Sean,
I think it's important to remember what Mapnik is meant to be: It is a C++ library for cartography, both for the web and desktop use. It never was intended to be pure Python ... The Python bindings to the core C++ API are just a nice feature.
Hence, having the core library implementing SLD-like styling mechanisms is perfectly in-line with it's intent ... The fact the Python API ends up looking PCL'ish is coincidental really.
So I would disagree that these are "mirror-world" implementations. One is a pure Python implementation (PCL), the other a pure C++ one (Mapnik) ... that just happens to have the option of being wrapped in Python! :)
(Hopefully Boost.Ruby will evolve, and you'll have wrappers for that language too!)
That being said I agree that PCL/Mapnik integration would be interesting ... I'm looking into it :)
Comments
Re: Mapnik News
Author: J.F.
Sean, I think it's important to remember what Mapnik is meant to be: It is a C++ library for cartography, both for the web and desktop use. It never was intended to be pure Python ... The Python bindings to the core C++ API are just a nice feature. Hence, having the core library implementing SLD-like styling mechanisms is perfectly in-line with it's intent ... The fact the Python API ends up looking PCL'ish is coincidental really. So I would disagree that these are "mirror-world" implementations. One is a pure Python implementation (PCL), the other a pure C++ one (Mapnik) ... that just happens to have the option of being wrapped in Python! :) (Hopefully Boost.Ruby will evolve, and you'll have wrappers for that language too!) That being said I agree that PCL/Mapnik integration would be interesting ... I'm looking into it :)