[OGDev] Could maps be centred and scaled

[Kake L Pugh]

On Thu 01 May 2008, Andrew Black - lists <andrew-lists at mail.black1.org.uk> wrote:
> I have a suggestion concerning maps (eg map of all points in a 
> category).  I would like to get the maps to be centred and scaled.
> For example, in the following, all the points are off the displayed map.
> http://london.randomness.org.uk/wiki.cgi?action=index;format=map;index_type=locale;index_value=Carshalton
> 
> The following is a quick demo to play with 
> http://www2.black1.org.uk/~andrew/map/exp_bounds.html
> Click on a few points, hit "Reposition map" then repeat.

So are you saying that you'd like RGL category/locale maps to have a
"reposition map" button, or maybe that you'd like them to appear
"repositioned" by default?  (Where "repositioned" means "zoomed and
scaled so that all points in the category/locale appear on the map".)

I don't have any major problem with them appearing repositioned by
default.  I do worry slightly about outliers, but outliers are
generally data entry bugs and this would be a good way of spotting
them.  Also, your demo is an exact fit to the bounding box; I think we
need a margin as well so that points actually on the bounding box
appear properly instead of mostly off-map.

If I have understood correctly what you want - then could you supply a
patch to do this?  (I'm assuming you wrote the code in the demo and
therefore understand how to do it - if not then I could probably have
a poke through and try to pick out the relevant bits but I don't know
when this will reach the top of my to-do list.)

Kake