[mapserver-users] GRID labeling, OK, where are the MapServerGRID guru's??

[Brent Fraser]

> I think a standard table would work in just about all cases.  Some
> interesting things though, would be the ability to do multiple striping
> and such, no need to settle for a single edge label. One could even
> stack them on top of each other with MapFile includes, which we've also
> taken to heart on the server side.

My goals for labelling are quite ambitious (see the attached graphic clip
of my favorite Canadian topo map).  Multiple grid labels (the home zone
and the adjacent zone are labeled, with the super/subscript method you are
developing), a graticule label, township/range labels, a fairly
complicated neat line, and tick marks for the adjacent zone coordinate
system.

>> For the plot layout solution I was thinking of PDF instead of SVG, and
>> leveraging Inkscape, Scribus, etc for the interactive editing part.  So
>> the last couple of days I've been experimenting with having Mapserver
>> generate PDF output with a GRID layer.  "Interesting" results: some
>> crashing depending on how the GRID layer is set up...
>>
> Hmm, interesting approach. Where are you running into problems with this
> approach?  Seems like there could be some non-standard types of object
> possible for the editors for one.  Does MapServer do the labels in PDF
> as all separate pieces/elements?  Got anything online to play with?
>
PDF support in Mapserver is minimal, and I don't think the code is being
actively maintained.  My problems are minor bugs causing Mapserver to
crash; I'm still working on them...

> One thing I forgot to mention, was that I se this Printing (client side)
> layout canvas, as being populated with any URL type of call, not just
> mapping based.  I may be reaching for the stars though on that one, but
> it would be easy enough to work with raster images to begin with.
>
> One other thought in the back of my head is related to 3D data, while
> we've only experimented with output to date, we can export chunks of the
> City as X3D data for example, this type of approach you've outlined, my
> be related to 3D editing and viewing as well.

An interesting approach may be Adobe's 3D extension to PDF.  Have a look
at http://www.photogrammetry.eu/ for an example.

>
> You seem to be up on these packages, can they be scripted in any way for
> retrieval from the web?  Or is that a two step process?  Do these
> packages blow up with big files?

I seem to recall that they did have difficultly with large raster.

>
> Your ideas using these packages seems very interesting, but I'm
> wondering about the import limits that they might impose.  Seems to be a
> fair amount of learning curve to both packages, do you have a preference
> yet?  I did find that Scribus can be scripted with Python, not
> commandline though . . .
>

ReportLab (www.reportlab.org) may be useful too...

> I hop you're happy, now you got me thinking about all sorts of new
> stuff, like how to teach folks about using a standalone package like
> this,  I hate installing standalone stuff for exactly this reason if I
> can avoid it.

The lack of a map composition tool is a large hole in the FOSS4G stack, so
the more people thinking about a solution the better!

Brent
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