Re: Missing functions in "Mapping package"

[PhilipNienhuis]

Hi there,

(mapping pkg maintainer here)


Mithil wrote
> Hello
> 
> I saw that "Mapping" package has quite a lot of missing functions.
> http://wiki.octave.org/Mapping_package
> <http://wiki.octave.org/Mapping_package>  
> Some of them could be implemented easily, I suppose. But all of them lack
> their function signature. Do they follow the same signature as in "MATLAB
> Mapping" package?
> https://in.mathworks.com/help/map/functionlist.html
> <https://in.mathworks.com/help/map/functionlist.html>  
> 
> Kindly confirm this and let me know if there are any particular steps to
> follow for submission. 

Thank you very much for your offer to contribute, of course we would be
happy with your contributions. I do hope you would comply with some basic
coding style and license requirements.

I'm unsure what you mean with "function signature"?

First of all I have pushed several new functions since the last release, see
the repo on SF:
https://sourceforge.net/p/octave/mapping/ci/default/tree/
and especially the latest updated list of function in the pkg's INDEX file:
https://sourceforge.net/p/octave/mapping/ci/default/tree/INDEX

Furthermore there are several outstanding patches in the patch tracker
 https://savannah.gnu.org/patch/?group=octave
that I haven't accepted yet because of things like missing copyright info,
suboptimal coding style, sometimes naive implementation, low level of
vectorization, incomplete or erroneous texinfo documentation, etc.  I do
want to accept those later on but they first need work that the (anonymous)
original author apparently isn't interested to do and I still haven't had
time & priority to do that either.
Just search for "octave mapping" in the patch tracker for a start.

Polygon / polyline clipping functions (boolean ops) need work as well but
that is done in the geometry package. See patch #9000 (about to be closed
soon I hope) and various mailing list discussions. This is a complicated
issue.

GIS raster file reading has been implemented using "rasterread", covering
all (and probably much more) raster file formats than Matlab' s mapping
toolbox supports. Writing raster files is still pending but IMO has low
priority.
My stance is that Octave + mapping toolbox shouldn't try to be a GIS system
- there are very good OSS GIS programs out there, no need to reinvent the
wheel.

Felipe Nievinsky has a geodesy toolbox with (IIRC:) BSD style license,
Matlab-compatible, that could be very useful for adding projections. But
those functions need work as well (most of all documentation). Someone
("Sandeep") has started converting them into octave coding style. Again see
patch tracker,
https://savannah.gnu.org/patch/?func=detailitem&item_id=8377#options
Carnë and Felipe suggested to use Felipe's repo as an upstream development
and from time to time just copy those functions over. Could be a viable
idea, but it needs good thinking over.

So all in all I think it would be wise to start off with some simple
conversion functions in .m file format and add them to the patch tracker for
review.

Note that I plan to make a new mapping package release within 1-2 months.
But OK, plans ...

Thanks,

Philip Nienhuis




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