Ari, Traditionally, there has been no widely adopted vendor/system-independent format for specifying style information. Hopefully now that there is an organization (the OGC) addressing open standards for geographic data (including styling: SLD) there will be more support for a styling standard.
Wouldn't it be great if data suppliers delivered a .sld (or something like it) with .shp? And Open Source software like Quantum, gvSig, OpenJump, and Mapserver actual read the styling and applied it? Other comments below... Brent Fraser GeoAnalytic Inc. Calgary, Alberta ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ari Jolma" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "OSGeo Discussions" <discuss@lists.osgeo.org> Sent: Monday, April 14, 2008 11:15 AM Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposal: OSGeo Cartographic Library > Brent Fraser kirjoitti: > > Bruno, > > > > Have a go with my favorite Canadian topographic map > > (NTS:082H04, "Waterton Lakes" ): > > > > Shapefiles: > > http://ftp2.cits.rncan.gc.ca/pub/canvec/50k_shp/082/h/canvec_082h04_shp.zip > > > > Thanks for the pointer, that's a nice dataset. Opening these 39 layers > makes me ask why there's no style information? Pardon my ignorance on > digital cartography, but is it because of standards or something else? > How do Arc* tools do it? Arc* tools, like almost every other GIS tool, have their own method (some kind of ESRI-specific XML-ish file?). > > I think that's one crucial point in this thread. We all do have our > favorite software and want-to-have-software for creating a map or > geovisualization from this. Maybe a common goal would be to write a > specification how to create a map from this data -- note that there is > an infinite number of maps that one could create. I'd like to have a > file or files associated with datasets like this, that I'd just open in > my favorite software and it'd show me a map and not data. A very good goal. The great thing about default styling is that it can produce a good looking map. You could then change the styling if you want to (because without it you HAVE to; what a productivity killer!). > > The second thing would be to have a free OSGeo map symbol set, which the > map description file would refer to and the software use when creating > the map. That would be good too... > > Do I make any sense? > Yes! _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss