[Freegis-list] editing shapes

[James Card]

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 14:30:37 +0200, Catalin Florescu 
<catalin.florescu at rosa.ro> wrote:

> Thursday, November 20, 2003 2:24 PM "Paolo Cavallini" 
> <cavallini at faunalia.it> wrote:
>
>> I have just a basic question:
>> which software would you suggest for heavy shapefile digitizing? We are
>> trying GRASS, but it seems not very smooth.
>
> what does "heavy shapefile digitizing" mean?
> the smoothness of digitizing depends on the vertex density, meaning that
> where the contour is the most curved, there should be a higher density of
> points, and that does not depend on the software, but on the person who
> digitizes.

I suspect the issue is not how smooth the lines and polygons are, rather 
how smooth the user interface is.

Some tools are optimized for fast efficient digitization (input and 
editing of spatial data), and others may allow editing but (since their 
primary purpose is visualization or output) their user interface makes the 
task more difficult.

As an example, (using proprietary software, unfortunately) my little bit 
of experience in digitizing spatial data taught me that I could enter data 
much more efficiently using ArcInfo, but ArcView was OK for some light 
editing tasks. ArcView could digitize, but ArcInfo made it much easier.

Since I'm new to the FreeGIS arena I don't have the answer to the original 
question though: what FreeGIS tools might be more effective for digitizing 
spatial data than GRASS is?

-- 
James Card
California CAD Solutions, Inc.
209 578-5580 Voice
209 521-6493 FAX