CIA World Map II with grass ?

[Ulrich Thoenes]

Hello to the GIS and GRASS community from Heidelberg in Germany,

Since some time I am looking for a posibility to use the coordinates
from the CIA World Map database II together with GIS data or vice
versa. To my opinion the resolution of this database is very good so
that I'd love to use it in combination with GIS data.

The structure of the data is quite simple (example):

3063510 1   247    0
444435N 275233E    1
444443N 275241E    2
444450N 275254E    3
4445 2N 2753 1E    4
444517N 2753 1E    5
444529N 275256E    6
444538N 275246E    7
444547N 275236E    8
       .
       .
       .
       .
452643N 281217E  244
452649N 281232E  245
452654N 281242E  246
452656N 281245E  247
3063511 1   135    0
452655N 281252E    1
4527 0N 2813 7E    2
4527 0N 281328E    3
452657N 281348E    4
(cont.)

The data are just simple pairs of long/lat coordiantes resulting in a
big polygone. In this example 247 coordinate pairs indicated in the
first row (No.0), the header line.
Every new polygone starts with such a header line:
Here the next polygone does consist of 135 points.
These data ma easily converted to the so called .MP1 format which is
another coordinate table consiting of pure numbers instead of strings
include the letters N S E W. The N and S or E and W are repalced by
the negativ or positive sign of the number.
This (ascii) format againmay be converted in a binary (.MP3) format by
an utility coming with the program MAPIT from ALISON SOFWARE.
So there are basicly three diferent formats available.

My question is wether one of this formats may be imported (converted)
to a GRASS database (may via another format) so that these very high
reolution data my be used with other GIS data.
May be in combination with the new upcoming 30AS DEM of the Digital
Chart of the world from the US Geological Survey,

Thank you very much for every answer

Ulli Thoenes