[Phpmyadmin-devel] OpenGIS and Flot

[Tyron Madlener]

On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 4:44 PM, Madhura Jayaratne <madhura.cj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 4:47 PM, Madhura Jayaratne <madhura.cj at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 4:27 PM, Tyron Madlener <tyronx at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 12:15 PM, Madhura Jayaratne
>>> <madhura.cj at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 2:43 PM, Michal Čihař <michal at cihar.com> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Hi
>>> >>
>>> >> Dne Wed, 18 May 2011 18:01:15 +0530
>>> >> Madhura Jayaratne <madhura.cj at gmail.com> napsal(a):
>>> >>
>>> >> > I did it as a test run and it is not finalized. Unfortunately I
>>> >> > can't
>>> >> > get
>>> >> > flot to draw polygons with inner rings and that was a dead end for
>>> >> > me.
>>> >> > So
>>> >> > right now I'm looking into generating all the GIS visualizations
>>> >> > with
>>> >> > SVG.
>>> >> > In particular I am trying to generate them with jQuery-SVG.
>>> >> >
>>> >> > Well, I agree that flot makes the life very easy for developers and
>>> >> > the
>>> >> > graphs are rich in quality. However you get less control over the
>>> >> > plot.
>>> >> > For
>>> >> > example with SVG, I can manipulate each elements in the plot, but in
>>> >> > flot
>>> >> > that ability is limited to few events they have exposed. I'm not
>>> >> > sure
>>> >> > how
>>> >> > this applies in your case, you might not want to manipulate it at
>>> >> > all.
>>> >>
>>> >> Okay, I think we should use as few graphing libraries as possible,
>>> >> ideally only one, but I'm not sure if it is possible. So let's
>>> >> summarize
>>> >> what every project needs and try to find viable solution.
>>> >
>>> > What it needs to visualize GIS data is a library that lets you draw
>>> > freely.
>>> > On the other hand a charting library would let you enter data for a set
>>> > of
>>> > series and would draw various types of charts accordingly. When trying
>>> > to
>>> > use a charting library to visualize GIS data (for the rich
>>> > functionality
>>> > they offer), most of the time we would have to hack the library.
>>> > For example POINT, MULTIPOINT and LINESTRING can be drawn with scatter
>>> > charts and line charts. However to draw a MULTILINESTRING with two
>>> > LINESTRINGs you'll have to draw 2 series giving them the same series
>>> > name
>>> > and same color, effectively hacking the library. The problem is with
>>> > legends, legend would show two entries. The case gets worse when it
>>> > comes to
>>> > POLYGONS and MULTIPOLYGONS, worst when these have inner rings :(
>>> > Thats why I had to give up flot and settle for SVG, in particular
>>> > jQuery
>>> > SVG, which gives control over what is being drawn. However now I have
>>> > to
>>> > manage a number of features such as zooming, panning, tooltips with my
>>> > own
>>> > code.
>>> >>
>>> >> I think for charts, it would be nice to save them, but that does not
>>> >> seem to work with neither flot nor jQuery-SVG.
>>> >>
>>>
>>> Wouldn't it be possible to write a sort of flot plugin for your case?
>>> Maybe thats even the easier way, than to program zooming, panning,
>>> tooltips etc. yourself.
>>> Then I could also use flot for my statistics page :D
>>>
>>
>> Nice idea :)
>> But that would most probably amount to re-writing flot altogether. The
>> thing is flot is not designed to draw shapes and all.
>> IMO handling zooming, panning and tooltips with SVG is far easier than
>> that :)
>> --
>> Thanks and Regards,
>> Madhura Jayaratne
>>
>
> Hi Tyron,
> Btw jQuery-SVG already has an extension for graphing. Pls have a look at the
> Graphing section of jQuery-SVG[1] and jQuery SVG Graphing Reference
> section[2] to see whether it suffices for your needs.

Oh nice. I'll check it out.

>
> --
> Thanks and Regards,
> Madhura Jayaratne
>
> [1] http://keith-wood.name/svg.html (See the Graphing section)
> [2] http://keith-wood.name/svggraphRef.html
>