[Mapserver-users] Getting Position of the Label text as MS will place it

[PATTERSON KENNETH ALLEN]

In our app we create a HTML map used to position popup information when the cursor is positions at a specific place on the image.  The user can hover the cursor over a point and information will display.  We use Perl to program the site.  

It would be very useful for us if we can query the position that MS draws the labels at.  Use the following layer definition as the example:  How can we get each  bounding box of the text label that is drawn (i.e. TEXT "Col_label_nm")?

We are able to get the shape index from the query result set etc..  I'm guessing that since we can't find anything exposed we will need to do the same calculations that MS is doing to get the text bounding box.  Is this going to get way to tricky?  Should we find another UI solution?  Anybody done this before?  Suggestions?

Thanks,
	Ken


LAYER
   NAME "Stuff"
   GROUP Geographical
   TYPE  POLYGON
   STATUS on
   template "dummy"
   DATA "/.../stuff.shp"
   CLASS
    	NAME 'aclass'
   	OUTLINECOLOR 200 200 200
	TEXT ([Col_label_nm])
    	LABEL
	  	TYPE TRUETYPE
	  	FONT helmetBI
	  	antialias off
	  	COLOR 255 0 0  
		MINSIZE 10
		MAXSIZE 14
		POSITION AUTO
		PARTIALS FALSE
	END # Label
  END # Class
END # Stuff Layer