[mapserver-users] Graticule and Map Frame strategies

[Brent Fraser]

Roger André wrote:

> creation.  The problem is that GMT "does it all".  Without going into 
> all of what GMT can do, here are a few of the things that it does which 
> I haven't been able to find an easy way to implement with Mapserver.
> 

> 3) Creation of color bars (legend) to show the values in a raster data set.

Hmm, dunno...

> 4) Graticule tick-marks on the edges of the map frame.

No, but I'm thinking about it.  Actually, using my Polygons-as-a-margin layer trick twice might work.  
Render your map layers then "blank out" the four sides of your map (they're in pixel coords so adjust as necessary):

SIZE 800 600
	:
LAYER
  NAME "Margin"
  TRANSFORM FALSE
  STATUS DEFAULT
  TYPE POLYGON
  CLASS
     COLOR 255 255 255
  END
  FEATURE
     POINTS 0 0 0 600 70 600 70 0 0 0 END
     POINTS 70 0 70 70 800 70 800 0 70 0 END 
     POINTS 70 600 800 600 800 530 70 530 70 600 END
     POINTS 730 70 730 530 800 530 800 70 730 70 END
  END
END

then render your graticule lines (via another LAYER), then use the above technique only offset a pixel or two to clip back the graticule lines to look like "tics",  then render a layer of graticule anno.

Crude but it might work.


> 5) Inclusion of a map title.
> 6) Inclusion of text to describe the map.

Yes you can.  Use a LAYER with TRANSFORM FALSE and an in-line FEATURE:

  LAYER
    NAME title
    STATUS DEFAULT
    TRANSFORM FALSE
    TYPE ANNOTATION
    FEATURE
      POINTS 4 396 END
      TEXT 'This is a Great Map!'
    END
    CLASS
      LABEL
        TYPE TRUETYPE
        FONT arial
        SIZE 8
        ANTIALIAS
        COLOR 255 255 255
        POSITION UR
      END
    END
  END


Good luck,
Brent