[mapserver-users] arrows on lines without truetype

[Puneet Kishor]

thanks Steve, for a very clear reply. 

Unfortunately this does seem like a lot more work than trying to recompile
mapserver with the appropriate truetype stuff. If for no other reason that
the layer(s) might change all the time, and they would have to be prepro all
the time... very kludgy.

btw, the latest freetype lib is 2.1... is that compatible? 

also, when I do mapserv -v, it tells me that...

MapServer version 3.5 OUTPUT=PNG OUTPUT=JPEG OUTPUT=WBMP SUPPORTS=TTF
INPUT=TIFF
 INPUT=EPPL7 INPUT=JPEG INPUT=SHAPEFILE

well, what does that "SUPPORTS=TTF" bit mean when at the same time it also
croaks and tells me that mapserver is not compiled with TrueType if I try to
display a ttf symbol.

Puneet.






> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen Woodbridge [mailto:woodbri at swoodbridge.com]
> Sent: Friday, May 24, 2002 5:53 PM
> To: Puneet Kishor
> Cc: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> Subject: Re: [mapserver-users] arrows on lines without truetype
> 
> 
> Puneet,
> 
> The problem boils down to this:
> 
> 1) you have to apply a pattern to a line segment the 
> generates the arrow
> given that the line can be drawn in any random direction. (ie 
> TrueType,
> or something)
> 
> or
> 
> 2) you have to insert a symbol at some location on the line 
> and you have
> to "orient" the symbol with the direction of the line
> 2a) "orient" implies that you either use a rotatable symbol like
> TrueType or select a pre-oriented (ie: rotated) symbol from  a set of
> symbols.
> 
> Soooo, you might get away with creating a set of pre-oriented symbols,
> and add a field to all your records as to which symbol to use for each
> line segment. Then set up an annotation layer with a 
> CLASSITEM "ORIENT"
> to select the appropriate symbol and have a point in the shp 
> file which
> is used to place the symbol.
> 
> It would be easy to write a perl script to pre process your roads and
> ident the oneway roads, and create a point layer with say the midpoint
> of the road segment as a location and an attribute of ORIENT 
> that can be
> used to select the symbol.
> 
> This might seem like a lot of work but is should work pretty well and
> give you contol of the placement of the symbols. For example, 
> you could
> create multple symbol points on a longer line by adding multiple
> records.
> 
> Hope this helps,
>   -Steve
> 
> Puneet Kishor wrote:
> > 
> > ok, the much asked arrow question.
> > 
> > how can I make a line with an occasional arrowhead in it to display
> > digitized direction without using TrueType?
> > 
> > tia to you symbology wizards,
> > 
> > pk/
>