[Gvsig_english] Again: high-quality printing: support of the development

Tue Oct 14 18:00:25 CEST 2008

Hello everybody, 

In my opinion the printing is very important because Grass and QGis are not excellent in thies field.
I only know these two softwares. Maybe, Udig or Kosmo, for example, are better...  
With Grass and Qgis you can print good maps but they lack a lot of features (compared to ArcGis).
At present, Grass is not so user-friendly as other softwares. On the other hand, Qgis is a bit "buggy" regarding the printing part (obviously it is only my opinion so don't get angry :-D).
With Qgis 1, for instance, the printing should be better in the future. A developer worked a lot on that these past months. 

Regarding gvSIG, I think the printing features are good. 
Nevertheless when you try them a lot, you discover they are quite buggy (obviously it is only my opinion!). Unfortunately, there is not an official list regarding the bugs. As a consequence, nobody can understand their number and severity.
I know one can read this Mailing list and the Spanish one but it is not practical at all.
For the future an official list regarding the bugs should be present (or at least I hope so).

I agree with Benjamin the first part should be get a list of the features wanted (a wish-list, in short).
As far as I know, gvSIG 2 won't have  substantial improvements about the printing part. 
It is quite possible most old bugs regarding the printing will be still there!

In short, in my modest opinion, it is necessary to wait for the upcoming release of gvSIG 2.
Look at all the bugs still present in the printing section (probably most of the old ones!).
Evaluate how much it could cost to correct them. Maybe not all but at leas the most important.
After this, one could ask about a price for some new features.
This summer, for example, one of the projects for the Summer code sponsored by Google regarded a new possible Gui (interface) for Grass regarding the printing part. In the end it was not accepted (other features were most important, e.g, the migrations to python of Nviz).
Google gave 5000 dollars for every project. 500 dollars to the responsable of the project, that is, the tutor. 4500 dollars for the student (the real developer).
I think the magnitude for the possible expaneses are something like that...

Best regards

Silvio

----- Messaggio originale -----
Da: Benjamin Ducke <benjamin.ducke at oxfordarch.co.uk>
A: Users and Developers mailing list <gvsig_internacional at runas.cap.gva.es>
Inviato: Martedì 14 ottobre 2008, 16:26:52
Oggetto: Re: [Gvsig_english] Again: high-quality printing: support of the development

Well, let's maybe start with a detailed plan of what features would
definitely have to go into the gvSIG map production facility.

Once that is done, maybe some gvSIG developer(s) on this list could give
us an estimate on how much it would cost to implement them.

Once a figure has been established, it might be easier to plan
the funding.

Ben

P.S.: Have you looked into inkscape? It has great alignment functions
for quick map layouts and very fine-grained control over output quality.

Rory Hill wrote:
> Wolfgang I am entirely in agreement with you - at the moment I also use 
> an intermediary program to improve and print the maps I make with gvSIG 
> - however I am only a student and don't really have very much to 
> contribute except ideas and the ability to test beta versions!
> 
> I'm sure if there are some individuals who are having positive results 
> using gvSIG whilst working for a company, they might be able to persuade 
> the company to contribute towards development costs? They could view the 
> expense as something like a licence fee for proprietory software, I 
> suppose.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Rory. :)
> 
> Wolfgang Qual wrote:
>> Dear list,
>> some months ago, we had an interesting discussion about gvSIG and 
>> high-quality printing [1]. For our office, creation of high-quality 
>> prints or print files is important. One project of our Department is a 
>> cycle map which is printed by an external printing office. Therefore, 
>> a special pre-press file (pdf/x-3 or similar) is needed. Currently, 
>> this job is done using ArcGIS --> eps-Export and Acrobat Distiller to 
>> create such a file, but as we really would like to switch to FOSS, we 
>> would like to be able to do that in gvSIG.
>> However, at the moment, quality of ps/pdf output in gvSIG is limited 
>> and/or buggy. For example,
>> * not all symbology information is written to ps/pdf
>> * gvSIG seems to have problems with large files (ok this might be 
>> solve with lots of RAM)
>> * additional options for export are missing (resolution etc.)
>> * eps-file export is not possible
>> * other export formats, such as tiff.
>> Curently, exporting the layout to image files is limited (formats and 
>> problems with large files [2]. Whereas a solution of-a-piece (create a 
>> ready-to-print pdf/x-file) would be very cool, there is still a 
>> possibility to do the pre-press in other applications like scribus or 
>> (thanks for the hint, Marcel) sk1 which are both open source products. 
>> However, both applications might still be unstable (scribus and large 
>> files? sk1?). We will have to test this, and I would like to ask you 
>> all to contribute!
>>
>>
>> The list above surely is not exhausive I think. So, the first task 
>> would be to accomplish the needs in order to specify the real needs.
>>
>> As this printing stuff is quite lots of development work, we then will 
>> have to sponsor the development (or we will have to wait very, very 
>> long, I fear). Therefore, I would like to ask the "community", if 
>> there is someone out there, who would be willing to join in sponsoring 
>> the development of printing functionalities of gvSIG. Our 
>> organisation, the Department of Health and Environment is willing to 
>> contribute, but I fear that we cannot bear all development costs.
>>
>>
>> What is your opinion?
>>
>> Best,
>> Wolfgang
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> [1] 
>> http://www.nabble.com/Some-questions-regarding-printing-to18648153.html#a18648153 
>>
>> [2] http://www.nabble.com/forum/ViewPost.jtp?post=18731062&framed=y
>>  
> 
> 
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-- 
Benjamin Ducke
Senior Applications Support and Development Officer

Oxford Archaeology Ltd
Janus House
Osney Mead
OX2 0ES
Oxford, U.K.

Tel: +44 (0)1865 263 800 (switchboard)
Tel: +44 (0)1865 980 758 (direct)
Fax :+44 (0)1865 793 496
benjamin.ducke at oxfordarch.co.uk

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