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Editor - Scales Manager Description

The Scales Manager module is designed to implement and manage the many scale settings that can be an important consideration with complex GIS projects. Scale settings are used to define scale thresholds at which individual layers and sublayers are rendered (or not rendered), as well when and how classes of objects within each layer are rendered (or not rendered), for optimized map presentation.

As an example, within a layer containing multiple classes of water pipes, one class of pipes might be rendered as heavy orange lines when the map view is zoomed in to less than a set scale threshold, thin black lines when zoomed out to beyond a higher scale threshold, dotted lines at a still greater scale threshold, and not at all when the map view is zoomed out to beyond some final scale threshold.

Besides visual considerations with complex data, scales management is important to reduce computational intensity of the map rendering. Rendering all objects all the time, regardless of scale (or even if an object is visible at that scale), unnecessarily consumes computational resources resulting in slower performance. While indices in database tables and spatial indices for geometries are commonly considered, the importance of the scale setup on the map drawing speed is sometimes overlooked.

Sophisticated use of scale settings for layers and sublayers, and subsets of data within layers (sometimes referred to as sections), can quickly become complicated. While scales management can be performed using the default settings within the Editor's visual layer properties control, the Scales Manager is designed to make this job easier and intelligent scaling quicker to implement.
 

Scales Manager
 

The Scales Manager module is an extension to the TatukGIS Editor, developed using the Editor’s built-in scripting tools and object API. The creator of this module (TatukGIS value-added partner SmallToGo) has deep experience with GIS systems for municipal water pipe, gas, and electricity networks and has developed a number of custom Editor modules for GIS management of network infrastructure.