------------------------------------------------------