Mapyrus

Mapyrus is software for creating plots of points, lines, polygons and labels to PostScript (high resolution, up to A0 paper size), Portable Document Format (PDF), Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format and web image output formats.

Mapyrus is open source software and is implemented entirely in Java enabling it to run on Linux, Mac OS X, Sun Solaris, Microsoft Windows and other operating systems for which Java is available.

The software combines the following four features.

A Logo or turtle graphics program.
An imaginary pen is moved around a page, creating shapes that are drawn into an image file. Reusable routines are built up using a BASIC-like language. Branching and looping constructs enable complex shapes, symbols and patterns to be be defined.
Reading and displaying of geographic information system (GIS) datasets, text files, or tables held in a relational database (including spatially extended databases such as Oracle Spatial, PostGIS and MySQL).
Drawing routines are applied to geographic data to produce annotated and symbolized maps and graphs. Attributes of the geographic data control the color, size, annotation and other characteristics of the appearance of the geographic data. Scalebars, legends, coordinate grids and north arrows are also available.
Integration with the freely-available Java Topology Suite from Vivid Solutions (http://www.vividsolutions.com/JTS). This library provides geometric algorithms such as buffering, point-in-polygon test and polygon intersection.
Flexibility. Running in one of two ways.
1. As a stand-alone program for integration into scripts and batch tasks (suitable for generating a one-off map or a series of similar maps from a template showing different areas, or using different criteria for each map).
2. As a self-contained web server providing map and graph images to a web-based application. This also enables Mapyrus to be integrated into larger applications (such as PHP-based applications), with map images fetched using HTTP requests.