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

[Vinko Vrsalovic]

> 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?

I did exactly that for an app using PHP-Mapscript and JpGraph (a 
wonderful graphics engine).

How? By generating dynamically a symbolset file which references images
generated via JpGraph, which afterwards is loaded into the mapObj with
$map->setSymbolSet(). 

It's not very elegant nor very fast, but it's the only way i could come
up with and it's been working for half a year now without much trouble.

For this reason I asked Daniel and submitted a feature request to create
symbols dynamically, as that would remove the need to recompile and
redefine MAX_SYMBOLS (in this particular case i had to draw up to 354
charts), and the need to create a symbolset file each time.

-- 
Vinko Vrsalovic <el[|- at -|]vinko.cl>
http://www.cprsig.cl