[Mapserver-users] Using MapServer as a general graphing engine

[Tyler Mitchell]

I'm thinking more along these lines:

- I have x,y data where these are two non-geographic values that I want to
graph.  I have z which is the magnitude, count, etc. that I want to graph.
- Use a simple coordinate system to map the "location" of the x,y pairs and
draw the symbol based on the z value.
- z may be a value used as a radius for a circle or there may be a z- and
z+ which defines the vertical offsets of the extents of a bar/rectangle.

So I'm not so concerned with bringing in pre-made maps, as I am about
generating maps using non-spatial data.   Of course, sometimes "z" may be
an image but I wasn't thinking that far ahead.

Tyler

Armin Burger <armin.burger at libero.it> wrote on 07/28/2003 12:53:53 PM:

> Tyler,
>
> I also found it sometimes desirable to have Mapserver create thematical
> maps with pie charts or bar charts, etc. I don't know how much work it
> might be to implement this. Maybe DM Solutions OWTChart could be somehow
> included?
>
> Another, probably a bit easier implementation, could be using MapScript
> combined with graphic modules/extensions for Perl or PHP, mainly based on
> the GD library. But as far as I know there is no possibility to include
> externally produced images and merge them on top of the map image. A
> question to the developers: would it be possible to have a Mapscript
> method that creates an imageObj from a file?
>
> This way one could create all the charts based on shapefile or database
> data with external graphic functions and merge these images with the map
> image using the existing 'pasteImage' method. For not too many charts the
> speed should be acceptable. For placing a chart exactly over a polygon a
> method to calculate the shape centroid would be helpful.
>
> Could this approach make sense?
>
> Armin
>
>
>
> > I know that a ton of web-based options exist for graphing and charting.
> > But very few seem to really understand spatial data and many have a
> > narrower scope of data sources than MapServer has.
>
> > Am I the only one interested in doing this or are you interested in
> doing
> > this as well.  I see a few queries on related topics in the archives,
> but
> > very few responses.  So I am writing now to gather a feel for the level
> of
> > interest that others on the list may have to do all sorts of graphing
> and
> > charting stuff all within MapServer's capabilities.
>
> > Tyler
>
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