That looks pretty good and gives me an idea of what to start with. I do have one question on the downloaded Tiger data. When I unzipped Tennessee for example, it created two directories, Polygons and Polylines. In the corresponding directories I see (I'll use my home county as an example):
/usr/local/share/xastir/maps/static_maps/TN/Polygons -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1352805 2007-05-08 15:06 Carter_County.dbf -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1276956 2007-05-08 15:06 Carter_County.shp -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 25156 2007-05-08 15:06 Carter_County.shx /usr/local/share/xastir/maps/static_maps/TN/Polylines -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2534921 2007-05-08 15:04 Carter_County.dbf -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 143 2007-05-08 15:04 Carter_County.prj -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1709364 2007-05-08 15:04 Carter_County.shp -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 104580 2007-05-08 15:04 Carter_County.shx What is the difference between the Polygons and Polylines directory, if any? What file or files do I edit to start customizing colors, line widths, etc? On 8/9/07, Jason Winningham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Aug 9, 2007, at 1:22 PM, Stephen - K1LNX wrote: > > > What is the limitation on this? Is it something that can't be coded > > in? > > Hard/complex? Just curious.... > > I suspect it's a limitation of the linestyles available in Xlib > without resorting to a) heavy coding, or b) adding yet another > support package requirement, but only the developer who made that > design decision knows for sure... > > > I'm willing to play, but in the end I want the best looking maps > > possible > > that are easy to read etc. > > "like google maps" is not the only solution to the problem "easy to > read". > > My maps evolved for a while before I settled on what I currently use, > and if I saw someone else's that I like or if another data set became > available they'd likely change again. > > I use National Atlas (www.nationalatlas.gov) shapefiles for zoom > levels > 128 and TIGER shapefiles <= 128. The Nat'l Atlas maps look > like this with my configuration: > > http://www.eng.uah.edu/~jdw/xastir/box-snapshot.png > > light green is background, blue is water, dark green is parks/refuges/ > forests, black lines are highways, red lines are interstates/ > controlled access roads, dashed lines are railroads, yellow areas are > city limits. > > > Here are the things that are easy to change with dbfawk controlled > shapefiles: > > - background color (OK, you don't do that with a dbfawk) > > - color and width of lines > > - style of lines (solid or dashed) > > - display level of particular features (this more or less adjusts the > level of detail) > > - color and pattern for filled polygons > > - display level for labels (can be different that display level for > the feature they describe) > > - don't display things you want to leave out entirely > > -Jason > kg4wsv > > > -- Stephen Brown - ARS K1LNX Johnson City, TN EM86uh _______________________________________________ Xastir mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
