What plugins or tools are available to conveniently export a GIS view to a html clickable hypermap?
Since 2005 or so we use a commerial plugin for ArcGIS,
We have a working example of the output here.
At this time, this is good enough, but it requires a few manual postprocessing steps, which should be reduced. Besides, the annual license for the plugin is considered a nuisance from a corporate accounting standpoint.
Now we are wondering if there are better alternatives.
Here are our requirements
- Export a GIS view map to a bitmap, Correctly export it without distortions and with valid html, preferably with style information extra (in css), no proprietary attributes inside the html…
- Export point features to clickable <area> elements. Make the points clickable, but also make the labels clickable.
- Export as a single bitmap, do not convert to tiles
- Export without a sidebar (only export the map, not the layer selection frame and other stuff such as trademark infos, "created with" footers in the bitmaps, etc.)
- Aesthetic alignment of labels next to points
- Label alignment configurable, set preferences and priorities image-wide (try to put label to the right of a point. If there is a collision with another label, then put label at the top of a point, etc)
- Possibility to re-align + re-format labels individually after semiautomatic/algorithmic alignment steps have completed
- it's ok when based on free software. However, if we switched to this software, it should be able to import ArcGIS 9 project files.
- easy to use, preferably gui-based
Best Answer
Unfortunately, it won't import your ArcGIS project files, but QGIS has the HTML Image Plugin that may do what you want. Perhaps if you set up a QGIS project once, and just refreshed the data behind it, it would work for you? It may not meet all of your criteria, but I'm not sure anything will.