No anti-aliasing for cartoline symbol?

[Ken Lord]

Hi William,

I just tried your suggestion of setting linecap, linejoin, and
linejoinmaxsize in the symbol definition, and it has improved my
output.

There must be a bug since I used the supposed default values, so I
expected no difference but there was.

James, give William's suggestion a try and see if it helps you too.

Cheers,
Ken Lord
Vancouver BC

On Apr 1, 2005 10:06 AM, William K <woklist at charter.net> wrote:
> I've been using cartolines for a while.  I think you need to specify
> antialias in the STYLE for a class, not the symbol.  The antialias in
> the SYMBOL definition (as Ken Lord said) is for truetype fonts.
>
> Oh, not paying attention to your example, I see you do say antialias in
> the style.  Hmm, foggy... memory... try specifying the linecap,
> linejoin and linejoinmaxsize in your symbol, I think I may have had
> problems when I didn't (all mine do now), even if you specify same as
> the defaults.
>
> It's been a while since I used the antialias for cartolines, tho - I
> think it's a bit slow, or the quality wasn't all that great (I believe
> it's done by GD?).  And if you still use normal lines also in a map,
> there will be a mix of aliasing and antialiasing.
>
> I switched to a different method that gives accross-the-board
> antialiasing - design and draw the map at 2x or 4x size with no
> antialiasing anywhere, then use PHP's image functions to resample the
> image with antialiasing.  I find that the antialiasing produced this
> way looks much better, closer to what I expect from using graphics
> programs, even for font rendering.  Requires PHP-MapScript of course,
> and a bit of programming, but it works fine.  Unless you have a fast
> processor, the 4x will be pretty slow, but it looks better.  I even use
> this method for generating high quality PDF output, instead of using
> mapserver's builtin PDF output.
>
>
> On Apr 1, 2005, at 9:11 AM, James Sohr wrote:
>
> > Like so many others, I've used the circle symbol with various  sizes to
> > draw my lines for the past few years.  The results have been pretty
> > good,
> > but the aliasing on the roads has always bothered me, especially when
> > the
> > true-type labels are beautfully anti-aliased right beside them.
> >
> >
> > I recently read in the archives that the relatively new cartoline
> > symbol
> > supports anti-aliasing.  However, when I use the cartoline symbol and
> > turn
> > antialiasing on, the lines drawn are still aliased.
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm using Mapserver 4.5 on Windows XP with the latest GD library.  Is
> > there something in my setup that is preventing the cartoline from being
> > anti-aliased?  Does someone have an online example that shows the
> > cartoline symbol being anti-aliased?
> >
>
> -----
> William Kyngesburye <kyngchaos at charter.net>
> http://webpages.charter.net/kyngchaos/
>
> Theory of the Universe
>
> There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly
> what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly
> disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely
> inexplicable.  There is another theory which states that this has
> already happened.
>
> -Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 2nd season intro
>
>


--
==============================
Ken Lord B.Sc., A.Dipl.T.H.
7488 Magnolia Terrace
Burnaby BC, V5E 4L1
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kenlord at email.com
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