Help... Need documentation/FAQ.

[Malcolm Williamson]

Bret,
Take a look at the commercial software called "Maptitude". It's 
inexpensive, better suited to what you're doing, and includes street data 
for the entire US! I'm a firm believer in using the right tool for the 
job :)  - with no insult to GRASS intended.

Regards,
        -Malcolm Williamson

On Tue, 19 Mar 1996, Bret A. 
Schuhmacher wrote:

> 
> Hello Grass users,
> 
> I've searched the Web and found a little help, but I'm still a bit lost.  
> What documentation there is at CERL seems to be unavailable (Web browser 
> returns errors) when I try to retrieve it.  Heck, I couldn't even get the 
> thing running until I found the tutorials the ASSIST people put together! 
> The online FAQ helped a little, but Grass is huge! :-)  I can't even read 
> the grasshopper archives :-(.  Please bear with me...
> 
> The situation:  I'm trying to create a mapping service whose output would 
> look like something at http://tiger.census.gov or 
> http://www.mapquest.com.  I plan to use the maps to locate objects of 
> interest to people in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas area in conjunction 
> with a non-profit service my Web company provides 
> (The Dallas Entertainment Guide at http://www.wn.com/dallas).
> 
> I would appreciate any constructive comments you could provide concerning 
> the following questions:
> 
> 1) I only need data for roads, railroads, parks, etc. to create simple
> block/street maps of the D/FW area.  What's the best source of data for
> this purpose? 
> 
> 2) If I need the Tiger/Line data, how do I import it into Grass?  The 
> document that discusses this is at CERL (and seemingly unavailable). 
> Which files within the .zip file do I need?  I've seen the v.in.tiger.scs 
> command... Am I on the right track?  What about the m.tiger.region, 
> v.in.tig.basic, v.in.tig.lndmk, and v.in.tig.rim commands?  Why are half 
> the files in the .zip file dBase3 format?  Should I use the m.in.pl94.db3 or 
> m.in.stf1.db3 commands on them?
> 
> 3) Is it possible to convert a street address to something I can pinpoint
> on a Grass created map?  I need to put a picture of a pushpin at the
> location of a restaurant or theatre and display it to the user.  Does
> Grass use geocoding? How do I create the geocode given an address? 
> 
> 4) Would Tiger (TMS) be simpler to use for my purposes?  Where can I get 
> source/binaries for Linux?
> 
> Something tells me Grass may not be the right application for my 
> purposes... What do you think?
> 
> I know these are newbie questions, but I don't know where to look for the 
> answers.
> 
> Thanks for reading this far and thanks in advance for any pointers or
> comments you can provide. 
> 
> Bret
> 
> _____________________________________________________________________________
_
> Bret A. Schuhmacher                              Email: bas at wn.com
> Technical Director, WebNet Technologies          WWW:   http://www.wn.com
> Voice/Fax: (214) 821-0848                        Pager: (214) 816-0283
> _____________________________________________________________________________
_
> 
>