Watertight vector maps from raster images
mzucker.github.io
Watertight vector maps from raster images
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: Watertight vector maps from raster images
#2Given the power of Openlayers + JSTS I'm a bit surprised nobody has built a general purpose WebGIS app.
QGIS is often too heavy or inaccessible. And I believe that GIS is something everyone can do. You don't need a fancy degree and training to explore spatial data and build maps.
I tried once but quickly realised it was beyond the scope of a part time project.
Re: Watertight vector maps from raster images
#3This is an interesting read, but illustrator can also generate vectors from a raster image with a couple of clicks and parameter tuning
Re: Watertight vector maps from raster images
#4This is an interesting read, but illustrator can also generate vectors from a raster image with a couple of clicks and parameter tuning
The author addresses this:
> There already exist tools to automatically convert raster (bitmap) images to vector formats, including Adobe Illustrator’s Live Trace/Image Trace tools or standalone programs like Peter Selinger’s potrace, which provides the comparable functionality in Inkscape.
> However, all of these tools share a common shortcoming from the perspective of mapmaking – given a simple raster line drawing(…) they actually produce two contours, one for the inside, and one for the outside.
Re: Watertight vector maps from raster images
#5Given the power of Openlayers + JSTS I'm a bit surprised nobody has built a general purpose WebGIS app. QGIS is often too heavy or inaccessible. And I believe that GIS is something everyone can do. You don't need a fancy degree and training to explore spatial data and build maps. I tried once but quickly realised it was beyond the scope of a part time project.
Ive been wondering the same thing. especially when u see what can be done with WASM in apps like Figma. I believe most of the QGIS code base is c++ so i wonder if it's just a case writing a bunch of js, wasm glue code to make this a reality...
Re: Watertight vector maps from raster images
#6This is an interesting read, but illustrator can also generate vectors from a raster image with a couple of clicks and parameter tuning
The author addresses this: > There already exist tools to automatically convert raster (bitmap) images to vector formats, including Adobe Illustrator’s Live Trace/Image Trace tools or standalone programs like Peter Selinger’s potrace, which provides the comparable functionality in Inkscape. > However, all of these tools share a common shortcoming from the perspective of mapmaking – given a simple raster line drawing(…
Thank you so much for your comment! It made me dig into the article a bit and appreciate that this could be really handy for me. I do a lot of conversion of bitmap designs in Illustrator and this two-path problem is frequently something I abut against.
Time to learn how to use Python!
Re: Watertight vector maps from raster images
#7Given the power of Openlayers + JSTS I'm a bit surprised nobody has built a general purpose WebGIS app. QGIS is often too heavy or inaccessible. And I believe that GIS is something everyone can do. You don't need a fancy degree and training to explore spatial data and build maps. I tried once but quickly realised it was beyond the scope of a part time project.
Check out https://kepler.gl by Uber. Allows you to some basic GIS map based data exploration. Their deck.gl library is pretty nice if you need to add GIS data to your web app.
Re: Watertight vector maps from raster images
#8Given the power of Openlayers + JSTS I'm a bit surprised nobody has built a general purpose WebGIS app. QGIS is often too heavy or inaccessible. And I believe that GIS is something everyone can do. You don't need a fancy degree and training to explore spatial data and build maps. I tried once but quickly realised it was beyond the scope of a part time project.
Ive been wondering the same thing. especially when u see what can be done with WASM in apps like Figma. I believe most of the QGIS code base is c++ so i wonder if it's just a case writing a bunch of js, wasm glue code to make this a reality...
That's a really interesting thought. I think it would be worth seeing if OGR/GDAL can be ported to wasm.
Next would be GRASS.
JSTS is pure JS and does a lot of vector GIS fine.
I think those three things and a decent UI would be an absolutely killer Web app for the general public to do more GIS.
Re: Watertight vector maps from raster images
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ive been wondering the same thing. especially when u see what can be done with WASM in apps like Figma. I believe most of the QGIS code base is c++ so i wonder if it's just a case writing a bunch of js, wasm glue code to make this a reality...
That's a really interesting thought. I think it would be worth seeing if OGR/GDAL can be ported to wasm. Next would be GRASS. JSTS is pure JS and does a lot of vector GIS fine. I think those three things and a decent UI would be an absolutely killer Web app for the general public to do more GIS.
Yep, here's GDAL ported to WASM https://github.com/ddohler/gdal-js
Re: Watertight vector maps from raster images
#10Given the power of Openlayers + JSTS I'm a bit surprised nobody has built a general purpose WebGIS app. QGIS is often too heavy or inaccessible. And I believe that GIS is something everyone can do. You don't need a fancy degree and training to explore spatial data and build maps. I tried once but quickly realised it was beyond the scope of a part time project.
Check out https://kepler.gl by Uber. Allows you to some basic GIS map based data exploration. Their deck.gl library is pretty nice if you need to add GIS data to your web app.
The lead of kepler.gl and several contributors to deck.gl left Uber last year to start Unfolded [0], a web-based geospatial platform.
[0]: https://www.unfolded.ai/studio
(Disclaimer: I work at Unfolded)