[Xastir] Projects we can learn from?

[Gerry Creager]

I just looked at Jason's images.  I missed Curt's request to look at 
these projects... not too surprising since I'm sorta busy these days...

Jason Winningham wrote:
> On Aug 17, 2006, at 7:32 AM, Curt, WE7U wrote:
> 
>> I'd like people's comments on these:  "tmrs" and "roadnav" projects
>> on SourceForge.
> 
> I finally got time to get on a system with all the prerequisites  
> installed, so I'll comment on tmrs:
> 
> First, for those who don't want to install, here are the demo images  
> the Makefile generates:
> 
> http://www.eng.uah.edu/~jdw/xastir/map1.png
> http://www.eng.uah.edu/~jdw/xastir/map2.png
> 
> I generally like the way these look.  Of course, I'd like to have  
> full control of the colors/styles/fonts/etc (ala dbfawk).

If it's mapserver based, that's controlled by mapserver for WMS.  If 
it's features then we can control the colors, etc.

> The mapserver part of the project looks good from an xastir point of  
> view, assuming that it will generate maps with proper references, so  
> that xastir could use these maps with little or no source  
> modification by talking to the mapserver.  It would of course further  
> complicate an xastir install if one installed the mapserver locally.   
> If they do a better job of projection they'd generate better maps  
> than the TIGERserver, plus we could potentially set up one or more  
> "APRS map servers" on the internet, but that's getting a bit grandiose.

projection via proj4 and gdal is handled well in mapserver.  We can thus 
request a WMS image in WGS84 (lat-lon unproj) or mod xastir to cover 
different projections and get "pretty" maps.  MY thought on this is that 
most of our work w/ Xastir, especially the SAR, is local work and covers 
a small enough area that planar flat projections work.  How many of us 
are further north/south than 60 or so degrees?  So lat/lon unproj 
representation is somewhere between good enough and a good idea.  And, 
for all the work Curt's done on rhumb lines, etc., given a local area 
planar workzone, simple geometries can accomplish most of our requirements.

> Another nice point is that it appears to be able to read raw TIGER  
> data as well as shapefiles (not sure if shapefiles can be read now,  
> or are in development, and if it only reads TIGER shapefiles).

Minor point: TIGER data are known to be somewhat problemmatical as far 
as accuracy goes...

> It may need a bit of work: e.g., I think a label of "US 301" would be  
> convey the same information and make for a less-cluttered map than  
> "United States Highway 301". (:

Yup!

> Downsides: map data apparently needs to be converted to a custom tmrs  
> format.  tmrs requires 4 libraries, three of which xastir doesn't use  
> (gd, Z, freetype).  I think at least two of these are fairly common,  
> though, and aren't nearly as complex as, say, ImageMagick. :|

Think, PostGIS and mapserver to manage the data.

> I guess some questions are:
> 
> - is tmrc ready for prime-time yet?  There's no "configure" or "make  
> install".
> 
> - are the maps properly georeferenced/projected/whatever, so that  
> they're as accurate as we're used to in xastir?
> 
> - can xastir be modified to talk to the tmrs server without much effort?
> 
> - is integration of tmrs an xastir 1 project or an xastir 2 project?

Maybe v3?

gerry
-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
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