> Can anyone confirm or refute the following: " I should NOT > attempt to model any spatial data in MySQL using its spatial > constructs if I want to display them in Mapserver."
As you'll hear from others, if you have a choice, PostgreSQL with PostGIS will give you more than what you'll get from MySQL. That said, if you have some other reason to use MySQL, you can take advantage of the spatial data types in MySQL with GDAL/OGR 1.3.2. The only example on the MapServer site that I know about (that uses MySQL spatial data types) is in the comments that I added to the bottom of the OGR page: http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/docs/howto/ogr_howto Basically, use OGR as the CONNECTIONTYPE, use the "MYSQL:dbname,user=username,password=secret" syntax in your CONNECTION string, and put your SELECT statement in the DATA string. Also (as you'll read in the second MySQL comment on the linked page), if you want MySQL to use the spatial index on your features, you'll need to test for some geometry relation in your SELECT statement. Though MapServer is only rendering a limited extent, the spatial index is not invoked unless you use something like MBRContains in your SELECT statement. Good luck, Tim PS - in case an example would be useful, here's an ugly one: LAYER NAME "Abundance" GROUP "Survey Data" TYPE POINT CONNECTION "MySQL:dbname,user=username,password=secret" CONNECTIONTYPE OGR DATA "select the_geom, geog.geog as geog, geog.geogid as geogid, geog.regionid as regionid, count(distinct TWAsurveys.formid) as surveys, (avg(fish.abundance) * count(distinct TWAsurveys.formid)/geog.surveys) as abundance from fish, TWAsurveys, geog where MBRContains(GeomFromText('Polygon((%minx% %miny%, %minx% %maxy%, %maxx% %maxy%, %maxx% %miny%, %minx% %miny%))'), the_geom) and fish.region = 'TWA' and TWAsurveys.formid = fish.formid and geog.regionid = 'TWA' and geog.geogid = TWAsurveys.geogr and TWAsurveys.type = '1' and %where% group by TWAsurveys.geogr order by abundance;" ... END > > Thanks for any assist -- might save several hours of investigation. > > Robert H. >
