Another couple of ideas

[Bernhard Reiter]

[I am on vacation that is why my reaction time is longer than usual.]

On Friday 11 July 2008 16:05, Anthony Lenton wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 6:04 AM, Bernhard Reiter wrote:

> > On Thursday 10 July 2008 22:37, Anthony Lenton wrote:
> >> I'd really like to see add a couple of characteristics from
> >> MapServer's data model be worked in to Thuban, namely:
> >>
> >>  - The ability to set a max/min scale to a layer, so that it isn't
> >> shown outside of that range.
> >
> > For some layers this certainly makes sense, though maybe we should have
> > some function that calculates this level of detail without fix settings,
> > because the settings will depend a lot on the output device.
> > (E.g. a layer that cannot be shown on screen with 72 dpi, might easily be
> > seen in a few dots on a 600 lpi printer.)
>
> Hm, true... though those changes in ouput-resolution should already
> bring along other problems, for example a line that looks neat at
> 2px-wide on the screen will look real scrawny and thin on a high-res
> printer.  How are you working around those problems currently?

Good question, I believe that there is a minium line width for vector
output, and again the printing pipeline via map-svg should take care of this 
on the vector drawing application side of things.
Probably it is an unresolved problem.

Again, if you need this in Thuban and it is reasonably coded, we'll put it in,
I just wanted to respond with my thoughts on the matter. 

> >>  - The notion of a style (with many styles to a class) to allow to
> >> draw lines with a border, dashed lines with a continuous background,
> >> and several other pretty things.
> >
> > We did not add this before out of two ideas:
> > a) we wanted to avoid making Thuban a layout application as vector
> >   drawing applications usually do a better job at this.
> >   This is why I came up with the printing pipeline
> >        Thuban -> MapSVG -> Vector drawing application
> > b) For trying to explore data, some simpler drawings might
> >   be better (we do not know for sure).
> >
> > Technically I believe that the old wxWidgets drawing engine might also
> > pose some limits on what could be done easily. I read somewhere that I
> > would have a new system, but did not followup up when this was included.
>
> I think the wx map renderer is an *excellent* piece of software, I'm
> impressed at just how fast it works.
> But yes, maybe at some point it would be good to start using a more
> featureful backend.

Are there other backend available with wx?
Okay there is OpenGL, but I always thought that drawing maps should work well 
without resorting to something like it.

> While talking about features that probably need a major rewrite, let
> me add these to the list :-)
> - Antialias

Would be a wx internal feature, right?

> - Line width zooming (showing lines wider when you get closer)
> - Rotated labels

Those would be within Thuban, both look reasonable to me.

> > Also there is much more computing power today so doing better drawings
> > should be fine.
> >
> > If you need those features, by all means, give them a coding attempt. :)
>
> Wee :-D

 >;-)

-- 
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Geschäftsführer Frank Koormann, Bernhard Reiter, Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner
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