[Xastir] Making better looking maps

[Stephen - K1LNX]

> Which google maps?  Colored roads based on road type or colored based on
traffic?

Colored roads based on road type, not interested in traffic.

>One thing that you'll probably find missing is a selection of linestyles -
xastir's is pretty limited.  IIRC you've got solid lines and dashed lines.
 If you're >looking for a wide gray line with black borders, you're out of
luck.

What is the limitation on this? Is it something that can't be coded in?
Hard/complex? Just curious....

> Coloring and styling roads by type is possible with dbfawk, but you won't
get the clear, crisp outlines ala Google.

Is that because of the above limitation?

I'm willing to play, but in the end I want the best looking maps possible
that are easy to read etc. The online tiger maps are ok, but I still find
them a little difficult on the eyes.

Am I moving in the right direction or are there better alternatives to what
I am trying to accomplish? I also see that Xastir has limited support for
Mapinfo maps, which I have a complete set of, but don't know anything about
unfortunately :(

73's
Stephen
K1LNX

On 8/9/07, Jason Winningham <jdw at eng.uah.edu> wrote:
>
>
> On Aug 9, 2007, at 12:20 PM, Stephen - K1LNX wrote:
> >
> >  but still leaves
> > me with one question, how to make it look better? I know I can
> > adjust the
> > fonts, background color etc, but what I am really after is to have
> > a color
> > scheme ala Google maps with colored roads etc.
> >
> > Easy? Hard? Impossible? Nuts?
>
>
> That's for you to decide after you try it. (:
>
> The shapefiles you downloaded are a bit complex, but there are
> already dbfawks in the xastir distribution to deal with them (in /usr/
> local/share/xastir/config, I think).  You can modify those dbfawks to
> try and achieve the look you want.
>
> One thing that you'll probably find missing is a selection of
> linestyles - xastir's is pretty limited.  IIRC you've got solid lines
> and dashed lines.  If you're looking for a wide gray line with black
> borders, you're out of luck.
>
> -Jason
> kg4wsv
>
>
>


-- 
Stephen Brown - ARS K1LNX
Johnson City, TN EM86uh