Re: [Xastir] TIGER/Line files --- End of an Era
On Tue, Mar 27, 2007 at 07:15:35AM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> flavor, containing: > On Mon, 26 Mar 2007, Tom Russo wrote: > > > I just surfed over to the Census web site and see this: > > > > http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/future/future_tl.html > > > > It says that after the 2006 Second Edition files are released (which > > happened > > a few weeks ago), they will no longer be producing TIGER/Line files, > > they'll be > > replaced by a number of different file formats including shapefiles. Looks > > like a big win for xastir users! > > I for one will be _more_ than happy to see that file format bite the > dust! > > It wasn't even really a map format: It was really just several > database tables dumped to disk files in text format. A real pain to > construct anything out of. But as a true topological format, it did carry around lots of relationships between data that get thrown away very quickly when digested to formats like shapefiles. Made it pretty well suited to GIS analysis, which was its purpose. -- Tom RussoKM5VY SAR502 DM64ux http://www.swcp.com/~russo/ Tijeras, NM QRPL#1592 K2#398 SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM "And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit!" --- The Tick ___ Xastir mailing list Xastir@xastir.org http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
Re: [Xastir] TIGER/Line files --- End of an Era
On Tue, 27 Mar 2007, Tom Russo wrote: > But as a true topological format, it did carry around lots of relationships > between data that get thrown away very quickly when digested to formats like > shapefiles. Made it pretty well suited to GIS analysis, which was its > purpose. Sure, but did you ever look at the code I had to write in order to make it usable in Xastir? That work made me an instant enemy of the file format. -- Curt, WE7U. APRS Client Comparisons: http://www.eskimo.com/~archer "Lotto:A tax on people who are bad at math." -- unknown "Windows: Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates." -- WE7U "The world DOES revolve around me: I picked the coordinate system!" ___ Xastir mailing list Xastir@xastir.org http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
Re: [Xastir] TIGER/Line files --- End of an Era
On Tue, Mar 27, 2007 at 07:19:59AM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> flavor, containing: > On Tue, 27 Mar 2007, Jason Winningham wrote: > > > I'm certainly no expert, but I think in the contrib directory there > > are some tools to build shapefiles for you. shapefile is a binary > > format, so it would be something like "use perl to feed the shapefile > > builder executable" instead of using perl to build the file > > directly. At least, that's what seems easiest to me. > > There's also a Python script, reworked by Tom a bit, which creates > Xastir-usable polygon shapefiles from Tiger/Line data: > "xastir/scripts/Xastir_tigerpoly.py" Yeah, but that's way more complex than one would want for this purpose. One could, however, find in that script some hints on how to generate shapefiles non-OGR datasources within Python if one is motivated enough. -- Tom RussoKM5VY SAR502 DM64ux http://www.swcp.com/~russo/ Tijeras, NM QRPL#1592 K2#398 SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM "And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit!" --- The Tick ___ Xastir mailing list Xastir@xastir.org http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
Re: [Xastir] TIGER/Line files --- End of an Era
On Tue, 27 Mar 2007, Jason Winningham wrote: > I'm certainly no expert, but I think in the contrib directory there > are some tools to build shapefiles for you. shapefile is a binary > format, so it would be something like "use perl to feed the shapefile > builder executable" instead of using perl to build the file > directly. At least, that's what seems easiest to me. There's also a Python script, reworked by Tom a bit, which creates Xastir-usable polygon shapefiles from Tiger/Line data: "xastir/scripts/Xastir_tigerpoly.py" The original script came from the GDAL/OGR project. "ogr2ogr" should be able to do more normal conversions for you between vector formats supported by OGR. It comes with GDAL/OGR. -- Curt, WE7U. APRS Client Comparisons: http://www.eskimo.com/~archer "Lotto:A tax on people who are bad at math." -- unknown "Windows: Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates." -- WE7U "The world DOES revolve around me: I picked the coordinate system!" ___ Xastir mailing list Xastir@xastir.org http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
Re: [Xastir] TIGER/Line files --- End of an Era
On Mon, 26 Mar 2007, Tom Russo wrote: > I just surfed over to the Census web site and see this: > > http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/future/future_tl.html > > It says that after the 2006 Second Edition files are released (which happened > a few weeks ago), they will no longer be producing TIGER/Line files, they'll > be > replaced by a number of different file formats including shapefiles. Looks > like a big win for xastir users! I for one will be _more_ than happy to see that file format bite the dust! It wasn't even really a map format: It was really just several database tables dumped to disk files in text format. A real pain to construct anything out of. -- Curt, WE7U. APRS Client Comparisons: http://www.eskimo.com/~archer "Lotto:A tax on people who are bad at math." -- unknown "Windows: Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates." -- WE7U "The world DOES revolve around me: I picked the coordinate system!" ___ Xastir mailing list Xastir@xastir.org http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
Re: [Xastir] TIGER/Line files --- End of an Era
On Mar 27, 2007, at 7:07 AM, Jason Winningham wrote: I think in the contrib directory That was vague; I should have said in the _shapelib_ contrib directory (as opposed to the xastir contrib directory). -Jason kg4wsv ___ Xastir mailing list Xastir@xastir.org http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
Re: [Xastir] TIGER/Line files --- End of an Era
On Mar 27, 2007, at 6:33 AM, Troy M. Campbell wrote: When I get time to learn more about shapefiles. I'm certainly no expert, but I think in the contrib directory there are some tools to build shapefiles for you. shapefile is a binary format, so it would be something like "use perl to feed the shapefile builder executable" instead of using perl to build the file directly. At least, that's what seems easiest to me. Along these same lines, a while back I tried to use the cities shapefile from nationalatlas.gov, but many of the places didn't have a population listed, which made it impossible to filter. I just checked for a new release, but no such luck. -Jason kg4wsv ___ Xastir mailing list Xastir@xastir.org http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
RE: [Xastir] TIGER/Line files --- End of an Era
> If you're gonna do that, why not just make it a shapefile > and create a dbfawk, so the sufficiently interested user > can control the display levels? I hadn't thought of that. It would be an interesting exercise.. When I get time to learn more about shapefiles. 73 de Troy, KC0MIC -Original Message- From: Jason Winningham [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 6:19 AM To: Troy M. Campbell Cc: Xastir User mailing list Subject: Re: [Xastir] TIGER/Line files --- End of an Era On Mar 26, 2007, at 8:46 PM, Troy M. Campbell wrote: > I _could_ get a file with population by FIPS code and merge it into a > GNIS set using XASTIR's current file format, If you're gonna do that, why not just make it a shapefile and create a dbfawk, so the sufficiently interested user can control the display levels? I've been threatening to do that to the GNIS data, but haven't gotten around to it... -Jason kg4wsv ___ Xastir mailing list Xastir@xastir.org http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
Re: [Xastir] TIGER/Line files --- End of an Era
On Mar 26, 2007, at 8:46 PM, Troy M. Campbell wrote: I _could_ get a file with population by FIPS code and merge it into a GNIS set using XASTIR's current file format, If you're gonna do that, why not just make it a shapefile and create a dbfawk, so the sufficiently interested user can control the display levels? I've been threatening to do that to the GNIS data, but haven't gotten around to it... -Jason kg4wsv ___ Xastir mailing list Xastir@xastir.org http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
RE: [Xastir] TIGER/Line files --- End of an Era
I'm a bit paranoid, but I didn't see anything about the new stuff being free and I DID see something about charging for data. I guess we'll have to see. In the mean time I think I'll archive the last revision they publish. On another topic. I _could_ get a file with population by FIPS code and merge it into a GNIS set using XASTIR's current file format, ... If anyone wants it. 73 de Troy, KC0MIC -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Russo Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 8:19 PM To: xastir@xastir.org Subject: [Xastir] TIGER/Line files --- End of an Era I just surfed over to the Census web site and see this: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/future/future_tl.html It says that after the 2006 Second Edition files are released (which happened a few weeks ago), they will no longer be producing TIGER/Line files, they'll be replaced by a number of different file formats including shapefiles. Looks like a big win for xastir users! -- Tom RussoKM5VY SAR502 DM64ux http://www.swcp.com/~russo/ Tijeras, NM QRPL#1592 K2#398 SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM "And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit!" --- The Tick ___ Xastir mailing list Xastir@xastir.org http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir ___ Xastir mailing list Xastir@xastir.org http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
