Re: [Opengrads-devel] Shapefile extension: first crack

[Mike F. <mfi...@gm...>]

efren, ok, duh on me...

i was fetching on separating the color(rendering?) data from the
shape(gis) data.  is display data generally(commonly) part of .gis data? 

i looked at some mapserver examples and agree that putting the rendering
data in a separate .map file does make sense... 

check out:

http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/interactive/html/map.html

for a good(?) demo of mapserver

and

http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/earth/

for a pretty slick display of snow data in google earth

i noticed that mapserver does all the geo-vector/raster formats, it
wasn't clear if it can output .gis, e.g., display a shapefile from grads
and output .kml...

ok, i'm onboard, especially since it's web and i've starting doing .php...

best /r mike



Efren Serra wrote:
> Mike,
>
> Meteorology/Oceanography isn't gis either; that is something ESRI has never
> understood.  I think Mapserver is as much GIS as GoogleEarth is; it supports
> WMS, WCS, WFS protocols, etc., and even KML.  GoogleEarth is certainly a
> nice viewer/client.  Mapserver is a server not a client so there is no
> comparison.  You could point a GoogleEarth client to a Mapserver server that
> returns KML.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Fiorino [mailto:mfi...@gm...] 
> Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 12:49 PM
> To: efr...@me...
> Cc: 'Arlindo da Silva'; ope...@li...
> Subject: Re: [Opengrads-devel] Shapefile extension: first crack
>
>
> hi efren,  i took a look a mapserver.  is this what fnmoc is using these
> days?  it really isn't gis, i'm partial to google earth.  thanks /r mike
>
> Efren Serra wrote:
>   
>> Arlindo,
>>
>> With the perl interface, can you encode colors in a shapefile?
>>
>> We shouldn't encode colors in the shapefiles; I was hoping to use 
>> these shapefiles in conjunction with Mapserver and let the coloring to 
>> mapserver .map configuration file.  However, we should encode some 
>> values about the shape in the .dbx file so that we can use mapserver's 
>> .map file CLASS value, which defines thematic classes for a given 
>> layer.  A CLASS has an EXPRESSION value that we can use to select 
>> coloring, etc., based on a value encoded in the .dbx file.  For 
>> instance, here is simple sample for coloring Tropical Cyclone Warnings 
>> Wind Radiis/Track:
>>
>>   LAYER
>>     NAME "al062007_019_34ktWndRadii"
>>     GROUP "tcw"
>>     METADATA
>>       "wms_title" "al062007_019_34ktWndRadii"   ##required
>>     END
>>     TYPE  POLYGON
>>     STATUS  OFF
>>     DATA  /otsr/shapefiles/2007091100/al062007_019_34ktWndRadii
>>
>>       LABELITEM "RADIUS_NM"
>>
>>       CLASS
>>         NAME "al062007_019_34ktWndRadii"
>>         OUTLINECOLOR 255 0 0
>>         LABEL
>>         MINFEATURESIZE 50
>>         MINDISTANCE 150
>>         POSITION CC
>>         SIZE TINY
>>         COLOR 0 0 0
>>       END
>>       DEBUG ON
>>     END
>>
>>     DUMP TRUE
>>     PROJECTION
>>       "init=epsg:4326"   ##recommended
>>     END
>>   END # Layer al062007_019_34ktWndRadii
>>
>>   LAYER
>>     NAME "ep102007_017_track"
>>     GROUP "tcw"
>>     METADATA
>>       "wms_title" "ep102007_017_track"   ##required
>>     END
>>     TYPE  LINE
>>     STATUS  OFF
>>     DATA  /otsr/shapefiles/2007091100/ep102007_017_track
>>
>>       LABELITEM "STM_NAME"
>>
>>       CLASS
>>         NAME "ep102007_017_track"
>>         COLOR 0 0 0
>>         LABEL
>>           MINFEATURESIZE 50
>>           MINDISTANCE 150
>>           POSITION CC
>>           SIZE TINY
>>           COLOR 0 0 0
>>         END
>>         DEBUG ON
>>       END
>>
>>     DUMP TRUE
>>     PROJECTION
>>       "init=epsg:4326"   ##recommended
>>     END
>>   END # Layer ep102007_017_track
>>
>> - how to draw a line in black, and another in green
>>
>> Mapserver takes care of the drawing for us via the .map file by using 
>> OUTLINECOLOR
>>
>> - how to have a rectangle filled "blue"
>>
>> Mapserver takes care of the drawing for us via the .map file by using 
>> COLOR
>>
>> - how to define new colors from (red,green,blue) values
>>
>> COLOR and OUTLINECOLOR take RGB values as shown above.
>>
>> Do you have access to any GIS software? Is there a free alternative to 
>> ARC/View? Which one do you recommend? I just want a way to see if the 
>> file we eventually produce with GrADS can be visualized by standard 
>> GIS software.
>>
>> Lets use Mapserver from UMN: http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu.  Thanks.
>>
>> Efren
>>
>>
>>
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