Labels that follow streets - like Google maps

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Hi all,

I love the way Google maps label their streets. The labels bend to
follow the streets. What kind of interest is there from the community
for this type of enhancement?

I suppose that ideally the developers would like the GD folks or the
Freetype folks to implement this, but it seems like about 2 years since
I originally brought it up. There is at least one bug that covers this:

http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=206
(this bug should probably be split into two separate items)

I think that "label follows" should be raised in priority because the
MapText project has gone away, and this would be a very good feature to
have in mapserver. I'm not sure I would "spline" the label, as that is
NOT what other implementations are doing and spline math is Way more
complicated than plunking down characters that are aligned with the
various street segments.

So, in an effort to gage the community interest in this and hopefully
get a developer to champion this cause, make yourself heard.

-Steve W.