[Xastir] Map Properties/dbfawk: Time to rethink?

[Brian D Heaton]

Curt,

	I think you've definitely hit the nail on the head here.  I had to
think on this one a bit.  The most general division can be made between
raster and vector maps, as you mentioned.  Within each of those
divisions the user should be able to select map properties from a single
pane for each type.

	I tend to be the type that wants to be able to tweak any available
variable if necessary.  Many users may want to be able to run with a set
of defaults for each known map type worked out by the developers.  In
other applications there is a selection to show options for different
types of users (Basic, Normal, Advanced, Expert).  More and more of the
configurable values could be exposed as you work your way deeper in the
list.

	Dbfawk appears to be a good starting point.  I think the main expansion
needs to be a graphical means of doing the config. ArcGIS has a
reasonable good means of assigning shapefile components to various
attributes.

	With any luck a lot of this will be simplified (or abstracted) as we
move to storing vector map data in a spatially enabled database.  As
reported before I've done some experimentation with Safe Software's FME
and putting data from different vector map types into PostGIS.  Perhaps
over the Xmas holidays I'll get some time to rework that a bit and get a
couple states into PostGIS that I can make available as pgsql dumps to
the developers.

				THX/BDH
 


On Thu, 2003-12-11 at 15:22, Curt Mills wrote:
> This is being sent to both lists in order to get a broader set of
> opinions:
> 
> With the impending integration of the GDAL/OGR library, we need to
> start thinking about how to specify all of the properties of a map.
> Hopefully in a very general way that would extend across all vector
> and raster map types.
> 
> I've seen files on the 'net, generated by GIS programs, which appear
> to have columns to specify which map layer each feature will be on,
> font size, line widths, and similar things.  Obviously they had to
> solve similar problems to what we're facing.
> 
> Does it make sense to extend the dbfawk stuff to all vector maps?
> Raster maps?  Perhaps integrate it into Xastir more fully?
> 
> I'd like to see an extremely fast implementation, with a GUI
> interface to change all of the options.  The user shouldn't have to
> edit map preference files by hand.
> 
> Comments?
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Brian D Heaton
Senior Network Engineer
Janus Research Group
(706) 364-9100
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