artemp/mapnik — Issue #902: add plugin to read point coordinates and attributes from csv
Author: artemp
Created: 2011-10-11 16:41:35+00:00
State: open
Labels: Core_Library

A simple text based format is needed for displaying points easily.

GeoJSON is great but:

* is currently only supported in mapnik through ogr driver, which is overkill
* gets slow quickly due to lack of fast parsing and indexing in ogr driver
* can be passed as string, but still triggers unneeded overhead in ogr to detect it as json
* json is not as easy to edit by hand as plain text

So, a native CSV (e.g. tabular plugin) would be useful:

* would have no external dependencies
* would be useful for writing tests (could remove json usage)
* aggressive up-front parsing and feature caching could enable fast rendering
* could support/assume just points for simplicity (read from long/lat columns)
* should be simple to write and maintain
* could easily support being used inline in stylesheets
* csv is easily edited by novice users