Format translator development

[Eric G . Miller]

On Mon, May 15, 2000 at 08:03:19AM +0930, David Irving wrote:
> Rich - and others -
>=20
> imo, what is _really_ required is a MapInfo-to-<something> tarnslator
> together with a <something>-to-GRASS translator, that is, use some
> common data format as an interchange mechanism between any two spatial
> information systems. I believe that there is a Standard for spatial
> data interchange, but have been unable to get hold of a copy to assess
> whether it is actually useful. Any other approach effectively means
> writing 2*N**2 data translation programs, where N is the number of
> spatial data formats (large and growing all the time)
>=20
> Regards, David

Well, there's that beast known as SDTS! There's even a C++ lib put out
by the USGS for working with it (sdts++).  It's kind of a hair ball, but
there's at least a Topological Vector Profile.  I think there's a
similar profile for elevation/grid type data.  GRASS already does the
vector import (supposedly).  SDTS is supposed to be able to describe any
kind of spatial data with associated attribute data and metadata.

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