query

[David Pensak E-328/104 695-3650]

I realize that this might not be the right group, but I hope that at
least I get a pointer to an answer....

In the early 1980's the Army Corps of Engineers funded some work on
hexagonal data base addressing for handling geographic information at
varying resolutions.  The  actual coding was done by a company called 
vnteractive Systems Corporation in Littleton Colorado.  The software,
which is available from the government is all in VMS specific FORTRAN
and calls a number of VMS system services.

Before I assign one of my people to go through the anquish of porting
the code to a decent unix environment, I have a few questions...

Is this a technology that had a flowering and has since been supplanted
by something else ?

Is there some code available which supports any concepts that are similar
to this (I would rather not have to use a full-blown GIS unless necessary) ?

Are there any literature references that come to mind on this technology
and its limitations ?

My group is wrestling with the problem of analyzing microscopic images of
rocks to study the particles that make up the rock.  We have no problem
inditifying the individual particles, characterizing them as to chemical
constitution, and measuring such parameters as perimeter, major and minor
axes, etc.  What we are having no decent success with is developing a
metric which will express aggregation of the particles in certain regions
of the rock.  The kinds of questions that we need to be able to ask are
such things as "when you have a lot of material A in the rock, is the
majority of material B close at hand, or in separate domains"

Thanks in advance for any suggestions, pointers, etc that anyone can
provide.

David A. Pensak
Director - Computer Sciences
E. I. DuPont de Nemours, Inc.
DuPont Experimental Station
Wilmington Delaware 19880-0328

(oops, I meant identifying not inditifying in the last paragraph.  Typing
is not my strong suit).