[postgis-users] Request for ideas to enhance the geometry viewer - GSoC

Tue Jan 29 21:46:26 PST 2019

I'm a DB guy.

Tools like pgAdmin, SQL Developer etc are my reality. qGIS, ArcGIS etc is external to my database reality.

But, IMHO, we need more visualisation that a single colour for features resulting from a SQL Select statement.

I don't want the full functionality of a GIS in terms of flexible styling, editing, geoprocessing, map production, etc.

I've done this before with GeoRaptor for SQL Developer and the users of that extension got visualisation that supported their needs.
(pgAdmin Spatial is a reinvention of the wheel as far as I am concerned: this conversation is very familiar.)

At least I hope at least for better visualisation than a blue line; and ability to get some context by having another query/layer within the view.

regards
Simon

On Wed, 30 Jan 2019 16:26:06 +1100, Regina Obe <lr at pcorp.us> wrote:

>
> It's a touchy area the DB  tool should have strong DB and light on visualization – so Db work is always front and center and GIS to >the side. The GIS should be lighter on DB and stronger on visualization (or at least have visualization up front).
>
> What is light but not too light is a big fuzzy area.  So I think of it in terms of 3 users.
>
>
> Leo – He likes OpenJump, cause all he wants to do is write SQL statements – hates QGIS.  Why he hates QGIS? – the only thing he >wants is to be able to write a query and see it and layer queries.
> Maybe some styling to distinguish his queries when he overlays. Downside of OpenJump is inability to browse his tables and >make structural changes.
>
>
> QGIS forces him to open this huge GIS System -> go to DbManager. He finds it cluttered. He is NOT a GIS person so all those >goodies are lost on him. He finds them to be an eyesore and weighing him down from his primary objective.
>
>
> GIS person or general user – I give them QGIS they love it – they are immersed in the whole visualization thing and just want to >filter their data, they go hog wild installing plugins. I try to show them the DbManager piece (the colorcoding of queries, the light >intellisense, the ability to browse tables etc) (the feature I like most about QGIS), and they yawn and are totally not interested.
>
>
> Me – I don't often care to visualize anything aside form spot checking my concave hull or convex hull or Geo Median is right, but >it's hard to tell if I can't overlay on the original query without the calcs. So that's the only thing I really yearn for overlay and very >minimalist styling.  So I end up jumping to whatever is closest QGIS or OpenJump. These days I often jump to QGIS cause I have >users that feel "SAFE" (by SAFE I mean they are not lost in – what should I type) in it so I have to have a clue how to show them >how to do things in it, but otherwise I'm probably more of an OpenJump / pgAdmin user.
>
>
>
> From: postgis-users [mailto:postgis-users-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Martin Davis
> Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2019 9:25 PM
> To: Paul Ramsey <pramsey at cleverelephant.ca>
> Cc: PostGIS Users Discussion <postgis-users at lists.osgeo.org>
> Subject: Re: [postgis-users] Request for ideas to enhance the geometry viewer - GSoC
>
>
> Oh, i wasn't suggesting render-in-the-DB.  Just throwing out an idea about how styling metadata could be supplied to pgAdmin.  
>
> I guess I wasn't totally clear. The suggestion is to supply dynamic queries with styling metadata on-the-fly within pgAdmin.  The >metadata would *not* be persisted in the DB (well, it could be, but up to the user).  Putting the metadata right in SQL allows using >all those SQL/Postgres functions we all know and love.already.
>
>
> As for Paolo's objection, I can see his point.  But two rebuttles:
>
> - Since it's free, why not put useful functionality everywhere?  :)
>
> - actually it's not free - the cost occurs in having to learn an entirely new tool.  So if some useful extra functionality pops up in your >tool of choice, that's a win
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 6:11 PM Paul Ramsey <pramsey at cleverelephant.ca> wrote:
>>
>> Yeah, every time I’ve thought about renderer-in-the-db I’ve come back to this. There’s nothing especially privileged about the >>db that makes a lot of sense for bringing rendering in-process. And boy it’s a rat hole… once you go down, you’re never coming >>back out.
>>
>>
>> P
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On Jan 29, 2019, at 5:36 PM, Paolo Cavallini <cavallini at faunalia.it> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Are you sure you want to reimplement what a GIS does already? Doing proper, powerful styling it's a really big task.
>>> Sorry to jump in like this, I'm a strong advocate of open source tools also because you can reuse what is available, avoiding >>>duplication of efforts.
>>> Cheers.
>>>
>>>
>>> Il 30 gennaio 2019 02:13:50 CET, Martin Davis <mtnclimb at gmail.com> ha scritto:
>>>>
>>>> Here's an idea which might be a bit out there...  
>>>>
>>>> Allow styling/labelling to be driven by columns in the displayed query.  The styling columns would have well-known names >>>>which are unlikely to conflict with data columns.  A nice pattern to follow is the SVG style names.  So e.g. styleStroke = line >>>>color, styleFill - fill color, styleStrokeWidth = line width, etc etc etc.  styleLabel would be the string to label with.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This allows styling to be data-driven and easily captured and shared.  
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 8:16 PM Victoria Rautenbach <victoria.rautenbach at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Dear PostGIS devs and users
>>>>>
>>>>> Firstly, we (Frikan, Xuri and I) would like to thank the PostGIS
>>>>> community again for the support you provided us in 2018 during Google
>>>>> Summer of Code (GSoC). We truly appreciate your time and effort.
>>>>>
>>>>> The call for OSGeo GSoC ideas is now out [1]. Frikan and I would like
>>>>> to suggest a project to address some of the issues left in the
>>>>> geometry viewer (available in pgAdmin4), but also include some new
>>>>> functionality.
>>>>>
>>>>> Are there any ideas or suggestions from you, the PostGIS community,
>>>>> for extra functionalities that would improve the usefulness of the
>>>>> geometry viewer?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you in advance.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards
>>>>> Victoria
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> [1] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/soc/2019-January/004200.html
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> postgis-users mailing list
>>>>> postgis-users at lists.osgeo.org
>>>>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users
>>>
>>>
>>>>>> --
>>> Sorry for being short_______________________________________________
>>> postgis-users mailing list
>>> postgis-users at lists.osgeo.org
>>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users
>>
>>

-- 
Regards
Simon
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