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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Clark / Pete,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Regarding the use of aerial photography and
PNG24: I noticed that Paul has integrated the changes (png transparency
hack) into Ka-Map that allows PNG24 to be transparent in IE, along with
changes allowing different image formats for different groups (by specifying an
"imageformat" parameter in the metadata). So that is not a limitation anymore to
the use of aerial photography. I successfully use jpeg format for full-colour
imagery, and gif for our transparent vector layers.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Paul did mention about having issues with the
png transparency hack for 8 bit PNG images (which Mapserver appears to
revert to for vector data, even if PNG24 is the specified image format). But you
could now instead use gif for transparent layers, while using jpeg for
non-transparent layers, retaining the ability for full-colour
images.</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2> Gif transparency works in all
browsers without problems, providing GIF is specified as default outputformat in
the mapfile (otherwise php_mapscript appears to produce non-transparent gif
images). I did some testing, which showed GIF appears to compress indexed-colour
images a fair bit better than PNG8 too (lossless). For the JPEG layers, you can
pick the desired compression, and significantly reduce image sizes that way,
somewhat reducing the speed problems that Pete mentioned. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>regards,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Jacob</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial
size=2>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>From:
<A
href="mailto:ka-map-users-bounces@lists.maptools.org">ka-map-users-bounces@lists.maptools.org</A>
[mailto:ka-map-users-bounces@lists.maptools.org] On Behalf Of Peter
Giencke<BR>Sent: 14 September 2005 03:54<BR>To: <A
href="mailto:cendrizzi@gmail.com">cendrizzi@gmail.com</A>; <A
href="mailto:ka-map-users@lists.maptools.org">ka-map-users@lists.maptools.org</A><BR>Subject:
RE: [ka-Map-users] Highly Interested Developer with some questions</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<DIV><BR>Clark,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>1) Yes you can; we've been using raster [wms] backdrops extensively in many
of our ka-map implementations. I've found however, that speed can suffer (from
mildly to greatly) depending on the number and complexity of rasters used (duh).
Also, best results are obtained when using PNG24 for this, but you'll have to
'hack' ka-map to enable PNG transparency, so that 'layering' works in IE.
(There's a thread for that here: <A
href="http://lists.maptools.org/pipermail/ka-map-users/2005-August/000235.html">http://lists.maptools.org/pipermail/ka-map-users/2005-August/000235.html</A>).
If these two concerns can be leveraged, the results are very nice (I have an
example of this here: <A
href="http://mds.glc.org/kamap_cvs3/">http://mds.glc.org/kamap_cvs3/</A>).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>2. Assuming you take the time to peruse the api's source code and consult
the mailing-list archives, you should be able to get up and running within a
weekend, or week, depending... Although ka-map is a relatively new creation,
it's still very functional at this early stage.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>-pete</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>From:
<A
href="mailto:ka-map-users-bounces@lists.maptools.org">ka-map-users-bounces@lists.maptools.org</A>
[mailto:ka-map-users-bounces@lists.maptools.org] On Behalf Of Clark
Endrizzi<BR>Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 2:17 PM<BR>To: <A
href="mailto:ka-map-users@lists.maptools.org">ka-map-users@lists.maptools.org</A><BR>Subject:
[ka-Map-users] Highly Interested Developer with some questions</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR>I run a development group that is developing a real estate
application.(web based). It's PHP and from the start we have had the idea
of including mapping software to integrate with mapping stuff. We've
looked at multiple web based mapping vendors, including Arc IMS, but haven't
found something that we consider a good solution. We want something that
is easy to use like Google maps but also very flexible. Furthermore it's
important that we have the ability to include it in our mostly closed source
applicaton. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I'm not really a mapping guru as most of my incomplete knowledge comes from
a mapping group in the same building so I have some basic questions about
whether we can use ka-map and contribute to it as well. <BR>1. Can
you use aerial photography with ka-map? We use aerials provided by air
photo USA and want to use that on our web based stuff. I'm guessing right
now only street maps are supported. With aerials, we need to use these
images (they come in jpeg) and associate their world files (which have the
projection ifnormation in them). Is this something that could be done with
this software (if it doesn't exist now could it be realistically added?).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>2. Could we expect to use this stuff by the end of the year?
Based off the examples it looks like ka-map is pretty far along...</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Actually that's probably all the questions for now since our use of ka-maps
is contigent on them. Currently we have four developers including myself
with pretty extensive experience in web development, javascript (including just
starting to get into "ajax" stuff). I hope it's clear that we're not
trying to selfishly use and expect ka-maps to work for us as we're willing to
improve it to meet our needs if it doesn't have the functionality. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I hope this can work out since you have done excellent work! </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Thanks,<BR>-- <BR>-Clark Endrizzi<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="mailto:jacob.delfos@maunsell.com"></A></FONT> </DIV></BODY></HTML>