[Mapserver-users] Transforming lat/long points into shapefiles

[Paul Spencer]

Justin,

you have a variety of choices ;).  You can use postgis - a postgresql 
gis extension, check out http://www.refractions.net/ - or you could 
create a script that queries the database and writes a shapefile 
directly.  PHP is a great langauge for doing this (yes, I am biased), 
and I am sure that you could accomplish the same thing in perl.

If you try PHP, you can use its extensions to query an existing 
database, and use the php_mapscript extension to create a shapefile from 
the latlong coordinates.  Only tricky part is that you have to create 
the dbf file using PHPs dbase extension, but that is not too difficult.

Postgis would be the best answer, I think.

Cheers,

Paul

Justin Garre wrote:
> Given a set of start and end latitude and longitude points that comprise 
> a street rout, how do I transform them into a shapefile in an automated 
> manner from a database?  This database would be consistently updated 
> with new data from the field so it is important that we be able to have 
> our map be capable of automatically displaying the data as it becomes 
> available.
> 
> Is the most common and time efficient way of doing this to have a new 
> shapefile be created and displayed in real-time on our map during each 
> data update from the field or is there a way to simply have the street 
> network shapefile draw data from a database real-time and update its 
> attributes without creating an all new shapefile?  Depending on which is 
> best, are there any text resources out there that show how this is 
> accomplished in database design?
> 
> I have been having difficulty in finding information on this topic both 
> through Google searches and on the Mapserver support site so I 
> appreciate both your patience and any help that you can provide.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Justin Garre
> University of Washington
> garre_gis at hotmail.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Paul Spencer
Applications and Software Development
DM Solutions Group Inc.
http://www.dmsolutions.ca