Format translator development

[Rich Shepard]

On Mon, 15 May 2000, David Irving wrote:

> 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)

David,

  You may be correct. About a decade ago, we were discussing this on FIDOnet.
What we *don't* want to use is SDTS; that's a complex pig whose only
function is to provide careers for some government bureaucrats.

  I haven't any opinion regarding some neutral, generic translator. But, on
a practical note, how many translators do we need? Two (perhaps three) from
ESRI, one each from MapInfo, AutoCAD, and SDTS. IIRC, other GISes (Pamap,
ERDAS, TNTMips, Idrisi, EPPL-7) can write to one of the above formats.

  The ARC/Info .e00 translators apparently work (in 5.x), but are
inconsistent in 4.x; ARCView Shape, SDTS and (now) MapInfo translators are
being developed. We're almost there. On the other hand, since the GRASS data
format is changing between 4.x and 5.x, there's merit in some intermediate
format. With that, future GRASS format changes can be more easily
accommodated.

  Of course, my views come from working with spatial data in the US. I have
no idea how chaotic the situation is in other parts of the world.

Rich
 
Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President

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