let's standardize sites

[Malcolm Williamson]

Darrell McCauley writes:
> 
> I'm glad to see there's interest in settling on a standard.  Regarding
> the multiple-attribute issue, I think that this is best left to an
> external database program. However, Dr. Kroeger brings up a good
      ^^^^^
Agreed! (unless someone wants to re-invent the wheel)

> point:
> 
> Glenn C. Kroeger (gkroeger at physics.trinity.edu) writes on 22 Jan 94:
> >I would propose, however, that elevation be explicitly included in the format
> >as in:
> >east|north|z|#n label
> >All places in the real world have three components of location. This leaves
> >label for truly ancillary data.
> 
> Most of my sites processing assume measurements taken on a "plane," so
> I haven't really had the need for elevation information. However, I
> seem to recall hearing that Helena & friends were doing some 3D
> modeling, and I assume that this would make life easier in this
> situation (having the elevation and attribute information together).
> It would have to be made clear that the third field is part of the
> location and NOT the typical measured value (e.g., not a chemical
> concentration or bug count or ...)
> 
I'm not sure that I follow this logic. Some users need to interpolate from 
elevation data; others need to interpolate non-elevation data, as you indicate
above. Are you suggesting that the z field be reserved for *only* elevation?
How would you choose which value to interpolate from? I'm sure that you've 
considered this, but I wasn't able to extract how you were suggesting the
handling of it.

(programmer-specific lines deleted)
> 
> Are there compelling reasons for keeping elevation separate?
> 
> Does anyone have a problem with the
> easting|northing|elevation|#category attribute_label
> format? It sounds okay to me.
> 
> --Darrell
> 


-- 
Malcolm D. Williamson - Research Assistant       E-mail: malcolm at cast.uark.edu
Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies      Telephone: (501) 575-6159
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University of Arkansas              
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